Jazzamanca ~ The Alf Jackson Quintet plays Ornette Coleman

Jazzamanca 2022 Autumn Concert Series # 1

Saturday 26th March
The Founders Room
(enter via Wooby's Lane)
7.30pm – 10pm

(Doors and Bar open at 7pm)

"Change Of The Century ~ the Music of Ornette Coleman" with the Alf Jackson Quintet

For its debut performance, the Alf Jackson Quintet will be performing a spectrum of music from composer and multi-instrumentalist, Ornette Coleman and his collaborators for Jazzamanca.

Coleman's music is unparalleled. The vectors of Ornette's lexicon, suspends preconceptions of music and is heard in his "fierce love with an outlaw music that he could hear but didn’t quite yet know how and with whom to play."
It is heard in his exploration of the plastic saxophone, in the sound of Denardo Coleman (Ornette’s son) on the 1969 album, and in the anecdotes of Coleman bewildering punters and musicians alike during the height of the Bebop era.

The Alf Jackson Quintet takes Ornette's approach as a provocation towards old and new dreams and attempts to attune to the many registers of Ornette’s playing, compositions and historical resonance.

Jon Smeathers - alto saxophone
Julius Schwing – guitars
Hamish Houston - double bass
Dom Nguyen - double bass
Alf Jackson - drums

Alf Jackson is a musician from Hobart, who began his studies in percussion at the age of ten. At the age of 12 Alf gained third place in Drumtek Australia’s Best Up & Coming Junior Drummer Competition. Since then Alf’s drumming has resulted in collaborations with Julius Schwing, Branford Marsalis, Tom Vincent, Brian Ritchie, Peter Knight (Australian Art Orchestra), Paul Capsis, Ava Mendoza, Sam Anning and Julien Wilson - to name but a few. These engagements have varied from album recordings to national & international tours and to television & radio appearances. In 2010 Alf was awarded first place in Young Jazz Players Competition at the Clarence Jazz Festival. Other festivals performances include MONA FOMA, Dark MOFO, Devonport Jazz Festival, Ten Days on the Island, Festival of Voices, Mornington Peninsula Music Festival and Falls Festival. In 2020 Alf was accepted into BANFF contemporary music intensive with a full scholarship which was cancelled due to Covid-19.