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Jazzorg is a not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to stimulating and sustaining the interest of young people in jazz, as an art form. As part of that 'mission', among other things, we decided to offer a jazz composition prize targeted at students and young jazz professionals. In doing so, we understood that Jazzorg as a 'brand' is not readily recognised and, thus, we sought a partner who had an image which would give the prize some credibility and cachet. An obvious choice was the Worshipful Company of Musicians, which already had a track record in promoting young, aspiring jazz musicians with their performance prize and had been successful in achieving widespread recognition for the work that they have done.
The choice of composition as the competition medium, when jazz is regarded as fundamentally an improvisation vehicle, may be somewhat surprising. Traditionally, the jazz performance format has been theme - improvisations - theme restatement and, since the underlying harmony was the improvisation platform, the theme was frequently secondary to the harmonic pattern. Indeed, this aspect, plus a disinclination to pay copyright fees, gave rise to a profusion of contrafact themes, many of which are catchy and engaging and have stood the test of time in the jazz repertoire.
However, there is also a rich history of jazz composition from the early rags through to the writing for big bands and documenting of small band 'head arrangements'. In particular, the informal playing of the theme could not exist in the disciplined framework of the bigger bands and these ensembles experimented with written harmony, solis and voicings, which, despite purist complaints, became part of the jazz genre. The net outcome was that composition and orchestration became increasingly a part of the successful jazz musician's skill set.
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Like much musical output, however, this product frequently does not get enough exposure and after a few outings with local or college bands, a broadcast or as a CD track is relegated to the bottom of the music drawer, becoming that sad artefact of music that never gets played. The jazzorg website was created, therefore, to provide a free vehicle for musicians to display their product and make downloads available under a licence similar to the open source software and creative commons philosophy. The current costs of server space and communications bandwidth permit an altruistically funded site to exist without advertising support and without the uncontrolled dross which features on public upload hosting sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Mentioning our sponsor, Jazzorg is supported in this respect by hastwood.net.
Fortunately, the Worshipful Company liked the general idea of the competition and did more than lend their name, providing us with valuable contacts and organising much of the necessary logistics. The winners of the first competition were Nicole Jaques (Birmingham Conservatoire) and James Hamilton (Leeds College of Music), whose entries can be reviewed on the jazzorg.com website. A 2009 prize is planned and the judges, Mr. Frank Griffith and Mr. Tim Garland, have agreed to serve again. An additional feature of the 2009 prize is that arrangements have been made for public performance* of the winning entries by the students of the Trinity College of Music, supported by guest professional musicians.
* At Ronnie Scott's 26th January 2009!
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The following article was published in the magazine of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, Autumn 2008 issue.