BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Ever wondered how to sell out your debut album launch?
Ask Roger Young. The jazz player and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra violinist pulled in a full audience for new album Jazz and the Silver Screen – the first offering from his Hook Turn Orchestra.
The release features a series of jazz classics and film scores arranged by Roger himself along with Dutch saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Remco Keijzer.
We asked Roger to reveal the secrets of the orchestra’s popularity and success in its earliest days.
Roger, congratulations on the launch of your debut album! The launch itself was sold out. How’d that happen?
Mostly through radio interviews and social media; though our saxophonist/arranger Remco Keijzer did chart out a seven-week plan ahead of the launch. And Alinta had a wonderful idea of posting short bios and picture of the all the members at various times in the lead-up.
We launched at the Alex Theatre in St Kilda, which is perfectly set up for live music, so we shot a little video teaser to let people know about it. It was a combination of many different marketing ideas to reach as many different people as possible. A full time job in itself!
Your album features works taken from the silver screen, reinvented by you and Remco. Why did these works need a freshen up, and what do you bring to them?
The title Jazz and the Silver Screen gave us so much scope for choosing works to reimagine.
Hook Turn Orchestra is as much about showcasing the individual players as it is creating our own distinctive sound. The process of rearranging these tunes is such a creative process, and one I love almost as much as the performance aspect. Reinventing any song is a wonderful opportunity to express your own musical personality, and it’s something that I find the audience can really engage with.
What did you learn during the recording process of your new album, and how does that differ to its live performance?
That there’s never enough time and never enough money! I loved the process of recording and found it incredibly exciting but also full of challenges. It can be quite an exhausting process, as the attention to sound and detail requires so much attention. Can’t wait to do it again!
What do you need to consider when preparing these works for live performance compared to playing them in a recording scenario?
For a live performance, we’ve done all the hard work. So we mostly think about balance, sound and acoustics. When you combine strings with a rhythm section and vocals, the balance is really important. The strings need light amplification, and the goal there is to sound as acoustic as possible. You need to be able to hear with as much clarity as possible all the nine members; though some of that comes down to creating an arrangement that has enough space and transparency so as not to sound muddy and confused.
You’re also a member of the MSO – of course, making a career in the classical world. How have you navigated the challenges of performing across both jazz and classical music?
It’s very much like learning a second language. I’ve been lucky in that the MSO has commissioned me to arrange many of its Secret Symphony Series across the Melbourne CBD. The first one was with Bramwell Tovey at the Paris Cat, as well as a James Bond performance at the Exhibition Centre, a Radiohead string quintet performance at the Spiegeltent, and a David Bowie performance at his exhibition at ACME. I even arranged 40 short chamber excerpts for a Gold FM competition where listeners would ring up to see if they could decipher the ‘orchestral’ version of popular songs.
They certainly are two very different worlds, but you more delve in to them, the more overlap you see. Plus, you also get to know what a jazz musician likes to see on the page in front of them, as opposed to a classical musician. It certainly helped that, early on, I attended several jazz summer courses overseas.
What can jazz teach classical musicians, whether they choose to play or listen to it?
That the harmonic and rhythmic knowledge a jazz musician possesses is incredible! Plus, I find there’s a sense of freedom and exploration found in jazz that’s really inspiring. I guess that comes with the improvisatory nature of jazz, which makes for some really special moments. It certainly makes me, as predominantly a classical musician, dig deep to find something special, which is not on the written page.
How do you feel the Hook Turn Orchestra will change our understanding of film music?
In some ways, I think what we are doing is re-emphasising the power of music in general. A case in point is when we performed Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now from Love Actually. That was our closing number at our launch, and after reminding the audience of the scene, they were free to recall the power of that rather emotional moment in the film with just the music. And I can tell you, after hearing Alinta Chidzey sing it, there was not a dry eye in the house…myself included.
After its sold-out album launch, you might be able to get in to see the Hook Turn Orchestra at 10am November 7 in the Cardinia Cultural Centre, where the group will perform the Jazz and the Silver Screen program.
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