History

Before 1993, Australia did not have a band like the AAO. 19 musicians, stylistically divergent, each one a specialist either as an improviser or instrumentalist, each one willing to explore music as notation, improvisation and, above all, expression. The AAO was originally assembled for a particular project, a suite of pieces called Ringing the Bell Backwards which I composed between 1990 and 1993. The director of the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, the late Richard Wherrett, was enthusiastic about the concept of the suite, based on popular European songs of the 1930s and 40s. I regard him as a Founding Father of the AAO. I must also acknowledge the contribution of Leo Gmelch, a trombonist from Munich, who commissioned many of these pieces in their original form for a series of recordings made in Germany. Without those projects the whole idea of the AAO may never have happened.

Hearing the musicians together during that time was a remarkable experience. Australian improvisers have a natural tendency towards the unexpected, the irreverent, the passionate, the adventurous. Many of them have developed their skills removed in a sense from the perceived centres of jazz and experimental music, whether New York, Amsterdam, Tokyo or Berlin, while being aware of what is coming out of those places. This physical separation has resulted in a more delineated sense of individualism in Australian improvised music, less adherence to formalized styles of playing, and even an emerging sense of awareness of our own accumulating musical traditions.