Review of Ringing The Bell Backwards
Ringing the Bell Backwards - An Introduction
The Australian Art Orchestra had its genesis in a series of concerts staged at the Malthouse Theatre as part of the Melbourne International Festival in September 1993. The band at that time was billed as the Paul Grabowsky Orchestra, and they presented a program titled Ringing The Bell Backwards.
This was a collection of European folk and popular songs of the 1930s – 1940s, radically re-arranged by Grabowsky to provide a series of challenging and stimulating settings for improvised solos by some of the boldest young players on the Melbourne jazz scene, joined by several like-minded players from Sydney and Brisbane.
The program’s theme was a commentary on the horrors of war, and the rise of fascism in Europe between the two world wars. As Grabowsky explained at the time, This is new music arising from the memory of the old: a statement about love and war, about the legacy of fascism and the unquenchable spirit of the individual.
The songs arranged by Grabowsky included Lili Marlene, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and We’ll Meet Again (songs associated with Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf and Vera Lynn, respectively), as well as two songs from the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust in Poland and Lithuania.
The response to Ringing The Bell Backwards was overwhelmingly positive. Rave reviews in the press, along with enthusiastic word-of-mouth, saw the crowd build in numbers each night, with the third and final concert being played for a full house.
When the orchestra reconvened a few months later to record Ringing The Bell Backwards, they played a two-night stand at the Continental in Prahran, and drew cheers from the standing-room-only audience.
When the CD of Ringing The Bell Backwards was released on Origin Recordings in 1995, critics around the country sat up and took notice. It was obvious that something significant was happening here.
With the momentum generated from the Ringing The Bell Backwards project, Grabowsky seized the opportunity to organise the orchestra that he had longed dreamed of leading, and writing music for, as an ongoing concern.
The rest is history… and the future.
(Adrian Jackson),
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