Last week I went along to my first ever Jazzahead. Jazzahead is an annual event held in Bremen, Germany that is part music conference, part showcase festival, part networking event. It is by far one of the biggest conferences that I’ve been to (apart from SXSW), and the most intense. Today I thought I’d share some of my learnings.

The music

I always enjoy going along to the opening night concerts at music conferences. There’s usually some sort of keynote or address, or maybe just an overarching message that sets the tone for the rest of the conference. It’s a specially curated concert, and in this case, it highlighted the focus country/region for this year: Sweden. The Norbotten Big Band opened the concert and featured throughout. I quite liked that a big band was the house band for the night. There was a beautiful saxophone feature by Lisen Rylander Löve and then the second half featured the big band with LA duo KNOWER. The conductor introduced KNOWER as “guardian angels of music that is progressive and accessible” and that this is an important progression in jazz music and one worth protecting. I thought this was an interesting statement. I heard a lot of music over the next few days that both pushed against this statement with abstract, hyper-experimental, inaccessible music, as well as super saccharine, and super commercial music. It was a varied program of music and I really enjoyed this aspect. It made me feel like the world of jazz/improvised music is far bigger and far broader than how it felt as a student of jazz at the Victorian College of the Arts many years ago (and one of the reasons I felt excluded, or uninvited, into jazz circles for a long time).

The conference

As you all probably know by now, I’m a big nerd (and proudly so). I love learning new things, and if I could go to school or university to learn things, write essays and do research forever, I would. So I love panels and conferences and make sure I attend a bunch of these things. I have to say though, that aside from one or two, most of the panel discussions were underwhelming. I had a much better learning experience at Classical:NEXT. But there was a very intriguing panel about finding solutions in our currently flailing music industry. The main problems that were addressed were: lack of remuneration for artists from streaming platforms (the solution was to migrate from Spotify and Apple streaming over to Qobuz); and the lack of centering and nurturing artists (the solution was to work better together between labels, festivals, streaming platforms and artists). Frustratingly, we didn’t seem to get to how all of these organisations could work together better. I think that labels, festivals and bookers need to get out and see live music more, and invest their energy, resources and time in artists who can deliver in this format since this is the last remaining place where smaller to medium career artists can actually earn money. But that’s just my take. And at least it gave me something to ponder.

Networking

The biggest difference between every other conference I’ve been to and Jazzahead, was the potential for making connections. It was turbo! I spent a massive amount of time every day (seriously hours), having meaningful and important conversations with musicians, curators and industry from all across Europe. We talked about problems, about opportunities, about research, about the future, and about how we can stay in touch and work together. Everyone jumped right in and I’ve never been so engaged in my life. It was also extremely exhausting. But there was literally no time to rest or FOMO set it. So I just strapped myself in and went for it for the whole four days. And I’m so glad I did.

Jazzahead took preparation and organisation. Especially because it was my first time. And in order to nurture these connections it’s going to take return visits. I met people who have been going to Jazzahead for years. This is what it takes. It was extremely intense, I had to work very hard, but I got a lot from the experience. So I guess I’ll be back next year!

I’d like to thank Sounds Australia for facilitating networking opportunities; and Creative Australia for supporting my attendance at both Classical:NEXT (Budapest) and Jazzahead (Bremen).