Think jazz and most people automatically conjure up images of New Orleans, New York City or Havana.
However, there’s a very good argument to be made that the capital of jazz, in Australia at least, is the South Australian town of Mount Gambier.
Every year thousands of high school musicians from around Australia – and further abroad – converge on the South-East centre to add some blue notes to the home of the Blue Lake.
The festival’s mission is to "create a unique experience for students, schools, educators, musicians, and our community, to celebrate and inspire a love of jazz music across generations", and next year Generations in Jazz celebrates its 40th anniversary.
For music teachers like Paul Monaghan, Head of Music at Woodville High School, the festival is not only an opportunity for his students to put theory into action, but also a chance to make connections and forge ongoing friendships.
Mr Monaghan said this year’s GIJ – held in early May – attracted 118 schools from around the country and even New Zealand.
"It started way back with a small group of businessmen in Mount Gambier who had an interest i
n jazz and wanted to put on a music festival," Mr Monaghan said.
"Then they decided that they wanted to make it the biggest music festival of its kind in Australia and that’s exactly what happened.
"It’s run every year except for one Covid year when it ran as an online competition."
Mr Monaghan said the atmosphere at GIJ was hard to explain to someone who’d never been.
"I could tell you, but unless you went down there and actually experienced the whole vibe it wouldn’t do it justice," he said.
"We’ve been going since 2000. We started with one band of 17 students, and we now take five ensembles with 55 students.
"I
t’s at a place called The Barn, which is about 15 minutes’ drive out of Mount Gambier, and it’s just enormous.
"They erect the biggest tent in the Southern Hemisphere, which can fit about 6500 people, and there are probably close to a dozen more venues that pop up for the festival.
"You’re hard-pressed getting any accommodation down there at that time. Some students are sleeping on floors of halls and sports clubs on blow-up mattresses, some are in caravan parks, some are in houses, some are in hotels."
Mr Monaghan, pictured, said jazz was a broad genre that encompassed many different styles, and this was reflected in the pieces played at the festival with everything from traditional styled to jazz-rock fusion getting an airing.
He said that Woodville High – one of four Special Interest Music Centres in SA along with Brighton Secondary School, Marryatville High School and Playford International College – performed well at this year’s GIJ.
"We were in some pretty competitive divisions and the students played really well," Mr Monaghan said.
"We were fortunate to have one of our students be selected to be part of the 'super band', which is made up of students who are identified by the adjudicators to perform in a big band style with saxophone, trumpets, trombones and a rhythm section to play in front of the whole crowd on the last day.
"
Our vibraphone player, who is one of our Year 11 girls, was lucky enough to be picked for that."
Mr Monaghan said that while there was a competitive element to the festival, Generations in Jazz was about much more than trophies.
"It’s so great to see the kids working together in a real community," he said.
"They work very hard, because they’re all very busy with their other school work. So it’s an absolute joy to see them perform and to see how they build connections with students and staff from other schools."
And he said studying music imparted important life skills that would help students for the rest of their lives.
"All the employability skills and soft skills that are in demand these days, it’s really evident that these are being developed within music programs," Mr Monaghan said.
"Teamwork, collaboration, agency and self-responsibility all come into play, and it’s great for the brain. And it’s also creates nice human beings!"
To learn more about Generations in Jazz visit the festival’s website (external site) (external site) (external site).
