Tom Bentley

Back in the Naarm summer I had a beer with one of Naarm music’s busiest figures - Greg Sher, co-founder of @the_rookies_play_jazz presenter of @pbsfm’s Stars in the Static and a booker of worldwide talent for @watartists, @strawberryfields_festival and @wondermountainfestival

The Rookies had just launched Play Jazz 3 at the @jazzlab and Greg reflected on the changing shape of improvisation in our town, his drive to make and share good music and the circumstances of musicians and their art.

The Rookies are an emblem of Naarm-Mlb’s improvisation culture, starting as jazz students @monash_school_of_music and taking up a front bar residency @therooksreturn in Fitzroy, where they’ve played every Wednesday night since 2015.

Their quest to ‘play jazz well’ reflects devotion to an art form created largely by Black people in a different place and time, and to the fact that music, especially improvised music, is created and shared by people coming together to sing, play and dance.

This inevitably brought us to capitalism. The brute facts of unconstrained ownership and exploitation and their negative impacts on people, culture and planet are not far from Greg’s thoughts.

His performances include fierce commentary on how economic and political context affects art and humans, alongside mischievous humour about the paradoxes and compromises of life in the big city.

On Sunday nights Stars in the Static illustrates the breadth and depth of @greg0r_e’s passion, bringing music from many parts of the world and thoughtful interviews that educate me and many others on the jazz-related musical ideas being created today.

The grim facts of exploitation and inequality may be inescapable, but Greg Sher helps to illuminate why art and music cannot be created in a vacuum or without humans; and why society cannot do without art or honesty.

Thanks Greg Sher and, please, Stay Weird