The Jann Rutherford Memorial Award was founded in 2005 to assist in the professional development of an outstanding young female Australian jazz musician. The Award is named in honour of the late jazz pianist Jann Rutherford, and is funded by private donations in partnership with Melbourne Womens International Jazz Festival (MIWJF), Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) and ABC Radio National.

The winner of the Award receives performance, recording and promotional opportunities and financial support to undertake these activities.

The details of the award may vary from year to year, but the value to the recipient is expected to be in excess of $8000.

The winners of the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award are chosen by a panel of some of NSW leading jazz musicians and educators convened by saxophonist Sandy Evans with assistance from Judy Bailey and Zoe Hauptmann. The award was set up at the instigation of a private benefactor who recognised a need to support young female jazz musicians at the beginning of their professional careers.

Buying a drum kit. If you’re thinking about getting a drum kit for yourself or for a young drummer in your family and feel you don’t have nearly enough knowledge or experience to make good choices, the following guide will help you through the process. This guide assumes you’re relatively new to the world of drumming and drum shopping, so we’ll start from the basics and work our way up. The guide also assumes its audience is the drummer him- or herself. If you’re the parent or guardian of the drummer this guide will help you make the choices you need to make, and guide your drummer so he or she will be as satisfied as possible.

Make sure you’re ready to buy. If you’re just beginning, make sure you really want a drum kit. Take a few lessons, get a practice pad and work on some exercises. A drum kit’s an investment, and it’s a very good idea to make sure you’re going to stick with drumming for awhile so the investment pays off. Consider borrowing, renting or finding a practice space with a kit to test your commitment to a drumming life.

Find some personal assistance. Drum kits can represent a substantial investment and there are a lot of variables to take into consideration. If it’s at all possible, bringing an experienced drummer along with you on your shopping trip(s) is enormously helpful. Nothing replaces the personal experience they have in performance, in knowing what does and doesn’t work, what’s more important and what less, what brings frustration or pleasure in the working life of a performing drummer. And maybe just as important, they have experience with buying instruments and music stores and the people who work there. Many drummers are personable and generous and may be willing to help out the up and coming generation out of the goodness of their hearts. You could also consider paying a drum teacher their standard lesson fee to meet you at the music store and provide some expert advice.

The sound’s the thing. If you like the sound of a drum kit you’re much more likely to be happy with your choice. If you don’t like the sound, you’ll almost certainly regret it. And if you’re not an experienced drummer, you may not really know the drum sounds that are right for you. Drum kits have significantly different sounds, and there are dozens of variables that make a difference in the sound. Shell material, size, tuning, drum heads, sticks and tips are just the beginning. You’re going to have to try out, by actually playing, a pretty large number of drum kits to start to learn about the sound you like the best. And you’re going to have to learn to go into a music store and play one after another. It’s a really good idea to actually look at and play a drum kit you’re considering purchasing. If you’re buying based on a photo and eBay description, you should still play different drum kits to get an idea of what you like. And buying a kit without playing it should probably only be done by someone with confidence and experience.

What’s in a drum kit? Basically, a kit is drums and hardware. The standard kit has five drums and cymbals. The drums are: a bass drum, the big drum that sits on the floor and gets hit with a mallet attached to a pedal; a snare drum, which sits on a stand right in front of drummer and has metal snares on the bottom head to produce a characteristic buzzing sort of sound; mounted toms, two drums attached to the bass drum and used for accents and rides; the floor tom, bigger than the mounted toms, this drum stands up on its own legs. You’ll also need stands, mounting hardware, a tuning key and accessories like drumsticks, cases and the like.

What about cymbals? Cymbals are traditionally not bundled together with a drum kit but are purchased separately. If you’re buying a used set from another drummer, the drums and cymbals will already have been assembled. Cymbals will represent a substantial part of the cost of your set and often make the most important contribution to the tone and sound of the whole set. The standard configuration looks like this: a crash cymbal, used to provide accents and crescendos; a ride cymbal, used for continuous “riding” pattern; a Hi-hat, a pair of cymbals mounted horizontally on a stand equipped with a pedal to open and close them. They all need stands and specialized bits of hardware. Good sounding cymbals probably have more influence over the sound of a drummer than the actual drums themselves.

What about electronic drums? Electronic drums certainly have some persuasive selling points. Most serious drummers maintain that the feel and the sound of what might now be called “analog drums” will never, and should never, be replaced by anything electronic. That being said, other drummers swear by them. There is very nearly infinite variety of the different drum and percussion sounds each instrument can make when it’s hit with a drumstick. If you’re going to be recording, electronic drums have the advantage of feeding directly into the board, avoiding a whole raft of complications that come from setting up microphones for a drum set. And you can use headphones so no-one but you can hear you when you practice, which is sometimes an important feature for a drummer practicing in a residential setting. On the flip side, no-one else can hear the drums unless they’re connected to a sound system, and you’ll need monitors to hear yourself when you’re playing live. Electronic drums are not appropriate for jazz.

Are there other considerations besides the sound? Good question. Everything should be substantial and of high-quality – you want your set to last and not require a lot of maintenance and replacing of parts. If it feels flimsy or shoddy, keep shopping. Consider resale value: name brands tend to retain more of their value. Size matters: if you’re going to be transporting your drums to gigs you’ll want to make sure you can pack it into the vehicle you have in mind and will appreciate good quality cases with handles.

What sizes for what styles? The standard rock kit consists of: 22″ bass drum, 12″ and 13″ rack toms, 16″ floor tom and a 14″ snare drum. A fusion kit has: 20″ bass drum, 10″ and 12″ rack toms, 14″ floor tom and a 14″ snare drum. A jazz kit often has an 18″ bass drum, and a single 10″ or 12″ rack tom. A jazz kit uses a smaller bass drum because it’s used more as an accent instrument than for laying down a heavy beat. A metal or hard rock drummer may have a very large bass drum (or drums) to get a deep, punchy sound.

How much money for how good a kit? Our guide comes down on the side of buying on the less expensive end of things for the beginning drummer. There’s always the chance that drumming won’t last. If it does last, more experience will make the choosing of the trade-up kit a lot clearer. Also, some people feel that a less expensive kit encourages the development of better technique as the drummer tries to get a better sound through playing well that he might otherwise get for free from more expensive and better sounding instruments. You should definitely not pay much more than $900 for the whole setup, and can often get it for less. If you’re feeling confident or have expert assistance, buying used can save you a lot of money and is especially attractive if you have the chance to inspect in person and play. You might benefit from this rather hard-headed guide to drum shopping prices and negotiations: www.studydrums.com/buyers.html.

Hopefully you’re now feeling better prepared to go out into the marketplace and find the perfect drum kit for this stage in your drumming journey, or the drumming journey your child is setting off on. Drumming is a fabulous activity and can be extremely rewarding. We wish you the best of luck on your own journey.

• Nick Henderson (bass, student of Saul Richardson, Advanced Combo, & SYJO) accepted into Jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
• Oli Nelson (drums, student of Dave Goodman, Advanced Combo, & SYJO) accepted into Jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
• Carlo Antonioli (sax, student of Richard Savery, Advanced Combo, & SYJO) accepted into B.Mus Ed at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, with a Merit Scholarship.
• Michael Clarke (sax, Advanced Combo, SYJO), accepted into Jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
• Nick Karpin (sax, student of Gai Bryant, Adult Combo), accepted into B.Mus.Ed at Australian National University.
• Laura Hunt (voice, student of Eleanor Brasted), accepted into Australian Institute of Music.
• Also, Alexei Bernard, who studied piano at JWA and was a member of our combos, but whose main passion was dance, has been accepted into the Dresden school of Dance in Germany.

Well done everyone, great results and well-deserved. As you can see, everyone who got into a jazz course also played in a combo. It is probably hard to over-estimate the importance of long-term experience in a small jazz ensemble for anyone planning to audition for a university jazz course, or indeed a career as a jazz performer or teacher. Playing in a big band also develops sight reading, technique, stamina and understanding of style. But it remains the combo factor that is the real key.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caockSoagWU

Gavin teaches on Wednesday afternoons and evenings.

The office will be open for enquiries, bookings and enrollments from Tuesday January 31.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyne again soon!

Saul & Karen, JWA.

Internet access proved to be suprisingly difficult over the past few weeks, and hence no regular updates here. Tour members and their families were kept up to date via a private Facebook page with regular posts and tons of photos. Between dodgy wireless and tempremental ipads, it proved impossible to update this WordPress site effectively from overseas.

tour highlights included:

• Standing ovation from crowd of hundreds in Miami. Comment of “Bueno, Bueno!” from an old cuban man who listened to the whole set and even danced to our mambo.
• Massive interest in Barbados. We were in all (both) the papers, and even did a TV interview. The band played so well, they got a fantastic reception everywhere. A visiting Canadian billionaire was so impressed by them he treated everyone to lunch and an afternoon of his superyacht.
• Great workshops in New York with Dave Douglas and Rufus Reid
• A wonderful day spent recording in New York. CD to be mixed and mastered soon!
• Orlando’s best buffet at the Golden Corral restaurant. Some of us even took it on twice.
• One of the best groups of young musicians anyone could hope to travel and work with.

The band finishes the tour with a concert in Sydney at Jazz Camp on January 18, Naamaroo Conference Centre.

The next JWA tour is scheduled for January 2013.

The hotel in Barbados, coconut court, was simply not telling the truth when they advertised free wireless internet. The same hotel also managed to mess up our booking and has tried to overcharge us for rooms. We are waiting for the person “who can do something about it” to get back “on wednesday”. There are probably better places anyone looking for a hotel in Barbados could find. During hard times, stuffing around repeat guests, in our case regulars with large groups, is just stupid and not a viable business model long term. We will certainly look for somewhere professionally run for future tours unless they manage to fix the overcharging problem. A shame, because otherwise it is a really nice place.

The other thing that has made updating this blog hard is that I have tried a few times now to use Karen’s I Pad. My verdict? I Pad is an over-rated, over – priced trendy waste of time. It just doesn’t work very well. At least it looks nice, and that must surely be the most important feature anyone looks for in a computer.

We are now in Barbados, and the tour is going brilliantly well. The band is about to play their 7th gig tonight. They are getting stronger and stronger each time they play. The music is getting tighter, and the musicians are becoming really aware of what is going on around them and becoming flexible enough to adapt to things as they occur. You can hear each individual player improving all the time too.

We have had some media coverage here too, including a couple of bits in the newspapers plus a TV interview this morning. The band is being well recieved and is generating a lot of interest.

Off the bandstand, we have gone on a catamaran tour along the west coast of the island. This included several stops for snorkeling, looking at giant sea turtles, tropical fish, coral and a couple of ship wrecks. Yesterday we took a bus tour around the island with a stop for lunch in a little village in the “Scotland”area of Barbados, so called because it looks a bit like the highlands (but with palm trees).

Today everyone went into Bridgetown to look around and buy some souvenirs. Transport was in a local taxi van, with about 26 people crammed into a Hiace van.

Everyone in the band is well, not too tired and having a good time. time to go and set up for tonight’s show. But before that, congratulations to Nick Henderson, bass player in the tour band and JWA student on getting into the jazz course at Sydney Conservatorium. Other JWA students to get into the Con includ Oli Nelson (drums) and Carlo Antonioli (sax). Well done!

Day one: the flight over.

An excited band and excited families met at Sy dney airport at the brisk hour of 6am. Check – in was uneventful apart from the confusion among the staff at the Korean Airlines counter: “you are only allowed one checked bag each, you’ll have to pay excess”…äctually, your flying to the USA, you can check in two bags each, there is no excess”, and so on. And Jono’s booking seemed to have vanished altogether. All was sorted out and we got through to the plane, which left right on time. And then sat on the tarmac for half an hour.

The flight was via Seoul, ten hours there, a layover of about 1.5 hours, and then 9 hours to LA. It was pretty comfortable and a nice airline to fly with. There was a lot of turbulance, and a couple of the group made good use of the sick bags.

The only other noteworthy event of the flight was that Saul beat Tyaan in a game of computer chess. Actually, beat him pretty comprehensively…

In LA: Quick trip in three vans to our hotel near Hollywood. After a bit of rest and free time, a group dinner in a local Thai restaurant to celebrate the start of the tour.

Day Two: first gig!

Breakfast is included at this hotel, and we all enjoyed a traditional “continental”breakfast of coffee and pastries, and muffuns, and sugar frosted corn flakes, and sugar frosted all bran, and sugar frosted sugar. In this case the “continent” is North America.

Our gig today was in the tourist precinct of Hollywood, righ tin the thick of the action. The band played against a backdrop of the famous Hollywood sign and giant replica movie sets, and it was a really good gig. We played two fifty-minute setsand were heard by several thousand people over the hour and a half or bit more.

Jamie and Shaan were each asked by young women to pose with them in photos after the gig, so not only the first gig of the tour but also the first groupies.

This evening everyone had free time around Hollywood to see the sights, enjoy dinner at their leisure and pick up a few tasteful souvenirs. All looking forward to day three, featuring workshops with a couple of prominent jazz artists, as well as a trip to see the Cirque de Soleil show Iris in the evening.

Most of the musicians in the band came to it through Jazz Camp last January and got a place by auditioning. A few others heard about it through the grapevine or at JWA. Many of the musicians are from outside Sydney. We have two from Bathurst, two from Dubbo, one from Griffith, three from Canberra, two from New Zealand, and one from near Windsor. The rest are from Sydney. Everyone got practice parts sent to them and came together for rehearsals four times through the year, and are now sounding really good.

The musicians are ages 16 – 20, mostly 18 – 20 years. They include uni students studying jazz, students studying in other areas but still keeping their playing at a high level, lots who have just finished Year 12 and are planning to go into jazz, plus a couple of exceptional high school students.

Day 1 starts with a 6:00 am meeting at Sydney airport.  First gig is on Wednesday in Hollywood.

If anyone needs to contact us while we’re away, email ’cause we won’t be around to answer the phone!

On Boxing day our tour band will be coming in for a final rehearsal before we set off on tour on December 27. First stop is Los Angeles and a warm up gig in the heart of Hollywood. Also on the agenda in LA are workshops with trombonist/composer Wayne Wallace, and acclaimed big band leader/saxophonist Bob Mintzer. After that we are off to Barbados, then Miami, Orlando and finally New York. There are lots of gigs along the way, almost one for every day of the trip. In New York there are two more workshops: With the great bassist Rufus Reid,  and with leading trumpeter Dave Douglas, an inspirational educator. The band will also be recording a CD in New York before heading back to Sydney just in time for Jazz Camp in mid-January.

Look at our tours page to see the whole itinerary, it is pretty involved. The musicians in this group are ages 16 – 20, mostly 18-20. They come from all over NSW, the ACT and New Zealand. They have met in Sydney four times over the year for rehearsals. It is a terrific band, and we are looking forward to hearing them play over the next three weeks.

Jazz Camp starts on January 18 and will be a sell out this year. As I write this there are only six spots left. There are students coming to Jazz Camp 2012 from all states and territories of Australia except for the NT. There are also students traveling from New Zealand and Hong Kong for the camp. One of our teacher this year, guitarist Libor Smoldas, is coming all the way from the Czech Republic just for Jazz Camp! We can’t wait!

Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the past year, we really appreciate it. We look forward to another brilliant year in 2012 and will see you then. Thanks everyone, have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.