Documenting Jazz Conference 2021

Just a quick note to say that I'm presenting two papers at this week's Documenting Jazz Conference. 

Hosted by Edinburgh College of Art and Edinburgh University, the conference takes place online, it's open to all, and it's free to register. 

Here's the full programme. It's a great line-up, with a keynote from esteemed jazz critic Nate Chinen. 

On Wednesday 23 June at noon, I'll be making a short presentation about the Jazz At the Third Eye project as part of a round table on archives. I'll be sharing some of my finds from the Third Eye archive and talking about the process. The abstract:

A Living Archive: Jazz at the Third Eye

This project is a Creative Scotland funded residency at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, dedicated to establishing a free-to-access digital archive of jazz and improvised music at its previous incarnation, the Third Eye Centre, from 1975 to 1992.

This new archive aims to establish the Third Eye Centre as an important hub for community creativity in Scotland, and shed light on an overlooked part of Scotland’s cultural history. The project also takes a creative approach to the sharing of research by inviting contemporary Glasgow-based artists to create new works inspired by the archive. The aim is to create a living archive, highlighting the diversity of Glasgow’s music scene and opening up a dialogue between past and present.

And then on Friday 25 at noon, I'll present "Things That Zap the Mind: Tom McGrath, the Third Eye Centre, and Avant-garde Jazz in 1970s Glasgow". Here's the abstract:

In 1973, a 15-year-old Ivor Kallin attended a concert by Derek Bailey at the Scottish Arts Council Gallery in Glasgow.

At first, Kallin struggled to cope with the guitarist’s challenging free improvisation. But he persevered and found the experience transformative. Kallin is now a respected musician and a stalwart of London Improviser’s Orchestra. He is one of many Glaswegians who had their first encounter with avant-garde jazz through concerts organised by Tom McGrath and his fellow travellers in Platform, the Scottish Arts Council funded jazz body.

A dramatist, poet and jazz musician, McGrath brought the spirit of the counter- culture to 1970s Glasgow as director of the SAC Gallery and its successor, the pioneering Third Eye Centre. He helped nurture free music in the city, working with musicians such as bassist George Lyle and drummer Nick Weston, and turning many others
on to the music through his involvement
with Platform and the Third Eye. While his own music was largely undocumented, he
left behind a remarkable archive of video recordings of Bailey, Brotherhood of Breath and other Platform bookings.

Drawing on extensive archival research and oral history, I explore McGrath’s activities as a jazz musician and proselytiser, and discuss the influence of the counter-culture and improvisation on his practice as director of the Third Eye. Embracing the vernacular and the avant-garde, McGrath articulated
a vision of cultural democracy in which all members of the local community could access ‘things that zap the mind.’