Jom Denley Peter Ready Rare Private Press OZ LP 25th April 1980 NM Avant-Garde  

Avant-garde Jazz Psyche Mark Simmonds Barry Woods

Peter Ready & Jim Denley

Rare OZ Only LP released in 1980 Private Pressing. Cat: YPRX1770. Comes with unique hand painted cover.

Australian flautist Jim Denley has been active on the avant-garde front since the late '70s, but he remains a very obscure figure. His importance can be compared to Jon Rose, with whom he formed the groundbreaking Relative Band in 1981. As the violinist's profile rose thanks to strange radio plays and elaborate stage antics (a lot of talent was also involved!), Denley remained in the shadows. When Rose, by 1985 the prime mover in Australian experimental music, moved to Berlin, Denley chose London as his new scene. He has played with Derek Bailey, John Butcher, Roger Turner, but mostly in Chris Burn's ensemble and with violinist Stevie Wishart, whom he married in 1987. His extended technique on flutes and alto saxophone, his acute listening skills, and his refusal to get stuck into a single format make him a first-rate improviser. Jim Denley, one of Australia's foremost improvisers of new music, was born in 1957 in the country town of Bulli in New South Wales, and grew up in Wollongong. His father, a fine amateur violinist, launched Denley's musical career when he presented him with a violin on his fifth birthday. Denley also learnt the piano, before abandoning the instrument for the flute at age 11. From 1969 Denley studied flute at the NSW Conservatorium with the late Peter Richardson, a well-known flautist and interpreter of contemporary music, who introduced him to the flute works of Edgard Varese, Fukushima, Olivier Messiaen and Luciano Berio. At the same time Denley was listening to recorded music by jazz musicians and improvisers such as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey. Even at this early stage, Denley recalls, he began improvising - often with his sister Elizabeth, who played the piano. Denley's earliest compositions, which date from around age 15, were usually for pre-recorded tape, accompanied by live flute. The sound sources for the tape included household items, such as metal pots and ash trays, used percussively and struck with chop sticks. Denley altered these sounds by changing the speed at which they were recorded or played on his sound-on-sound tape recorder. He presented one such work, Precosioso , in the Wollongong Fusion Festival of Arts in 1973. In 1976, after a year of playing at restaurants and clubs around Wollongong, Denley travelled to Europe, where he studied Italian and saw major art collections throughout Italy and France. At this time, he was strongly attracted to both music and the visual arts. He did and still does paint: now more often on Sundays. But in London in 1975 he was inspired by the improvised music of Derek Bailey and Evan Pavlier, which persuaded him to choose a career in music. After Denley's savings ran out in 1976, he worked for a short time selling books in English-speaking schools throughout Europe. This brief introduction to the world of commerce he recalls as the catalyst that finally persuaded him to return to Australia, pursue music seriously, and work towards a musical language of his own. Back in Wollongong, he began a long-lasting collaboration with Peter Ready, an Illawarra percussionist with an interest in building instruments. They met when both played on a number of occasions in the Robert Lloyd ensemble. In 1979 they constructed several large instruments from salvaged industrial materials, which they named New Music Constructions , and for the next two years toured New South Wales. They performed with these constructions at the Orange Festival of the Arts and held installations and performances at the Mori Gallery and a two- week presentation at the Wollongong City Gallery. Eventually an LP recording of their work titled 25th April 1980 was recorded by radio 2MBSFM and released on Wombarra Records. Their work with the constructions was characterised by a wealth of textural and timbral variety.

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Cover art by Fred Braat.

Artwork hand painted by artist Fred Braat.