Making ourselves heard

From a ‘Field of Dreams’ to building a collective voice

Abstract

The contemporary jazz collective is still a thriving, innovative force within much of European musical thinking. The musicians’ collectives are built on communal idealism, and often based on a shared sense of aesthetic vision. The effort is traditionally concentrated on revolutionising their working conditions with an aim to regain power over their own musical output. Such control can be (re)gained locally by communally taking on various roles beyond ‘mere’ music making. These collectives arise from and respond to different socio-political and cultural circumstances, where aspects like public funding, access to audiences, local education, etc., play greatly into the justification of their formation. With this in mind, I will here discuss the circumstances of two relatively young European collectives, writing primarily from the experiences as co-founding musician of both the Leeds Improvised Music Association (LIMA) and the Kitchen Orchestra (Stavanger, Norway).