Patriography, grief and all that jazz
Reflections on memorialising my father through the making of Roger Frampton Comes Alive!
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.29966Keywords:
Australian Jazz, Roger Frampton, Australian Improvised Music, Patriography, Jazz Biography, Grief, FilmmakingAbstract
As part of my recent PhD, I produced a documentary film on the life and music of my father, the jazz musician, Roger Frampton (1948–2000). While a primary motivation for its making was to explore his contribution to Australian music and to the musical lives of his collaborators and students, I was also driven to understand the grief I had long held over his premature death. The film and the process of its making functioned as both a biographical work of Australian jazz history and a project of family history. The film memorialised Roger Frampton and his musical legacy at the same time as recontextualising our relationship as daughter-father to that of biographer-subject. The tensions that derived from this recontextualisation sometimes proved challenging, but ultimately the project delivered a closeness to him, and insights into my own background, that continue to resonate.
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