Aussie Artists Reflect On The Musical Legacy Of Gil Scott Heron

The Stonnington Jazz festival is coming up later this month, running from 12th – 22nd May, the event is expanding into new spaces of Stonnington and digging a little deeper into the niche sounds of Australian music, presenting sounds and acts that have never been heard at the festival before, alongside some more familiar faces of the Australian jazz scene.

While featuring a vast array of acts and events we’re eager to experience, one event we’re particularly excited about is The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Pieces Of Gil Scott Heron.

A premiere concert curated for the festival, it’ll feature performances of Gil Sccott Heron’s work by some of Australia’s finest soul and jazz acts including Vince Jones, N’fa Jones, Ryan Ritchie (The Raah Project), Hue Blanes, Hailey Cramer and Walter Saluni.

The event’s Artistic Director Chelsea Wilson explains how it all came about “Gil Scott-Heron: The vocalist, songwriter and activist was known as the ‘father of hip hop’, a phrase he was never comfortable adopting, yet for many sums up his impact on popular music.

I’ve always found his work inspiring and thought provoking not to mention super funky! He transcended genre and influenced artists from all styles, socio-economic backgrounds and cultures. I’ve wanted to produce a show of GSH works for quite some time so am thrilled to present it for Stonnington Jazz.

The show brings together a range of Australian artists from different genres: legend of Australian Jazz Vince Jones; melancholic pianist and writer Hue Blanes; Neo-soul chanteuse Hailey Cramer; Trombonist and soul crooner Walter Saluni; Hip Hop MC N’fa Jones and the Raah Projects’s front man Ryan Ritchie. Each artist performs their own take on songs from Heron’s back catalogue backed by a killer band led by The Meltdown’s Lachlan McLean.

This show also includes Auslan Interpretation (a first for Stonnington Jazz that I’m very excited about) so everyone can enjoy Gil’s lyrics and poetry. Whether you are familiar with Heron’s work and legacy or a complete newbie you will dig this show. We asked some of the artists involved in the project to talk about their favourite GSH tracks.”

N’fa Jones

This is tough. ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ is the first piece of his that I heard and it blew my mind. Gil’s works have always been powerful. However…I’m quite in love with one of his final pieces entitled ‘I’m New Here’.

It took a few listens and as a piece on it’s own it’s nice… but when you put it in perspective to his life and where he was at the time of recording it (not long before his passing) the piece really is beautiful, powerful, humble and honest-to-self. It’s a beautiful bookend to his amazing journey.

Ryan Ritchie

I suppose most people might think of Gil Scott-Heron as a heavily politically motivated artist with a black fist raised firm in the sky, and while he certainly was, it wasn’t that that drew me to him. It was how he dealt with it.

The more I got to know his music, the more I really dug on the man, his perspectives on the world on both sides of his politics are so considered and so true, and so ‘of the times’. In his simple spoken word and drum recording ‘Small Talk at 125th and Lennox’ he reveals a fantastic dark humour and simultaneously exposes the crimes perpetrated against his people. Check out ‘Whitey on the Moon’:

A rat done bit my sister Nell, with Whitey on the moon… I think I’ll send these doctor bills airmail special to Whitey on the moon

He was a dark and funny motherfucker and lyrically makes most rappers look like spoiled rich assholes. He made bleak aggressive attacks at the status quo of white and black relations in the 1970s and ‘80s (Jesus, can you imagine this guy through the Regan years?!), was sampled by Dilla and Kanye (when he was dope), made his last records with Damon Alban and Jamie XX and finally had a number 1 billboard hit performed by Drake and Rihanna after he died. I mean the guy did it – from Jacksonville to New York City – Gil Scott-Heron brought his dark humour, his wit, his tender soul and politics to all of us. As Miles said he was a motherfucker.

Vince Jones

He was an activist on many levels. His best writing was before the age of 25 and then sadly he deteriorated into the world of hard drugs. A poet, a soothsayer a novelist and a musician.

He wrote ‘The Vulture’ and released Pieces of a Man in 1971 while he was in college – his warnings to us regarding the grave consequences of racism and the rabid destruction of our planet by the corporate world. In ‘Winter in America’ he warned us not to follow blindly in the footsteps of U$A ecocide capitalism. In Pieces of a Man, he showed us the pain of capitalisms ‘Broken Promises’.

In ‘The Revolution Won’t be Televised’ he pointed out to us how frivolous the mainstream media has become and how disinformation is their main objective. He was a keen wordsmith with the ability to express to us the current state of the world and how without dramatic change it won’t get any better.

Hue Blanes

The Gil Scott Heron track ‘Free Will’ is a great track about the beauty in finding your own path in life. Sometimes the ugly path and the road less travelled might be the path that leads to the greater good. The track questions religion and authority, but in a thoughtful and contemplative way.

Hailey Cramer

I was at a friends house a few years ago and I heard that velvety voice singing in the background over a few wines. Soon I realised I wasn’t listening to my friend chatting to me anymore because I was so distracted by the beauty of the song ‘I’ll Take Care of You’.

Gosh I love that song. Gil Scott-Heron is an artist with his words and his music and when they are brought together, it’s truly like no other.