‘Fake it Until you Make it’ by The Divergence Jazz Orchestra is Eastside Radio’s album of the week.

This album is all about freshness as 19 young Sydney Musicians have given us their own flavour of Jazz and not only are the musicians, conductors and composers fresh, it was only released this month. Bringing us their second album The Divergence Jazz Orchestra have brought us an album that is shining with original music that crosses from swing to New Orleans and to gospel ballads so we get a lovely burst of todays Jazz while also not confining itself to one particular style.

It is a great advantage when composer Jenna Cave is a young artist herself as it lets the group as a whole work on developing their contemporary Jazz sound even further. It was back in 2012 that Jenna Cave formed The Divergence Jazz Orchestra with Paul Weber, made up of some of Sydney’s finest emerging Jazz musicians who all had a passion for the big band sound. One year later they released their debut album with a winning title ‘The Opening Statement’, an album that would give them airplay internationally as well as being received very well here in their home country.

In four years they have been well and truly establishing themselves in the Australian Jazz scene with several shows in our proud sponsors venue Foundry616 and appearances at The Wangaratta Jazz Festival, a concert held by SIMA at the Seymour Centre and The Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival last year to name a few. With the ever-growing success and popularity of the orchestra you can be sure that fans and key figures within the Jazz industry would have been eagerly awaiting this second album.

You can hear it through the album that there is pure passion and love gone into each track as they are all their for the same reason to make some good music. With a group this size it can never really be about anything else, The Divergence Jazz orchestra was first set up to be a community that provided a space where composers and musicians could come together, explore ideas and make music. It is no wonder that their is such original music and writing gone into the project, apart from the wonderful work of the young musicians the music is composed by Jenna Cave, Brendan Champion, Luke Davis, Paul Murchison and Miroslav Bukovsky.

Across 11 tracks we get over an hour of some top quality Jazz, with the opening track ‘On Horseback’ being nearly 9minutes long we get a variety of sounds in this one to show us what is on offer and what is to come. With a title ‘On Horseback’ the use of the trombone really sets the image up in your mind of a horse riding into an old western town. Like our featured album last week this one is also full of emotions and tracks that moments from life are being expressed through the music, tracks such as ‘Now My Sun Can Shine Again’ and ‘One Woman’s Day of Triumph’ are staples throughout the album that leave for some impacting listening with piano solos that give us an even deeper sound. If you like your mixture of instruments and want to see what the future of Jazz here in Sydney is all about then this is an album definitely worthwhile checking out. Full of original music, emerging artists and most importantly the love for bending the ‘known’ on Jazz.

Track Listing