Although billed as the AAO’s gig, the stage belongs as much to the Young Wagilak Group, a trio of Aboriginal musicians (Benjamin, Daniel and Roy Wilfred), whose first two members sing and third plays yiddaki (dijiredu). In fact, they are the defining element of both the sound canvas and the cultural framework of one of the most original concerts in the 2012 London Jazz Festival programme. The album that the collaboration has produced, Crossing Roper Bar, is based on ‘manikay’ song cycles that have been handed down through countless generations of Australia’s ‘first nation’ and jointly arranged by both the Wilfreds and AAO, led by pianist Paul Grabowsky, to create music that appears both from the ‘dawn of time’ and of days yet to pass. The former quality does not refer to the Wagilak and the latter orchestra, but it is rather the mesh of vocals, yiddaki, keys, drums, double bass and reeds that plays boldly with perceptions and accepted notions of ancient and modern timbres.

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