Being Jackie Orszaczky
By Matt McMahon
The first time I encountered Jackie Orszaczky we were both doing a week of gigs with the Sydney saxophone maestro Dale Barlow in 1994. It was daunting enough playing with Dale let alone having a legend like Jackie on bass. I was also in the final week of exams at the Conservatorium and expressed some anxiety about late nights and early exams. Jack said ‘Sing a minor sixth’. I sang the interval and Jack replied ‘You’ll be ok.’ These were simultaneously words of encouragement, and a pointer to keep focused on the important aspects of making music. In that moment Jackie Orszaczky revealed himself to me – as he would continue to do countless times over the years – as a man of experience, wisdom and deep soul.
On February 3rd at 4am Jackie Orszaczky passed away. He had been diagnosed with Lymphoma two years ago. He leaves behind his daughter Anna, partner Tina Harrod and their daughter Mia. He also leaves behind a musical community who will mourn him as a great bass player, a great band leader, and an abundantly generous mentor.
As a child in his native Hungary, Jackie Orszaczky learnt the violin and piano, before discovering the joys of the electric bass whilst in his teens. His subsequent interested in the music of the African-American tradition and the music of Ray Charles, Curtis Mayfield, and Nina Simone remained an abiding love for the rest of his life.
Jack visited Australian shores playing with the Hungarian experimental rock group Syrius, before settling here in 1974 and joining the Australian group Bakery. He released his first album in 1975 before becoming the musical director for Marcia Hines from 1976 to 1979. Jack then went onto led various bands of legendary status around Sydney ‘ Jump Back Jack, The Godmothers, The Grandmasters et al. All these groups all took as their starting point Jack’s love of soul and funk; but they also included aspects of Jack’s entire musical world ‘ classical music, jazz, country music, fusion. With these groups he inspired generations of musicians and fans mixing his great arrangements of classic songs by the likes of Ray Charles, Miles Davis, The Meters, Curtis Mayfield, and The Beatles with his own originals.
Jack was the kind of spirit who was always looking for fresh ideas and modes of expression. His performances with his group Industrial Accident saw him transcribe the noises of the local shoe factory ‘ assigning rhythms to the various instruments in the group. These gigs saw a unique combination of string section, brass section, visual and sound installation, arc welding, live oil painting, and a 30 piece choir. Hamish Stuart, who spent the last twenty or so years playing the drums with Jack in many of these incarnations remembers an outraged patron wrestling on the floor with the person responsible for peppering them with sparks as the welding continued on stage.
To talk about Jack in terms of genre – soul, jazz, funk – is to miss what Jack and music are about. Jack belongs to the company of musicians who were greatly inspired by the great spirits of music making from whatever century, or country, and then went on to continue that inspiration in the next generation. Perhaps we need a recasting of the idea of the ‘soul musician’. I’ve had conversations with him about Bartok, Liszt, Albert Ayler, Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, Frank Zappa, Ray Charles ‘when one listens to a great musician like Jack one can’t hear the choices that are being made ‘ only the result. But those results come from years of immersion in music ‘ playing, studying, learning, listening, great gigs, long gigs, bad gigs, studios, concert halls, bars, countries. These experiences inform the choices that are made in the moment ‘ when to play high, when to play a counter melody, when to drag another musician along, when to stop playing, when to reach for the sky, and when to just hold it all together. When talking to Hamish about Jack the words ‘spirit’ and ‘integrity’ recur. It is these factors, which turn all that experience into the deep soulful music that he shared with all of us ‘ those who played with him and those who came to listen to him.
Most of my playing with Jack was with his partner Tina Harrod singing and Jack playing the bass. I felt privileged to play with him in this context. In January this year during a Sunday afternoon residency one patron was asking me ‘Where can I get a copy of that version of River Man (a song by Nick Drake)”. The answer was that you just had. There is no repeat, no ‘copy’ of a live performance.
A musician is a necessarily social kind of artist. When I think of Jack I don’t think just of one man, but of a whole community. Szor Baci (Istvan Kun), one of Jack’s friends from Hungary left L.A. last week to visit Jack and Tina but sadly arrived just after Jack’s passing. He recalled hearing Jack and his band in 1967 in Hungary playing the entire Sergeant Peppers album. He remembers Jack as ‘more than a musician ‘ he was a kind of guru character, a mentor to a lot of people’. Sydney-based singer Virna Sanzone remarks that Jackie was important for bridging any perceived gap between jazz and funk or soul music.
Jack looked on with sadness over the last few years as the city of Sydney made it harder and harder for live musicians to operate. One senses the sadness was not so much about declining opportunities to work but recognition of the rejection of the human values that live music performance represents. Here are some words that Jack wrote in support of attempts to help create a better legislative environment for live music in Sydney:
‘Music is in crisis. Like many other basic human values and ‘instincts’ it has been privatised, corporatised, manipulated and commodified. The traditions of elementary communication, sorrow and hope expressed through music have now become a marketable product. It is also a job opportunity for the practitioner, and a money-spinner for everybody else involved in getting the listener and performer in the same room. The traditional meaning of music that reaches back for thousands of years is in danger, and that is where the focus should be.’
I feel that the measure of a person is not what was achieved but how that life was lived. Jack’s achievements were many but I don’t think he lived to ‘achieve goals’. He played the music he loved on his own terms with the people he loved and respected. That example is as much his legacy as the many recordings he has left us.
