By Barry O’Sullivan
Australian bassist and composer Lucy Clifford has built an international career performing, touring and recording globally with Grammy-winning artists and notable ensembles across many genres. She was the 2022 recipient of the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award, which celebrates women in jazz, and is an active member of the Australian music community. Her latest release via ABC Jazz, Between Spaces of Knowing, features a diverse collective of Sydney’s improvised music artists and sheds light on the often-unsung electric bass.
Lucy answers five questions:
What were your earliest musical experiences and how did they lead you to your current musical career?
Growing up as one of five kids our house was chaotic and loud and filled with the sounds of us all trying out different instruments at various points in time. Although my parents weren’t musicians they carried a love for music from as early as I can remember, and I think that’s played a huge part in why they’ve been so supportive of my music career choice. Some of my earliest musical memories involve road-tripping with my Dad and all my siblings up the east coast of Australia, listening to his favourite bands like The Rolling Stones, The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. Bass wasn’t really on my radar until my early high school years when my sister’s band needed a bass player, and I volunteered to give it a go. From that point on all I wanted to play was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, until my music teacher at school encouraged me to join a community of young people playing jazz at the local music conservatory. I was fortunate to have some incredible teachers there and became inspired and supported to pursue music as a career.
When you decided to relocate your life, studies and career to the USA, what were some of the challenges you encountered and what were some of the highlights of your stay there?
After studying jazz performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and feeling like I still had a lot more to learn I moved to the United States to further my studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Although it was challenging in many ways, including being on one’s own, missing family and trying to build a career in a big city, my experience there was undoubtedly the most informative and transformative period of my musical life. I had the opportunity to meet and make music with musicians from all over the world and to learn from and perform with some of my heroes, many of whom I’ve been able to remain connected with after many years. I was able to fill in some of the missing puzzle pieces throughout those years and also built up the confidence to start writing some music of my own.
As a composer which processes and influences do you use?
My compositional process is probably quite chaotic to most people – inspiration hits me at very random moments. Some pieces are written in one sitting while others come about in a much more fragmented way. How a piece begins, whether it’s a bassline at first or a melodic, rhythmic or harmonic idea, depends mostly on what I’m inspired by at the time. As a composer I am influenced by anything and everything – my experiences, the world around me, the people I encounter and the minds of other artists and what they create. In the same way that my musical identity has been forged by a kaleidoscope of influences and genres, my compositional process is too.
How did your latest recording, Between Spaces of Knowing, come about?
I was living and working in New York throughout 2017-2020 and had been playing lots of music with some very dear friends of mine there, originally from Panama, Ecuador, Martinique and Tobago. Having been incredibly inspired by these musicians and learning so much from them, I started writing an album with them in mind, in the hope of recording it one day. When Covid hit and I moved back to Australia I didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity to pursue that music again. However, when I had the great fortune of receiving the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award in 2022 the possibility of finishing this project became a viable option. I wanted to honour that music and period of learning and writing so I assembled some of my favourite musicians here in Sydney, finished the music and we were able to bring the recording to the finish line. I’m so grateful to the JRMA and ABC Jazz for their incredible assistance.
Apart from your busy musical career, what are some of your other interests?
I love hearing live music when I’m not playing and I try to support as many shows as I can. Musicians and storytellers of all kinds inspire me significantly. Another big part of my day-to-day is teaching. My passion for teaching is unwavering and I feel motivated to try to connect young women with music and build communities for them to access. If I think back on how I got to a place to even consider a music career as a possibility it’s because there were some incredible people making spaces for young women to connect with mentors and other like-minded individuals. This has become my main daily aim as a teacher. I also absolutely love to swim and cook, so you might find me at my local ocean pool or watching the cooking channel, even though my cooking is sub-par at best!