Jonathan Zwartz

APRA 2023 Board Elections

Jonathan is running for re-election to the APRA Writer Director Board for 2023

Read about Jonathan’s background and his vision for Australian music in his Election Statement

Albums

The Remembering & Forgetting Of The Air (2013)

Films

Richard Leplastrier - Framing The View (2020)

BackTrack Boys (2018)

The Scribe (2018)

MadHATtan (2017)

Ka-Ching! Pokies Nation (2016)

To Spring From The Hand (2014)

About

As double bassist, Jonathan has played with Pharoah Sanders, Branford Marsalis, Lionel Loueke, Kurt Elling, Nigel Kennedy, Mark Murphy, Annie Ross, Larry Goldings, Johnny Griffin, Terri-Lynn Carrington, Genesis Owusu, and Katie Noonan.

Jonathan is also a composer, producer, songwriter, and live music advocate.

He has released three award winning albums as composer and bandleader. His debut Album ‘The Sea’ was released in 2009 and won two Bell awards.

His follow up CD entitled ‘The Remembering and Forgetting of the Air’, won best jazz album in the Australian Recording Industry (AIR) awards.

His third Album ‘Animarum’ (2018) won the ARIA for best jazz album as well as the Bell and Air awards for that year.

In late 2019 recorded with Mike Nock, Julien Wilson and Hamish Stuart a composer’s collaborative album entitled ‘This World’ which was released in 2020 to critical acclaim, sold out a two week National tour and was nominated for an ARIA award. In 2021 the follow up album ‘Another Dance’ was recorded and released in early 2022. It entered at no 2 on the ARIA Blues and Roots Charts.

In 2021 Jonathan was commissioned by SIMA to compose a concert work for the visiting Finnish Harpist and pianist Iro Haarla. After some delay due to the Covid epidemic, the suite was performed for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival in November 2022. The Melbourne concert was recorded and broadcast by the ABC.

He co-produced and wrote the orchestrations for singer/songwriter Martha Marlow’s debut album, Medicine Man released in May 2021.

He curated a series of free concerts for City of Sydney in 2021 under the working title ‘Music and Architecture’. He is currently pursuing an initiative to reactivate bandstands and rotundas in NSW for Make Music Day.

Jonathan is a Writer Director Board member of APRA.

Jonathan has a Masters Degree in Music from the Australian National University, an Associate Diploma in Jazz Studies from the NSW Conservatorium and also completed a diploma in screen composition at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in 2012.

He co-produced a ten part series on Australian jazz for ABC TV entitled ‘The Pulse’, which has been re-screened many times since the series’ release in 2001.

He has composed Music for documentaries - ‘To Spring From The Hand’ (2014) ‘Ka-Ching, a Pokies Nation’ (ABC, 2015), ‘Madhattan’, (2016), ‘The Scribe’ (ABC 2017) ‘Backtrack Boys’ (ABC 2018), ‘Richard Leplastrier – Framing the View’ (ABC 2020) and a number of short films also.

He is co-director of The Starfish Club, a monthly concert series now celebrating it’s 24th year, featuring artists such as Jon Cleary, Deb Conway and Willy Zygier, Don Walker, Tim Rogers, Amanda Brown and Lindy Morrison, Leah Flannagan, Rai Thistlethwayte, Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty, Diana Rouvas, Steve Kilbey, Jade MacRae, Mahalia Barnes, Lucy Thorne and many many more.

He is currently working on Martha Marlow’s second album ‘Queen of the Night’, a collaboration with pianist Chris Abrahams due for release in 2024.

The Starfish Club

The idea to have a weekly live music night held on a Monday night sprang from a conversation between Jonathan Zwartz and Hamish Stuart on the long drive back to Sydney form Canberra after a gig there, sometime around 1995.

They envisaged a house band and honoured guests performing material that they might not have the chance to try out anywhere else.

Somehow, something was said or maybe it was just coincidence but Bondi Surf LifeSaver Club caretaker and mad jazz fan Rick Ireland got in touch to ask if there’d be a chance a live music night could happen upstairs at the Bondi SLSC on a regular basis, and the Starfish Club was born.

Originally run by Hamish, Jonathan and their respective partners Lisa and Jane, the Starfish Club ran once a week and on a Monday so as to ensure musician’s availability. The house band was Hamish, Jonathan, Michael Bartolomei and Tim Rollinson with a sausage sizzle manned by Rick or his friend and assistant Dave. Featuring a different special guest every week, the Starfish quickly gained a following and ran in that format for a while before moving to a monthly concert and changing venues two or three times, finally ending up at it’s present spiritual home, the Clovelly Bowling Club.

Guests have included:

Renee Geyer, Kate Ceberano, Toni Collette, Jon Stevens, Doug Parkinson, Glenn Shorrock, Tim Rogers, Deborah Conway and Willy Zeiger, Mahalia Barnes, Jade MacRae, Jon Cleary, Jackie Orzacsky, Don Walker, John Waters, Peter O’Doherty and Reg Mombassa, iOTA, Leah Flannagan, Stew and Camille French, Cindy Drummond and Johnny Nicole, Ursula Yovitch, Dannielle Gaha, Paul Gray, Emma Pask, Michelle Rose, Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Jonathan Crayford, Julien Wilson, Vince Jones, Ray Beadle, Diana Rouvas, Darren Percival, Dave Brewer, Stewart Darrietta, and many more.

The Starfish Club is now in it’s 27th year and we’re hoping to continue to provide a high standard of musicality and an informal, intimate vibe to the warm audience that always seems to be in attendance for many years to come.

The below clip is from Barney McAll’s performance there as filmed by the ABC for ‘The Pulse’