Not necessarily so, according to Sophie Brous. Indeed, for the prolific 24-year-old musician, vocalist and decidedly youthful Program Director of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the genre jig, it seems, is up.

“A lot of what’s happening this year isn’t just about booking an act and putting them on at the Recital Centre,” she says of festival, which kicks of on Saturday and runs until May 8th.

“The overwhelming theme for curating the festival is about progress and letting the music speak for itself,” she continues. “By doing that, naturally a lot of boundaries around what people understand jazz to be or not to be get stretched and reshaped, because the music itself has actually evolved so much.”

MIJF will see established venues like the Melbourne Recital Centre, The Forum and BMW Edge play host to headline acts of the ilk of legendary US piano virtuoso Ahmad Jamal, Ethio-jazz forefather Mulatu Astatke, German fee-jazz and noise icon Peter Brötzmann and Chicago postrock groundbreakers Tortoise, but it’s the less conventional spaces and curatorial strokes that seem to characterise this year’s program.

Events like Overground will see roaming, improvised performances and first-time collaborations fill various spaces within the Melbourne Town Hall, while public art installations such as The Places In Between (featuring a specially commissioned light and sound work by pianist Chris Abrahams of Australian improv trio The Necks) will subsume various city spaces.

“Context and environment is really one of the key aspects of the festival,” says Brous. “So many events are about changing our view of what experiencing music and art is and perhaps entering people’s daily experience without them necessarily even realising it. It’s not just going to a concert hall, but experiencing music in a plethora of different venues.”

That’s not to suggest that MIJF is about to abandon its foundations. “Those major, headline concerts are at the centre of what we do and we’re incredibly proud of them,” she maintains. “For any festival, it’s really about exploring the brevity of what sits at its core.”

It’s just that Brous and her team have assumed a more active role. “We’re just producing so much this year,” she offers. “We’re working with artists, developing new projects, developing new repertoires and commissioning new works and new collaborations.”

“That’s one of the things I’m most proud of, bringing musicians together for the first time and kind of creating those new opportunities,” she continues.

“And it’s that kind of work which properly articulates just how far jazz music has come.”

Hybrids and Folklore
Saturday, May 1, 12pm
NGV International, Grollo Equiset Garden
Free
Tickets: melbournejazz.com

This “psychfolkic” performance installation is set to have audiences reassessing the very fundamentals of sound and music-making itself. Featuring some of Australia and Europe’s most exploratory sonic and visual artists – psychedelic performance lunatics Hi God People, sound and expanded cinema artist Joel Stern and Dutch treated piano composer Cor Fuhler among them – the free event will recast the NGV sculpture garden as a site for weird, wonderful and outright bizarre acts of sound creation and improvisation with the natural environment.

Mulatu Astatke
Sunday, May 2, 8pm; Monday, May 3, 8pm
The Forum
$72 / $65 concession
Tickets: melbournejazz.com

One of MIJF’s headline acts, Mulatu Astatke’s reputation precedes him. Widely considered the founder of 1960s ‘Ethio-jazz’ – an amalgam of Latin jazz, soul, funk and traditional Ethiopian harmony that became a genre of its own – the 67-year-old’s influence has been felt worldwide for almost five decades. He is joined by Australian/Ethiopian ensemble The Black Jesus Experience for two very special performances.

Overground
Melbourne Town Hall
Sunday, May 2, 2pm–8pm
$30
Tickets: melbournejazz.com

Billed as a “festival within a festival”, Overground is something of a musical first for Melbourne. Over six hours this Sunday, the event will see the cream of the world’s experimental, avant-garde and improvisational community take over the Melbourne Town Hall in a wave of new music. Expect free jazz, grindcore, noise, expanded cinema, video, contemporary classical and performance installation. Featuring Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, My Disco, Mick Turner (Dirty Three), Oren Ambarchi, Marco Fusinato, Anthony Pateras, Kim Salmon, Snawklor, Pikelet, Kram, Embers Big Band and countless others.

Peter Brötzmann
Tuesday, May 4, 7:30pm
BMW Edge, Federation Square
$35 / $30 concession
Tickets: melbournejazz.com

There’s no bigger name in European free-jazz or improvisation than German saxophonist and noise-rock forefather Peter Brötzmann. Having worked alongside anyone from Don Cherry, Evan Parker and Cecil Taylor, to Derek Bailey, fellow festival guest Han Bennink and famed Korean conceptual artist Nam June Paik, the musician, composer, visual artist and graphic designer has carved an uncompromising mark as one of the most powerful saxophonists to perform or record. The fierce sonic attack of his 1968 opus Machine Gun still stands as one of the signpost moments of world jazz. He will be supported by anarchic Australian trio Pateras/Baxter/Brown and a solo set by Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase.

Theo Bleckmann: Songs for Voice, Loops and Toys
Friday, May 7, 6:30pm
The Forum Upstairs
$38 / $35 concession
Tickets: melbournejazz.com

For German born New Yorker Theo Bleckmann, music is the sum of countless parts, approaches, mediums, bits and bobs. A collagist in every sense of the term, Bleckmann’s compound of contemporary jazz, electronic and ambient music – replete with live processing and looping – is its own infectious language. This event will see both a solo performance and a one-off collaboration with a clique of contemporary jazz artists, including Australians Gian Slater and Stephen Magnusson, and New York experimental composer John Hollenbach.

Tortoise
Friday, May 7, 8:30pm
The Forum
$68 / $63 concession
Tickets: melbournejazz.com

Before the inception of the somewhat haughty musical tag ‘postrock’, there was Tortoise. In a career that has spanned almost two decades, the Chicago quintet have built an interface between innumerable styles and inflections and garnered a host of imitators. Emphasising rhythm, texture and groove ahead of full-formed melody, their sound has touched on anything from jazz, minimalist electronica and Krautrock, to hip-hop, techno, ambience and rock. Long after ‘postrock’ was dismissed, Tortoise are still forging forward. Supported by the Brain Chase/Seth Misterka Duo.