Ziggy Zeitgeist of ZEFX: “it’s about serving the moment… making it feel deep and swaggy out there on the floor.”

Album recorded at the world famous Jazzanova studios

Fans of anything 30/70 adjacent will be pleased to know the name of one of its former members is, yes, Ziggy Zeitgeist. They’ll be doubly pleased to know that Ziggy has, of late, been helming his own collective project – the Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange. 

Out of the suffusive mists of all his showmanship comes a genuinely brilliant new foray into acid, experimental and free jazz – ZEFX’s new Prayer For Peace LP – which documents an intense series of recording sessions by the troupe, as well as Zeitgeist’s tendency to form and reassemble the collective as he flits from city to city.

For fans of futurist jazz with a message of peace (Idris Muhammad, Grover Washington Jr., Herbie Hancoc), there’s more than something in this album. Hoping to unlock the secrets of free energy exchange, We caught up with Ziggy. Here are the results…

Aside from its deft, incense-diffusing sound, your music speaks of zeitgeists, energy flow, and peace and love. Are you a hippy at heart?

Let the sensual herbs burn baby! thx for the poetics, I dig that. Hippy? I haven’t really heard anybody use that term since woodstock man! Is it kind of like the modern day hipster? I wouldn’t really associate with that no. I’m generally inspired by eastern philosophy, afro- futurism or social activism, stuff like that. I’m not sure if that makes me a hippy?

What sparked your shift from 30/70 and into helming your own project?

It was quite a natural progression that we were all kind of feeding into the collective whilst developing our own solo projects at the same time. That was the last year or so before I left Naarm (FKA Melbourne). We’re still trying to find a balance juggling the collective and solo projects, and realising that there is something magic that happens within the collective when there is no clear leader. The ideas are simply developing in such a natural way bouncing off everybody in the room and we have to trust what everyone is putting down. That’s what will always make a collective something unique and different from a solo project. 30/70 is some kind of future jazz freak fest where anything can happen. By around 2017 I was pushing a lot more into the club / electronic worlds, working with producers / DJ’s and promoters and generally being inspired to develop a more refined live band set that could be more adaptable to a dance-floor in between DJ sets.                   

Who were some of your earliest musical influences?

My dad was always playing in bands and had musicians around the place, so of course being around that and then digging into his record collection was a lot of funky and soulful stuff from the 60s and 70s. That was probably the earliest influence. Once I got to college, it opened up a whole new world of sounds to dig into. I first studied in the northern rivers on the East coast of Australia. There are quite some crazy heads out that way. I was playing with cats like Dave Ades and Greg Sheehan who are both heavyweights and developed unique and innovative approaches. It’s rare to find these types of uncompromising artists in more rural parts of Australia so it was very inspiring for me. Shortly after I moved to Sydney and I was seeing cats like Jackie Orzascky, who was a legend of the scene, I would see him every Tuesday with a rotating cast of the heaviest hitters in the city. Pretty soon after that I heard about Hiatus Kaiyote and all this scene coming out of Naarm, and so I went down there. Pretty soon after there was a whole wave of neo-soul and future jazz coming out of the city it was a magic time.

Some of the sounds you’re using sound pretty acidic and synthetic, like the lead synth on ‘Tightrope’. Who do you look to influences- wise on the dance and electronic side of things?

A lot of stuff. Out in Aus we were getting booked on a lot of bush doofs which out there is a bit more Psy-Trance kind of trippy stuff, because it’s more psychedelic culture. Once I got to Berlin it was a lot more Techno. Spending time out in the UK it’s more UKG and Drum & Bass. Come to think of it, electronic music is now becoming a type of folk music unique to different regions. Of course a lot of stuff from the states like the West Coast – Brainfeeder and Stones Throw records, all of that stuff. From Detroit all the old school techno dons up to more modern cats like Kyle Hall and Jay Daniel. I also fuck with a lot of new electronic music coming out of Africa now, like the Amapiano sound in South Africa or this Nyege Nyege sound coming out of Uganda for example.

Why do techno and jazz mesh so well, in your opinion?

I mean if you check out the birthplace of techno in Detroit then you can directly trace the lineage back to African-American work songs, and spirituals emigrated North, from the Mississippi Delta, and from blues to jazz to of course soul/motown and disco. Now we’re getting close already. Take that, plus the European influence of early experiments in synthesis and electronics bands like Kraftwerk from Germany who were again a major influence for these pioneers out in Detroit. For me Jazz is less about a style or a sound it’s more about a certain attitude or spirit that imbues the music. It’s about improvisation, serving the moment, and groove. Its about making it feel deep and swaggy out there on the floor. That’s what good DJs and musicians understand.

In terms of sheer numbers and personnel, contemporary jazz collectives such as yours seem to be getting bigger and bigger nowadays. What does it take to lead one?

Tell me about it. We’re basically starting a franchise this year. We have band members in many cities all over the world. In a way honestly it’s kind of out of necessity that a band needs to be more dynamic and fluid to travel the world these days. For example if i was sitting out in Australia waiting for that fresh promoter to cover the flights for me and my five band mates to Europe. I’d be waiting a while. I’m not sure if that kind of music economy even exists anymore. At least not in our worlds. Not in a word that’s so flooded with entertainment streams not to mention the intensity of border control and expense of visas etc. The only way I got out here – I booked the flight myself, booked a gig and found me some local musicians. We connect, and we share, and we improvise, and that’s what this collective is about. So it’s one of those things it’s kind of out of necessity but in turn it creates the sound and the energy that make the music diverse and keeps it evolving.

Could you tell us a bit more about the core collaborators who make up the collective like Szabolcs Bognar, and guest collaborators like Wayne Snow? What was it like to record and improvise with them?

Yea of course, whilst the line up is fluid and diverse there are still some key collaborators. Namely Lewis Moody and Matthew Hayes out in Naarm. Together with these guys we shaped the ZFEX sound, and now we have an intuitive language between us and a level of musical communication that is only developed through years of playing together. In Europe one of my key collaborators is Szabolcs (Abáse). We share a similar kind of musical familiarity. We first met in Budapest in 2018 and we kind of both knew at the moment that we had to play together. Two years later we were both living in Berlin so the rest is history. Wayne Snow is a very unique musician and again I was already a big fan of his music before I met him, and the moment we started working together in the studio it was a natural kind of trust and a vibe between us. I have not found another vocalist that can understand that level of space and minimalism in the music, can basically approach it like an instrumentalist rather than a vocalist, that’s why it works. All of these cats (too many to mention) are my musical and spiritual companions and my sound would be nothing without their endless support and inspiration.

Where can we catch you playing next?

02-03-22 – New Morning, Paris 

03-03-22 – Jazz Cafe, London