Roger Manins

Index:

Biography

What the Critics say

Teaching and Workshops

Current Projects

Performance Practice and Philosophy

Biography

Roger Manins lives in Auckland New Zealand and is regarded by many as one of the leading Jazz saxophonists in the Southern Hemisphere. He has appeared as featured soloist on 40+ Jazz albums and has released several CDs as leader and in collaboration with others, including the critically acclaimed release ‘Two-out’ with pianist Mike Nock. In the last ten years he has featured on six albums that have won the TUI award for NZ Jazz Album of the Year;  including The Thing, The Edge of Chos, Dog, Panacea, Fearless Music and Resonator.  He has been featured artist on many performances with Australia’s Mothership Orchestra, including high profile artists such as Maria Schneider, Florian Ross and Darcy James Argue, and was featured soloist for the 2017 Australian National Jazz Orchestra inaugural performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music International Jazz Festival. In 2012 he was awarded an International Journalist Association ‘Jazz Hero Award’ dedicated to “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz who have had significant impact in their local communities.” In 2002 he won the Wangaratta Australian National Jazz Awards competition on saxophone. Roger is a Senior lecturer at the University of Auckland where he teaches composition, arranging, improvisation, saxophone, and is the director of University of Auckland Big Band. He is also co-founder and Artistic Director of Creative Jazz Club Aotearoa (CJC) which in the 14 years of operation has made a significant impact on the health and vitality of the New Zealand music scene.  

Roger has recently graduated from the University of Auckland with a DMA ( Doctor of Musical Arts).

 

What the Critics Say:

“ An outstandingly gifted musician with a warmly passionate sound, remarkablehttps://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/my-drive instrumental ability and total musical integrity.” Mike Nock

“If the larger-than-life, room-filling splendour of Roger Manins saxophone is not fully captured, it’s bruising, beautiful tonal quality certainly is.” John Shand

“His mastery of the saxophone and deep knowledge of the jazz idiom inform every note he plays, and his sound is huge.” Norman Meehan

“Manins sounds incredible throughout, but he’s particularly exceptional on the 20-minute plus version of Monk’s “Well You Needn’t.” Cadence Magazine

“As always Manins brings a complete understanding of the music to his playing along with superb tone and feeling.” Mark Robinson

“Roger Manins is simply a phenomenon…to hear Roger playing with such strength and in such an ecstatic state was to be reminded of how Coltrane-like he can be.”  John Fenton

“Manins himself has an incredible palette to draw from. Drenched in classic Coltrane/Coleman prose he launches like a futuristic Sonny Rollins into the saxophone effortlessly juxtering twisted abstract lines with dark soulful blues.”   Nigel Patterson

“Where McGann is rather like a pointillist painter whose short, stabbing phrases gradually assume the shape and form of a complete solo, Manins trowels paint on to the canvas: big, bruising ideas emitted with a conviction to match McGann's.”   John Shand

“New Zealander and adopted Australian Roger Manins playing magnificent, resonant, inventive and sometimes simply overwhelming in its flow of ideas.”  John Claire

“Nock’s work on piano, filled as it is with subtle chord alterations, deserves to be heard in such an environment and Manins’ gorgeous sound on tenor saxophone is captured in its full loveliness.” Graham Reed


 “Manins’s sound is rich, big, dark, yet fine; fluent, beautifully modulated” Jazz Groove

Qualifications:

Doctor of Musical Arts: The University of Auckland

BMus (Hon): New Zealand School of Music

Associate Diploma in Jazz Studies: Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Teaching:

Dr Roger Manins has been a full time lecturer at The University of Auckland since 2009 and has extensive teaching experience on a broad range of topics, both at tertiary and high school level

Improvisation Workshops: I am comfortable teaching beginners to advanced improvisation.al approaches.

  • Beginners: Using the Clave rhythm as a foundational approach to jazz improvisation. In this workshop I approach improvisation primarily from a rhythmic perspective. Everyone learns to clap and sing a simple clave based rhythm. From here we learn to apply this to a simple 1-4-5 blues progression, first vocalising the root movements, then applying to their instruments, and starting to improvise. This is a low pressure and fun approach to improvisation and gives people of all ages and levels simple tools in which to get started, and get creative.

  • Compositional Approaches in Improvisation: This workshop can be applied in a jazz or non-jazz improvised space and asks the question: How can one use compositional techniques such as sequence, inversion, retrograde, fragmentation, repetition- and many more techniques to tell a coherent story in an improvisational context. This requires a reasonable level of instrumental proficiency and musical ability.

  • Advanced Improvisation: Alternate Pathways for Achieving Harmonic Balance in Jazz Line. This practical workshop explores ideas put forth in George Garzone’s Triadic Chromatic Approach, Steve Coleman’s Symmetrical Movement Concept, and can introduce Circle-Cloud Theory. It discusses and demonstrates fascinating alternate ways of achieving harmonic and rhythmic balance in improvisation and composition.

  • Circle-Cloud Theory: 10 Rules of Harmonic Generation- A Theory inspired by the work of Steve Coleman. This workshop discusses Circle-Cloud Theory; the result of my doctoral research which approaches improvisation from the perspective of rhythmic and harmonic balance within restricted intervallic parameters.

Doctoral/Post Grad

  • Lecture: The creative process that resulted in Circle-Cloud Theory. This is a good talk or presentation for Doctoral candidates. In it I discuss creative process behind my DMA research. I talk about my story; the 8 year journey of experimentation and discovery that resulted in my theory and several albums of music.

Saxophone Technique:

  • Getting a great sound: a detailed look at the complexities of tone development on the saxophone, and techniques for improving your sound. This workshop goes deep into discussing the mechanism that contribute to control of ones sound.

  • Breathing techniques for saxophonists and wind instruments

  • Jazz articulation for the saxophone player

Other Workshops

  • Band workshops: big band and small band coaching and rehearsals.

  • How to use chromaticism to connect lines in jazz improvisation.

Current projects

  • Solo Saxophone: Tenor, High Pitch Tenor, Sopranino and Alto sax-Improvised

  • Roger Manins Michael Howell DUO: Improvised

  • Roger Manins and Jonathan Crayford Duo: Jazz standards and originals

  • GRG67: Original music and improvisation

  • HotFoot: Jazz Trio ( exploring the standards) with Cameron McArthur and Ron Samsom.

  • Quickdraw Carabiners: Double Quartet :Fronted by two of Aotearoa’s most dynamic and unique voices on the saxophone, Roger Manins and Jeff Henderson, this band will challenge themselves, each other, and the audience to new heights of aural experience, playing music to make your mind dance!

  • Mark Lockett Quartet: Swings and Roundabouts World Tour: So far we have toured extensively in New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Europe. Next tour ( Oct 2024) we will be tackling the UK, and back to Europe for a couple more gigs ( see current projects page)

Performance Practice and Philosophy.

I am very experienced in all aspects of jazz and improvised music performance and have been following the path since I fell in love with jazz at the age of 13 . I am happy playing traditional, swing, bebop, post-bop, modern jazz, funk, blues and I am totally into ‘free’ and improvised music. I love to fit in with every situation and love to collaborate with local and international musicians. I am also very passionate about playing jazz standards. I love to keep working over these beautiful forms. melodies and harmonies- always with 100% commitment and maximum creativity! I have many original projects and many albums of original compositions. I believe its all about connecting with the musicians you are playing with, and the audience you are playing to.