Australian Dictionary of Biography

Roger Frampton, n.d.

Courtesy of Eric Myers

Roger Donald Frampton (1948–2000), jazz pianist, saxophonist, percussionist, and composer, was born on 20 May 1948 at Portsmouth, England, eldest of four children of Margaret Edith, née Greenwood, and her husband Donald George Frampton, bakery roundsman. With an early interest in music, Roger became proficient on the recorder at primary school, then played E-flat brass bass in the school orchestra. He also learned alto saxophone, and piano so that he could understand harmony. At fifteen, having established a modern jazz quintet, he was performing in local clubs.

At eighteen Frampton moved to London, where he became involved with the jazz scene. The whole family subsequently relocated to Australia, arriving in Adelaide on 29 December 1966; Roger would become an Australian citizen on 29 April 1987. He quickly made an impact on the local jazz arena and played at the city’s main modern jazz venue, The Cellar. In 1967 he married Jennifer (surname unknown) in Adelaide; they would divorce in 1973. He moved to Sydney in 1968, where in association with the composer David Ahern and others, he formed the experimental group Teletopa in 1970. The band used standard instruments in non-conventional ways as well as various objets trouvés and electronic effects. After touring in Britain, Europe, and Japan, the group disbanded in 1972.

Frampton formed the trio Jazz Co-op in 1972. The following year, the reed player Howie Smith arrived in Sydney from the United States of America to lead Australia’s first tertiary jazz education program within the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music. Smith became the fourth member of Jazz Co-op, which made its debut at the newly opened jazz venue The Basement in May 1974, and Frampton joined the conservatorium teaching staff. In about 1973 he had begun a de facto relationship with Betty Lys, with whom he had a daughter, Emily. The couple separated several years later, and on 27 August 1979 in Sydney he married Carole Elizabeth Watt, who had changed her name to Tara Elizabeth Watt in July.

During 1982 Frampton formed the band Intersection. He and his wife divorced in May 1983, and he entered a de facto partnership with Jennifer Regan; the couple would remain together until 1990. Active until 1985 or 1986, Intersection toured India for the Department of Foreign Affairs in January 1984, as well as performing in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The group also appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation television show The Burrows Collection in August. He then joined the band Ten Part Invention, founded by the drummer John Pochée, which made its national debut at the 1986 Adelaide Festival of the Arts. The band’s rhythm section (Frampton, Pochée, and the bassist Steve Elphick) became a complementary trio called The Engine Room, and the two groups provided Frampton with his most high-profile platform for performance and composition. In late 1989 the trio toured the Soviet Union to much acclaim; their success paved the way for subsequent tours by Australian bands. After returning to Australia, he married Soviet Union-born Elena Georgievna Menjourova, née Pristavkina, on 21 July 1990 in Sydney. In 1991 he won the Australasian Performing Right Association award for jazz composition of the year for his piece ‘And Zen Monk.’

After the conservatorium of music came under the aegis of the University of Sydney during 1990, stricter academic criteria were applied to appointments, and in 1995 Frampton was asked to reapply for his job. He had no tertiary qualifications and he was not reappointed, although he continued briefly as a casual lecturer before resigning. The loss of income caused financial difficulties, and following eviction from his house in Sydney, he shifted to Wollongong. He began studying for a doctorate of creative arts at the University of Wollongong (DCA, 1999). In the mid-1990s he and his wife separated and began divorce proceedings.

In August 1999 Frampton was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. He continued to perform, including a program of his own compositions with Ten Part Invention at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues. In December he received his doctorate for his thesis entitled ‘The View from Within: Correlations between My Composition and Improvisation.’ ‘Improvisation,’ he reflected, was ‘second nature to me,’ and his compositions and improvisations reflected his ‘penchant for variety, contrast and surprises’ (Frampton 1999, 3, 9). Survived by his daughter and his de facto wife Sherylene Robinson, he died on 4 January 2000 at his home at Fairy Meadow. He was regarded as perhaps the most outstanding figure in Australian contemporary music in the late twentieth century, as performer, composer, and inspirational educator, significantly influencing the next generation of contemporary Australian jazz musicians. In October 1999 he had performed with the American saxophonist Steve Lacy, who declared him to be ‘for me, the best pianist in the world’ (Jones 2000, 14).