Patriography, grief, and all that jazz

As part of my recent PhD, I produced a documentary film on the life and music of my father, the jazz musician, Roger Frampton (1948–2000). While a primary motivation for its making was to explore his contribution to Australian music and to the musical lives of his collaborators and students, I was also driven to understand the grief I had long held over his premature death. The film and the process of its making functioned as both a biographical work of Australian jazz history and a project of family history. The film memorialised Roger Frampton and his musical legacy at the same time as recontextualising our relationship as daughter-father to that of biographer-subject. The tensions that derived from this recontextualisation sometimes proved challenging, but ultimately the project delivered a closeness to him, and insights into my own background, that continue to resonate.