AJAZZ ARTICLES & REVIEWS 2019-
This folder contains reviews and articles written by Eric Myers for the Australian Jazz Museum’s magazine AJAZZ. Myers commenced writing occasional pieces for the magazine in November, 2019. Readers may click on the INDEX button for a list of reviews and articles in this folder. Click on the title of any review or article that you wish to read.
Gus Fenwick
GUS FENWICK ALBUM “ORVIETO”
Reviewed by Eric Myers
AJAZZ 90, August, 2021
This outstanding album results from sessions at Jim Kelly’s Tone Ranger studio near Lismore, NSW. Two quintets with overlapping personnel were recorded: the January band with leader Gus Fenwick (bass); Kerry Jacobson (drums); Jim Kelly (electric & acoustic guitars); Wil Sargisson (piano, organ, clavinet, strings); and Scott Hills (percussion); and the November band, with three personnel changes: Doug Gallacher (drums), Louie Shelton (guitar) and Brendan St Ledger (piano, organ, Wurlitzer). Additional guests, each on one track, are Mal Logan (keyboards), Michel Rose (pedal steel) and Shannon Marshall (trumpet). If forced (reluctantly) to categorise this music I would have to call it R & B. However, given the splendid improvisations from the guitarists and keyboardists, much of the music sounds to me like straight-ahead jazz, underlining the fact that of course R & B and jazz are closely related genres…
The Heads, top to bottom Dave MacRae, Bernie McGann, John Pochée, Bob Bertles, Andy Brown
THE HEADS: THE PUSSYCAT TAPES VOL 1
Reviewed by Eric Myers
AJAZZ 91, November, 2021
Coming simultaneously with the release of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme Live in Seattle, a jazz club performance recorded in 1965, this album from The Heads, The Pussycat Tapes Vol 1, recorded the previous year in 1964, is comparable, and equally as important. Both gigs were recorded by amateur enthusiasts, using a tape recorder and a couple of microphones, and bring to light the playing of musicians who are important to jazz history in both the USA and Australia. The Heads, a quartet of out-of-town musicians led by the then 24-year-old alto saxophonist Bernie McGann, was at a small jazz club in Melbourne, the Fat Black Pussycat, doing four nights a week…
Michael Walder
MICHAEL WALDER TRIO: BLUES FOR RAY
Reviewed by Eric Myers
AJAZZ 91, November, 2021
Blues For Ray from Sydney’s Michael Walder Trio is another debut album to hit my desk.... The trio includes Walder on double bass in tandem with two outstanding musicians, pianist Aaron Blakey and drummer Alex Hirlian, winner of the highly competitive 2018 National Jazz Awards at Wangaratta. Walder himself is a splendid bassist with a very big sound, and I’m not sure whether this emanates from his attack on the instrument in live performance, or whether a studio engineer has built up his sound in the mix because he’s the bandleader…