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.
Jeremy Sawkins
JEREMY SAWKINS’ SOMNAMBIENCE
Album review by Eric Myers
AJAZZ 94, August, 2022
A musician of expertise and virtuosity, Jeremy Sawkins is comfortably at home in the company of Australia’s leading jazz musicians, where he effortlessly shines. On this album, entitled Somnambience - a term he’s coined, but which he says literally means “sleep ambience” - he’s created an unusual context for himself, playing unaccompanied the nylon string acoustic guitar. It’s a quiet album of eight tracks only, running to about half-an-hour of music, but it’s not without depth, and not without variety…
Jahl Heshi
JAHL HESHI
Album review by Eric Myers
AJAZZ 96, February, 2023
When I reviewed Lachy Hamilton’s outstanding album Alchemy in The Australian in 2019 I regarded him then as a “young musician” and predicted that he and his talented colleagues would be household names in the future. Time flies and I daresay that the future has now arrived for this highly talented saxophonist, heard here in the company of three relatively new colleagues, in a quartet formed in 2022. Jahl Heshi the album (it’s also the name of the group) is testimony to the depth of talent in the current outstanding generation of relatively youthful musicians who are making waves in modern jazz today…
Aaron Blakey
AARON BLAKEY: OBIHIRO
Album review by Eric Myers
AJAZZ 97, May 2023
I first became aware of pianist Aaron Blakey in November, 2019, when I heard the Sydney quartet led by alto saxophonist Michael Griffin. My review, entitled “Pub jazz springs to life in Sydney’s King Cross” appeared in The Australian around that time. Subsequently I heard Blakey, again as a sideman, on Michael Walder’s excellent 2021 album Blues for Ray. A piano trio album with Walder on double bass, and drummer Alex Hirlian, who won the 2018 National Jazz Award at Wangaratta, it also included horn players Simon Ferenci (trumpet) and Chris O’Dea (tenor saxophone) on some tracks. Even when surrounded by these splendid musicians, Blakey’s brilliance shone through…