Eric Myers Jazz

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.

BEN WINKELMAN: HEARTBEAT

Album review by Eric Myers

AJAZZ 100, February, 2024

I reviewed Ben Winkelman’s fifth album Balance for The Australian in May, 2019, and drew attention to the challenge which his music presents to the listener. It has been a pleasure to return to that album, and compare it to Winkelman’s sixth album Heartbeat. Even if the latest album in many ways offers us more of the same, I feel it has given me a more sophisticated understanding of how to listen to Winkelman’s music… While Balance was somewhat dark, I feel that Heartbeat has a more melodic, optimistic feel about it. Winkelman wrote the nine compositions on Heartbeat during the first months of the Covid pandemic when New York was notoriously the worst affected city in the United States. No doubt this was an anxious time, but it was also simultaneously a period of hope and optimism for Winkelman, as he and his wife were awaiting the arrival of their first child…

THE RETURN OF INDRA LESMANA

by Eric Myers

AJAZZ 102, August 2024

When it comes to cultural interaction between Australia and Indonesia, no expressive practice is more fruitfully involved than the art form of jazz. This began in earnest in 1979, when the brilliant Indonesian keyboardist Indra Lesmana, then aged 13, arrived in Sydney to study at the Conservatorium of Music. He was accompanied by his family: parents Nina and Jack, and sisters Mira and Lani. They lived here for five years before returning to their home country in 1984. During that time Indra was one of the most exciting and interesting jazz musicians in Sydney. Indeed he was playing like an experienced veteran as a teenager, studying at the Con, and later playing with leading local musicians, including the celebrated band which featured Sandy Evans among others, Women & Children First…

LINER NOTES FOR INDRA LESMANA’S SYDNEY REUNION ALBUM

by Eric Myers

AJAZZ 103, November, 2024

When Indra Lesmana contacted me recently and asked me to write the liner notes for his Sydney Reunion album, I felt a frisson of excitement, because Indra became one of my favourite jazz musicians of all time during the years he spent in Australia as a young man.  In 1979 he arrived in Sydney from Indonesia with his parents Nina and Jack, and sisters Mira and Lani. The Lesmana family spent five years in Australia before returning to their home country in 1984. During that time Indra was one of the most exciting and interesting jazz musicians in Sydney…