BRUCE JOHNSON

This folder is dedicated to the writings of Professor A J B (Bruce) Johnson, perhaps best-known as the author of the Oxford Companion to Australian jazz (1987). A prolific writer on Australian jazz, his articles on this website already appear in many folders, and in the fulness of time they will hopefully be uploaded to this folder. Click on the INDEX button for a list of articles in this folder.

SYDNEY

by Bruce Johnson

Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz, 1987

Jazz in Sydney is not only distinctive in degree, but in kind. In terms of musical interchange, it is the most fluid scene in the country. An unparalleled level of freelancing gives the picture a bewildering diversity. Each entry pertaining to a Sydney musician is therefore likely to be more skeletal than those for other regions; most subjects are, in addition to regular band membership, busy as freelancers, deputizing on short- and long-term bases. This richness of interchange has had a reflexive relationship with the stylistic character of the local music. The lines of stylistic demarcation (traditional, modern, etc) are less clearly defined than anywhere else, not only within the jazz spectrum, but across the whole musical range. There are enclaves of purist exclusivism, but these are exceptions rather than norms, unlike the case in other centres…

OBITUARY: TOM BAKER 1952-2001

by Bruce Johnson

JazzChord, Dec 01/Jan 02

Tom (John Thomas) Baker was born in Oakdale, California, on September 14, 1952, just over 100 miles from San Francisco. He died in Holland, on October 23, 2001, aged 49. Tom Baker began piano lessons at the age of six, with the parental expectation that he would one day become a concert pianist. His interests, however, lay more with contemporary pop, but it was a concert by a US Marines band in San Francisco that turned his attention to brass instruments…

OBITUARY: JOHN SANGSTER 1928-1995

by Bruce Johnson

John Grant Sangster, musician/composer, was born 17 November 1928 in Melbourne, only child of John Sangster and Isabella (née Davidson, then Pringle by first marriage). He attended Sandringham (1933), then Vermont Primary Schools, and Box Hill High School. Self-taught on trombone then cornet, learning from recordings with friend Sid Bridle, with whom he formed a band…