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.

OBITUARY: JOHN EDGECOMBE 1925-1985

by Bruce Johnson

Jazz Magazine, Summer/Autumn, 1986

John Edgecombe was born on February 17, 1925 and died on December 11, 1985. He began tinkering with ukelele in 1937, and in the following year, inspired by bands jamming at Bondi Beach on Sunday evenings, he began to develop his jazz approach on guitar, receiving advice and encouragement from Jack Lander and Mischa Kanaef… 

OBITUARY: RAY PRICE 1921–1990

by Bruce Johnson

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 18, 2012

Raymond Arthur Price (1921-1990), jazz musician, was born on 20 November 1921 at Canterbury, Sydney, fourth of five children of Walter James Price, carpenter, and his wife Nellie May, née Knudson, both born in New Zealand. His parents were musicians, and Ray played drums in the Price family orchestra in the 1930s, including during a tour of New Zealand in 1938...

OBITUARY: ERROL BUDDLE 1928-2018

An appreciation by Bruce Johnson

March 16, 2018

I did not perform often enough with Errol Buddle to be able to speak as one of his regular musical colleagues. Even so, every one of the handful of times I worked with him, I found the experience overwhelmingly memorable, a source of enormous pride. It was not simply that I was having a musical conversation with a jazz musician of unsurpassed command and sensitivity, but that I knew I was standing next to a legend. I knew this as a long time historian of Australian jazz, and it is in that role that I am asked to write this obituary appreciation of his importance as a giant of the postwar Australian jazz...