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: DON BANKS 1923-1980

by Michael Barkl with Bruce Johnson

The Oxford Companion to Australian Music, Warren Bebbington (ed) 1997.

Composer Donald Oscar Banks was born in Melbourne on 25 October, 1923, and died in Sydney on 5 September, 1980. He played piano from the age of five, showing an early interest in improvisation which was developed from 1938 with fellow high school jazz enthusiasts including Keith Atkins (reeds)…

OBITUARY: RICKY MAY 1944-1988

by Bruce Johnson

APRA Magazine, December 1988

Ricky May died shortly after midnight on June 1st, 1988, immediately following a performance at the Don Burrows Supper Club in Sydney. He was 44 years old. Next time you hear someone start a joke that puts down New Zealanders living in Australia, ask the person telling it if he or she can match the achievements of people like Rick Laird, Ned Sutherland, Laurie Lewis, Dave MacRae, Charlie Munro, Judy Bailey, Mike Nock, Julian Lee... And when we think about how much Australian music has to be thankful for from across the Tasman, the name Ricky May has to be at or near the top of the list…

OBITUARY: JOHN COSTELLOE 1930-1985

by Bruce Johnson

Jazz Magazine, Winter/Spring, 1985

John Costelloe was born in Cootamundra on October 8, 1930. As his father was the local bandmaster, it is not surprising that as a teenager Cossie, as he was always known, was playing with the Cootamundra City Band. His first regular jazz work was with The Modernist Jazz Band, in which he began by playing drums until the recruitment of another drummer enabled him to move to his preferred instrument, the trombone. This band became the Cootamundra Jazz Band, one of the few rural bands in Australia to reverse the usual pattern, by providing stimulus to the city scene, and by being booked to come to Sydney to perform, as it was by the Sydney Jazz Club in 1956. Cossie's facility stood out, and indeed at one time he had to decline an invitation to tour with Graeme Bell whose records had been an early inspiration to the Cootamundra musicians…