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.
Charlie Munro
ON CHARLIE MUNRO
by Bruce Johnson
Jazz Magazine, Summer/Autumn 1986
Charlie Munro’s sudden death in December, 1985 deprived us of a greater talent than most people, including those associated with jazz, have begun to understand. This record will help to change that, and the shame of it is that there is not more. Elsewhere in this issue I have lamented the tedious prolixity of various young ‘contemporary’ musicians. Munro presents the reverse: a musician with volumes to say, but who was given too little space to say it…
The Benders
ON THE BENDERS
by Bruce Johnson
Jazz Magazine, Summer/Autumn 1986
You know it’s The Benders from the opening juggernaut of The Brunt. It’s the band’s third LP, the second with Jason Morphett on reeds. The group is well enough established and widely enough admired for one simply to be able to say “another Benders’ record” for most jazz followers in Australia to have a fairly clear idea of what to expect. Original compositions with shape and development, delivered with regard to dynamic variation; instrumental command which in some cases amounts to legislative; fundamentally acoustic and foursquare in the jazz category as it is currently fed by various experiments into other fields as well as by its own rich tradition...
Ray Swinfield
ON RAY SWINFIELD
by Bruce Johnson
Jazz Magazine, May/June, 1983
Ray Swinfield’s name will be familiar to many readers of Jazz Magazine, since he is in fact an Australian musician, active in Sydney before he departed for the UK where I understand he is much in demand as a session man. This LP is the second under his own name, and it indicates that, while he may have become a more or less permanent resident of England, he has by no means forgotten Oz. The title of the album is taken from one of the songs on side 2, part of what he calls The Sydney Suite...