ALBUM REVIEWS IN THE AUSTRALIAN
In September, 2017, Eric Myers commenced reviewing jazz albums in the Review supplement of The Weekend Australian. All reviews in this folder are written by Myers. As from October 21, 2025, the magazine Review was replaced by another magazine entitled Culture. From that date reviews by Eric Myers appeared either online in The Weekend Australian or as Album of The Week in the magazine Culture.
JAZZ
Quartet by Tessie Overmyer
ABC Jazz
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Published online in the Weekend Australian’s Culture magazine on June 20, 2026.
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This is the third album helping to establish Sydney alto saxophonist Tessie Overmyer as one of the most exciting young instrumentalists to emerge in years. The preceding two were Laying Down a Path in Walking from the brilliant quintet Jiem in 2024, and her widely celebrated 2025 debut album as a leader Tidelines. Other than Overmyer, Quartet features two outstanding musicians of her generation, Wilbur Whitta (piano) and George Greenhill (drums) plus the Australian double bassist Kate Pass, brought back from New York, where she now lives, for this session. They play ten of Overmyer’s exceedingly well-written original compositions, which emphasise the immortal swing-feel. There’s no sign of fusion. Other than Overmyer’s blistering solos, and the impeccable sound of her alto, the primary delight of the album is the playing of Whitta, whose solos and comping reveal a rare talent indeed. He stamps his authority on the music throughout. In an era when gender equality is still an issue, it’s interesting that Overmyer refers to “a highly masculine energy” in Australian jazz. “This project”, she writes, “is my response to that gender imbalance.”
★★★★½
Eric Myers
JAZZ
Rinse and Repeat by Mosaic
Independent
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Published online in the Weekend Australian’s Culture magazine on July 4, 2026.
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Mosaic, a 10-piece ensemble inspired by the late John Pochée’s great band Ten Part Invention (TPI), has released an outstanding follow-up to its 2024 debut album Where We Are Now. It continues this group’s compelling path onward and upwards. It features Leo Marland, Noah Mejia, Lachie Eggert (saxophones); Sarah Morrison & Braden Clarke (trumpet & flugelhorn); Lee Orszaczky, Cailey Soon (trombones); Ravi Trachtenberg-Ray (piano, rhodes); James Watt (double & electric bass); and Matt Simmonds (drums). Five of eight tracks feature works by band members, with three from outside writers Olivia Bryant, Elly Blackham and Christopher Rozakeas. The brilliant arrangements and improvisations here are a credit to the Sydney Conservatorium, where these musicians met not long ago as students. All the writers take full advantage of the instrumental colours afforded by ten musicians, as did the original TPI. Two tracks feature excellent singers Liz Player and Leah Reinhardt, and saxophonist Elly Blackham guests on one track. Sandy Evans, an original TPI member, says it all in the liner notes: “Here, composition and improvisation exist in perfect balance, working together to generate music of striking beauty and meaning.”
★★★★½
Eric Myers
JAZZ
Redleaf by Hilary Geddes
Earshift Music
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Published online in the Weekend Australian’s Culture magazine on July 11, 2026.
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In 2021 the young guitarist Hilary Geddes won the lucrative Freedman Jazz Fellowship, which has helped to fund her beautiful second album Redleaf. It features eight of her highly imaginative compositions which I feel can be brought to life only with the support of unusually talented colleagues. Thankfully the four brilliant musicians on her 2021 debut album Parkside are here again: Matthew Harris (piano), Max Alduca (double bass), and Alexander Inman-Hislop (drums). Alongside the familiar sound of Geddes’ guitar, so redolent of the jazz tradition, they authoritatively create a constellation of sounds which tick new boxes in Australian jazz: passages where time is displaced between the four musicians; and ruminative passages which are decidedly unconventional, blurring the boundaries between literal playing and abstract free improvisation. Geddes sounds completely at home no matter which genre is being explored, while her music challenges normal expectations. Produced by the talented Laurence Pike, and with the influence of Andrea Keller specially credited in the liner notes, this album is the latest evidence that Australian musicians are creating a jazz culture unique in the world today.
★★★★½
Eric Myers