ERIC MYERS REVIEWS 1980-87
Eric Myers was the Sydney Morning Herald’s inaugural jazz critic, his first review appearing on February 2, 1980. This folder contains reviews and articles written by Myers up to his resignation in 1982. Text published in the newspaper is reproduced here, with the addition of photographs which may or may not have appeared in the newspaper. In 1983 Myers moved to The Australian, where he was that paper’s jazz critic, until he resigned towards the end of 1987. His reviews for that newspaper appear also in this folder. Articles which appeared in other publications are included here, if they serve to document the performances of Australian jazz musicians. Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of reviews or articles in this folder.
John Hoffman
TRUMPETER JOHN HOFFMAN SHINES
by Eric Myers
Sydney Morning Herald, February 6, 1981
With so many American jazz musicians in Sydney over the past three weeks, it was ironic that the main attraction at the Jazz Action Society concert on Wednesday night should be another American who now lives in Sydney, the trumpeter John Hoffman. An unusually small audience attended, perhaps because the other American trumpeter in town that night, giving his swansong performance at the St James Tavern, was the great Woody Shaw…
Bill Haley
BILL HALEY: THE MAN WHO ROCKED THE WORLD
by Eric Myers
Sydney Morning Herald, February 11, 1981
Bill Haley will be remembered as the first white entertainer to successfully bring rhythm-and-blues, or R & B, into the mainstream of popular music, creating a new musical idiom — rock and roll. In the early 1950s, when Haley first came to notice, popular music was characterised by static forms, verbal clichés, tired harmonies and vapid romanticism. The affluent teenagers of the Eisenhower era, with their new portable tube radios, were turning away from that music, which was associated with their parents, and were increasingly attracted to the raw, pounding beat music which could be heard on the black stations…
Anita O’Day
JAZZ WITH A SENSE OF OCCASION
by Eric Myers
Encore Magazine, February, 1981
The Sydney International Music Festival, situated at the Regent Theatre, seemed to have the atmosphere, and the sense of occasion, that were missing from the Qantas International Jazz Festival. (See following story). Certainly the Music Festival appeared to corner the middle-of-the-road jazz market with Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson appearing on the opening night. Both are legendary African-American jazz musicians, going back to the bebop period of the 1940s, and are still performing well in 1981…