Eric Myers Jazz

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.

KEITH STIRLING QUINTET & THE KEYS BAND

by Eric Myers

Sydney Morning Herald, May 8, 1981

In a delightful evening which celebrated various historical forms of jazz, the Jazz Action Society came up with a winner on Wednesday night. The Keys Band, which often performs free jazz, peered into the past and took the audience on a stimulating trip through African music, and the idioms loosely known as ragtime, the Chicago school, the swing era, bebop, the cool school, free jazz and jazz/rock fusion. It was an ambitious, even audacious task, but the group captured beautifully the essence of each idiom, and the narration, done with some wit by the saxophonist Daniel Fine, made the whole exercise positive and unpretentious…

MIKE NOCK: RETURNING FOR RENEWAL

by Eric Myers

Sydney Morning Herald, May 12, 1981

There was a time when refugees from Australian jazz became overseas expatriates, and never returned to this country. But the brilliant pianist Mike Nock, 40, who left Australia in 1961, has been back almost every year since 1977. "Every time I come here I find that I go back to the United States with a renewed sense of what I'm about," Mike Nock said on his arrival this week. "In Australia it was initially where I came to some kind of success with jazz music. When it comes down to it, jazz is just a musical expression of what's going on in society…”

EDDIE DANIELS QUARTET: EXCITEMENT & POOR SOUND

by Eric Myers

Sydney Morning Herald, May 14, 1981

Owing to last-minute hitches, Greg Quigley's new jazz club The Two-Five-One did not open on Tuesday night, and the quartet led by the American Eddie Daniels appeared instead at The St James Tavern. No-one who came to hear Daniels could have been disappointed. One of the most complete instrumentalists in American music, he doubles with equal proficiency on flute, clarinet and saxophone. He is just as much at home in jazz as he is in commercial recording sessions and, with a Master's degree from Juilliard School of Music in New York, has no difficulty with the academic approach to music. On Tuesday night he demonstrated stunning technique and effortless fluency on all his instruments…