ESSAYS

This section includes essays on various jazz subjects, written by a number of writers. Contributions are welcome. Writers interested in contributing are welcome to contact the editor by filling out the form in the CONTACT tab. Photographs to illustrate those essays are welcome. Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of articles in this folder.

CLEMENT SEMMLER: THE FORGOTTEN JAZZ PIONEER

 by Eric Myers

Jazz Magazine, September/October, 1982

I met Clem Semmler in the early 1980s after I began publishing and editing Jazz Magazine. I understood that he had enjoyed a distinguished career at the ABC, and that he was Deputy General Manager when he left in 1977. He had been previously head of ABC radio, TV and overseas programs…

THE EL ROCCO: AN ERA IN SYDNEY JAZZ

by Bruce Johnson

Jazz Magazine, Jan/Feb, 1983, March/April 1983, May/June 1983

At the top of William Street the last block on your left as you enter the Cross is an apartment building which, in the fifties, also had a room below street level, functioning somewhat listlessly as a plumber’s workshop and boiler room. When the owners decided to turn it into a more profitable space, the combination of its situation (on the edge of Sydney’s bohemian quarter), and the times (known retrospectively as the Beat Generation), made their decision relatively easy. Fashionable intellectual rebellion in the late fifties found its social forum in the Coffee Lounge…

THE ERROL BUDDLE STORY (PART ONE)

by Eric Myers

Jazz Magazine, July/August 1982, and September/October, 1982

When I first came to Sydney from the country in 1962, the jazz scene was relatively dormant, compared to the lively activity we have today in the art form. The El Rocco, in Kings Cross, was in full swing. But other than that rather gloomy cellar, where you were served coffee, sandwiches, but no alcohol, there were only one or two other places where you could hear live progressive jazz…