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.

PREFACE TO SEEING THE RAFTERS

by John Sangster

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1988

I'd like to thank, early on, my friends Jane March, Howard Hughes and Norm Linehan, who helped me with some of the photographs. Most of the stuff, however, I retrieved from the attic, as they say. I thank also Eric Myers, for his help in steering me towards Penguin Books. At last I know what a 'Jazz Co-Ordinator' does. Had me baffled for a while there. A couple of people who read the manuscript reckoned I was 'too self-effacing', that I 'belittled myself too much, and minimised my own contribution to Australian jazz'…

FOREWORD TO SEEING THE RAFTERS

by Don Burrows

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1988

The man is unique. Then, so is his music. If you've ever been present at one of his recording sessions, as I have on so many occasions, you'll know what I mean when I say the atmosphere is special and very different — just like John [Sangster] himself. There is real expectation in the air, and when you start running the music through, 'for notes', it becomes apparent that he has virtually 'scripted' each part for the individual playing it —rather than for the instrument being used. You feel needed. I think there's a touch of the Duke in him in this regard. I first clapped eyes on John Sangster in the mid-to-late 50s…

PRELUDE TO BERNIE McGANN: A LIFE IN JAZZ

by Geoff Page

Kardoorair Press, Armidale, 1997

The story of Bernie McGann — considered by a wide consensus of critics and listeners to be the most original saxophonist in Australian jazz — is one of extraordinary persistence against decades of non-recognition and is, in many ways, a paradigm for the experience of jazz musicians in Australia more generally…