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.

SOME THOUGHTS ON JAZZ EDUCATION

by Ian Muldoon

February 3, 2022

My first encounter with authority was on 4th March 1939 when Doctor Robert B Bennett of Wyuna Private Hospital, Manly, whacked me on my bottom to get me to sing, and sing I did. Then there was my grandmother whose authority with a pot stick across my legs was enshrined in the phrase “It’s for your own good!” There were teachers too, including the Deputy Principal of Balgowlah Boys High who gave me “six of the best” with a cane for reading a “dirty book” written by Carter Brown called The Blonde with a very fine (so I felt) illustration on the cover. In 1955 I was “encouraged” to join the RAAF to get me away from Queenscliff beach which had more appeal than Manly Boys High…

BEAUX MOMENTS MUSICAUX (BATTERIE)

by Ian Muldoon

March 7, 2022

At a performance of the band Mingus Amongst Us at Foundry 616 in 2022 the musicians foregathered at the break to chit chat, but the drummer was absent.  At the end of the night, the musicians get together whilst the drummer packs up his kit. That’s right. Is the drummer really a “musician”? Deep South slave holders banned the drum. Is the drummer a sideline act for the music called jazz? Or are the drums central to the music and more? After the voice, banging something with an implement may be the second sound made by the child - Buddy Rich may have begun banging, but he started playing when he was 18 months old.  Drums get attention…

WHERE JAZZ LIVES NOW

by Giovanni Russonello

New York Times, March, 2022

The jazz club, with its dim lighting and closely packed tables, looms large in our collective imagination. But today, the music is thriving in a host of different places. A disco ball threw beads of light across a crowded dance floor on a recent Monday night in Lower Manhattan while old film footage rolled across a wall by the stage. A half-dozen musicians were up there, churning waves of rhythm that reshaped over time: A transition might start with a double-tap of chords, reggae-style, from the keyboardist Ray Angry, or with a new vocal line, improvised and looped by the singer Kamilah. A classically trained pianist who’s logged time with D’Angelo and the Roots, Angry doesn’t “call tunes,” in the jazzman’s parlance. As usual, his group was cooking up grooves from scratch, treating the audience as a participant. Together they filled the narrow, two-story club with rhythm and body heat till well past midnight…