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.

UPDATING JAZZ

by Clement Semmler

Quadrant, April, 1980

Jazz has never been a 'popular' music. It is true, of course, that from time to time popular music has had strong jazz elements. There was the Charleston music of the 1920s; the swing music of the late '30s and '40s, for which, in its popular acceptance someone like Glenn Miller was probably better known than Benny Goodman (who was its chief architect so to speak); and, in recent years rock and soul music have exhibited undoubted blues elements. There is a curious corollary to the relationship between jazz and pop music…

TO THE LEFT: FREE JAZZ

by Ian Muldoon

February 18, 2023

When a conversation, sometimes leading to argument, turns to “free” jazz, all kinds of issues arise. Philosophically, it might represent the old saws about anarchy or noise, versus “proper” music which is in part about notated notes, balance, and structure for example where a clear beginning, a middle and end prevails. Physiologically (neurology) we are told that during REM sleep the prefrontal cortex, the guardian of logic and rules, ceases to function, allowing dreams to freewheel fuelled by fears, hopes and imaginary delights. Outside the dreamworld Newtonian “laws” in the 20th century have been in part adjusted or modified. The foundations of Western music have been tested by the emergence of African-American music beginning in the blues and evolving to the now and the playing of the likes of Australian musicians Sam Gill and Joseph Franklin - the former on a recent invention - the alto saxophone - and the latter on an ancient one, the guitar, in its contemporary modification of being electric and bass on their release To My Left Is Where The Lake Is…

REVIEW OF “BLUESVILLE TIME” (1985)

by Richard Cook

The Wire, May 1986, Issue 27

Cedar Walton is the sort of pianist every cat wants in their band, because he knows every chord, each turnaround, has an eloquent fill at every moment, and a touch you could count feathers with. As a result, maybe, he's not all that exciting to listen to: but this outing has some excellent guts in the form of Dale Barlow. Barlow is a young Australian tenorman with a terrific air of authority…