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.

JAZZ MOLES REJOICE

by Lynden Barber

The Sydney Morning Herald, December 24, 1987

Earlier this year, I witnessed one of the greatest jazz concerts I'd seen in ages when John Pochée 's Ten Part Invention took the stage at the (then) Piccadilly Hotel in the Cross, crack pianist Roger Frampton and drummer Pochée driving the band along like the drivers of a steaming express train on the downhill run. Had they been legendary American players charging big bucks at the door, you'd have felt it was money well spent, but the aggregate hasn't received a fraction of the attention that overseas performers have attracted for similar projects. Who said the cultural cringe was dead?

A CELEBRATION OF DIFFERENCE IN JAZZ

by Ian Muldoon

October 7, 2024

I, an atheist, went to church on Sunday, September 22, 2024. It was Christ Church in St Kilda, a beautiful venue built in 1857 now under the guidance of The Rev Dr Craig D’Alton. No lightning bolt struck me from the heavens. The occasion was a recital on the church piano by Tim Stevens. Stevens played mainly originals, with interpretations of church music and improvisations. It was a delightful mainly up-tempo performance of music on a piano left by the previous vicar.  Many musicians relish a church because of the acoustics even though interactions with the audience are respectfully minimalist.  I went to my own church that night, Jazzlab in Brunswick, Melbourne, for another, but very different musical (jazz) experience, where interactions are welcome…

THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 2024: A SELECTIVE IMPRESSION

by Ian Muldoon

November 19, 2024

Margaret Sutherland was the issue of a comfortable middle-class background - financial matters or indeed wealth were not driving concerns. Most artists, especially improvising artists, must contend with money to live, and sometimes to survive, as the pickings are slim and vanishingly small for the new and different if not avant-garde. The young artist may be acutely aware of these matters. Some spread their talents widely in order to broaden their appeal, or to embrace new technology, or for financial reasons, or to test their compositional skills. With these thoughts in mind I decided at the 2024 Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF) to devote my hard-earned money mainly to the young emerging artists - Audrey Powne or Xani Kolac or university music students - and to some established artists expanding musical boundaries such as the great Peter Knight and the great Robert Burke, both of whom provided startling evidence of the beauty of their musical minds and the reach of their ambition into other cultures…