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.

AUSTRALIAN ART ORCHESTRA 30TH ANNIVERSARY

by Ian Muldoon

November 23, 2024

The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) was established in 1994 by composer and pianist Paul Grabowsky AO. Its history, and Grabowsky’s cultural and social impact, and musical achievements are for others to relate. I’m sticking to a personal response and some observations about the celebratory performance of its 30th Anniversary on November 15, 2024 at the Melbourne Recital Centre, Elizabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne. It could have been marketing smarts to call a jazz band an “art orchestra”. To be a musician is one thing, to be a jazz musician is quite another, Roscoe Mitchell once opined. Grabowsky would have been very well aware of the label “jazz” being bloated with connotations and denotations some of them spawning mind images of white guys (yes, guys) in boater hats in a pub, or black guys (yes, guys) making wild sounds, or just noise. However, in this new century the label may be attaining a new status…

THE MOIRAI TRIO 2024

by Ian Muldoon

December 31, 2024

Chamber (improvised) music with its dynamics, subtleties, microtones, expressive range, is affected by the elements of that setting, such as seating, audience, sound quality, energy and manner of performance, mood of players and expectations, the feeling in the room. Expectations include that a paid performance is no rehearsal, it’s not some casual insight into the latest garage band, but a presentation by musicians of a programme of work, curated to exhibit the best they have to offer at this stage of their development or a recap of their most satisfactory works honed over a long period of intense practice, discussion and experimentation… On the evening of December 5, 2024, at the Quad Club at 8pm I listened to Moirai, a chamber trio of Meg Cohen, violin; David Moran, cello; and Alexander Meagher, percussion and vibraphone. Moirai fulfilled expectations, indeed in some ways exceeded them, but Moirai also raised issues about women in the musical arts, cultural and historical education, genre-free music and the spoken word…

THE JAZZ VOICE OF JENNY BARNES

by Ian Muldoon

January 28, 2025

There has been much ideological shilly shallying about the jazz genre and confusion about what it “is” but the one definition that sticks in my mind is “the sound of surprise” which I think was first used by Nat Hentoff and has been appropriated by the estimable Whitney Balliett (cf The Sound of Surprise: 46 pieces on jazz, Balliett, 1959, Dutton, NY). That phrase really strikes me as the most accurate way to describe jazz; some wag might respond “so thunder is jazz?”. I guess it’s very human to embrace the familiar and I do. If I want to remind myself of the beauty of past works, I may turn to Symphony No 45 (Haydn) or Dave Brubeck Quartet and their version of Love Walked In (George Gershwin, from Jazz Red Hot and Cool,  Columbia,1955) or Bernie McGann doing Sweet and Lovely (Daniels/Arnheim/Tobias) from his album Wending, (Rufus, Sydney, 2012) in which he may remind you of Ornette Coleman - except McGann has more feeling in this instance. Monk also did a striking version. So much for the familiar…