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.

JOHN SCURRY AND WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT JAZZ

by Ian Muldoon

March 9, 2025

At Jazzlab in Brunswick, Melbourne it is first-in best-dressed for seating. There is a well-stocked bar and a good sound system with a well-tuned house grand piano to the left of the stage, ebony and glistening. The manager Ramona (name means ‘wise protector’) castes her professional eye over the club before opening.  The helper at the bar, willing to please, has the skills to put together a decent martini. On this Thursday evening February 6,2025 the mood is upbeat. Trumpeter Eugene Ball is wearing his candy pink frames. There is a sprinkle of chit-chat and laughter from the arrivals. Tonight it’s the music of New Orleans. Here we have a jazz band playing “old fashioned” music in hip Brunswick, an arty up-to-date suburb, perhaps a suburb inhabited by many Woke persons? What gives?

WOMEN WITH SOMETHING TO SAY

by Ian Muldoon

March 20, 2025

Me? I can’t help myself when those dreamy golden musical moments happen. I want to yell. I want to share. Bernie McGann called these moments golden as “holes in one.” My cousin never stopped talking about a Duke Ellington band he heard in New York during WWII. Friends of mine still talk about a John Scofield/James Muller golden moment at the 2008 Wangaratta Jazz Festival. My most recent golden moments were at a 2025 Jazzlab gig featuring two vocalists, a piano and a tenor saxophone. Not just any piano, but a well-tuned Yamaha grand driven by Andrea Keller and not just any tenor saxophone but a Selmer Mark VI blown by Sandy Evans. Not just another gig, but one where the artists had something to say…

ELECTRIC BASSIST AND COMPOSER SIEBE POGSON

Interviewed by Philip Pogson

CutCommon, May 22, 2018

Since its first performance three years ago, Elysian Fields – Australia’s only electric viola da gamba band – has carved out a growing reputation for performances that blur the boundaries between jazz, chamber music, and world music. On May 24, 2018, Elysian Fields will launch its Scandinavian Project, which features Scandinavian jazz and folk songs alongside new music inspired by the Nordic World. In this interview, Siebe Pogson, one of Sydney’s up-and-coming electric bassists, talks about his new piece The Tragedy, The Journey and The Destination, which will receive its world premiere at the launch of the Scandinavian Project on May 24, 2018…