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.
Jex Saarelaht
IT DON'T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN'T GOT JEX SAARELAHT, SAM ANNING AND KYRIE ANDERSON
by Ian Muldoon
May 27, 2025
Memory is a bitch. Take 1959 when my fiancee rode me 90km on her Vespa scooter from Ipswich to Toowoomba to meet her mother, family and friends. The only thing I remember of that weekend was getting a copy of Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings (Clef) 1955 from a dinky little electrical shop. It was my introduction to Basie. It built on my feelings for the rhythmic delights of Fats Waller, The Mills Brothers, Ellington, Goodman, Monk, Peterson, Brubeck, and the rhythm engine of Walter Page, Gene Schroeder, Cliff Leeman and Eddie Condon which drove the Eddie Condon All Stars. The piano trio of Jex Saarelaht, Sam Anning and Kyrie Anderson in performance at the Jazzlab on Mother's Day, May 11, 2025 was a memorable one also, but not only, for its rhythmic delights…
Yunior Terry
DIGGING FOR COMPOSERS' GOLD IN COLEMAN, MOTIAN, PARKER, AND ANDREW HILL
by Ian Muldoon
June 12, 2025
There’s no getting around the 30-year period between 1939 and 1969. It was such a historically resonant time of destruction and creativity, and irrevocable changes, changes that are still playing out. Jazz reflected these changes in what must be the most concentrated musically creative period in history. Jazz exploded onto the world post WW1, grew rapidly into a huge entertainment industry, then matured into art music led by inter alia Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Charlie Christian onto Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley, Don Cherry, Lennie Tristano, Gil Evans, Grachan Moncur III, Wayne Shorter, Sun Ra, Herbie Nichols, and John Coltrane…
ON THE DINGO TRAIL WITH DIRECTOR ROLF DE HEER
by Tony Hillier
Rhythms magazine, November, 2008
Acclaimed Adelaide-based film director Rolf de Heer has been feted for the likes of Bad Boy Bubby (1993), The Quiet Room (1997), Dance Me To My Song (1998) and, more recently, The Tracker and Ten Canoes. Yet paradoxically the movie that arguably represents his greatest achievement lies gathering dust on video store shelves or is confined to e-commerce sites, all but forgotten. Dingo, released in 1991, might not be de Heer's magnum opus, but it assuredly merited an Oscar ... if only by dint of the fact that it was jazz giant Miles Davis's first and last starring role in a feature film. It would have scooped an Academy Award too — to go with the two Australian Film Institute (AFI) gongs it picked up — but for cruel misfortune. In fact, circumstances pretty well conspired against Rolf de Heer and Dingo from the word go.