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.

GEOFF BULL: AN INTERVIEW

by Eric Myers

Jazz Magazine, December 1981 

The Sydney cornet player Geoff Bull has been a strong advocate of traditional New Orleans jazz since 1958, when he attended the Australian jazz Convention in Sydney, and became interested in records by early black musicians. Self-taught, he began playing in 1959. In 1962 he formed the Olympia Jazz Band. He has visited New Orleans many times and has toured the US, Europe and Japan with various traditional jazz musicians. He now leads a group which plays at the Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain...

ALLAN BROWNE: DRUMMING UP 50 REASONS TO REJOICE

by Andra Jackson

Sydney Morning Herald, May 21, 2010

Melbourne drummer Allan Browne recalls attending a jazz dance when he was 16 that was to change his life and the course ofAustralian jazz. With him were close friends Brett Iggulden and Bill Howard, all obsessed with flying model aeroplanes. But on hearing the Yarra Yarra New Orleans Jazz Band they were transfixed and back at Iggulden’s home pulled out his father’s George Lewis recording -the American clarinettist prominent in the 50s’ revival of New Orleans jazz…

NO BIG DEAL: AN INTERVIEW WITH PHIL TRELOAR

by John Shand + Concert Review by Eric Myers

Jazz Magazine, January/February, 1982

“What a load of pretentious bullshit!” The heckler is well-primed and loud-mouthed, the music is soft and the audience attentive. The entire Basement hears the comment; even the band members look up, as our friend storms out. The band on the stand is Phil Treloar Expansions, playing a long Treloar composition entitled Primal Communication. As the title alone would suggest, it does tread dangerously close to pretentiousness, but the saving grace is a quality inherent in Treloar’s playing: a kind of naïve earthiness that is almost devoid of ego…