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.

THE AUSTRALIAN JAZZ MUSEUM: PLAYING ITS OWN TUNE

by Loretta Barnard

‘Australia Explained’ website, December 3rd, 2018.

Museums: places that collect and care for objects of artistic, historic, scientific and cultural significance, places that preserve the past while also making it available for present and future generations to enjoy… One museum celebrating human artistic achievement is the Australian Jazz Museum. Chances are that unless you’re a jazz lover – and even if you are – you’ve never heard of it. Located in Wantirna in Melbourne’s east, it’s home to the largest Australian jazz collection in the country, a collection that’s growing bigger every day…

CONFESSIONS OF A SWING ADDICT 1924-28

by Frank Coughlan

JAM: Australia’s First Swing Annual, 1938

My first experience of swing music, and I still contend it is swing, was sometime in '23 or '24. An angel of light by the name of Eric Barbier, Rose Bay, took me home and played me my first swing record, The Cotton Pickers (alias The Memphis Five) Brunswick, playing Hot Lips and State Street Blues. Raw as I was, I was amazed at the trombone work of the greatest trombonist to influence jazz music Miff Mole. How I worshipped that name, that man!...

FRANK COUGHLAN: AUSTRALIA'S GREAT MASTER OF JAZZ

by Charles Jay

JAM: Australia’s First Swing Annual, 1938

In this rich, intellectual, mechanically pulsating life, the musical movement known as jazz, has grown to enormous importance. Once jazz was dubbed the ragamuffin of music. Cast aside as insignificant, the very name ‘jazz’, to some people is sufficiently vile enough for them to bury their heads in the sand like the ostrich. As for the names "Ragtime," "Hot" or "Swing," which have been the commercial labels of jazz, they are snobbishly snubbed by the devotees of what is now called "legitimate" music. Jazz is no "Cinderella" of music. It was born grown up and we are still endeavouring to catch up to its intellectual construction and pulsation…