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.

FOREWORD TO JIM McLEOD’S JAZZTRACK

by Jim McLeod

The book “Jim McLeod’s Jazztrack” was published in 1994.

How did you get started with jazz? This must be the most frequently asked question, not only of jazz musicians, but also of me. The trouble is, I don't know. For as long as I can remember my happiest times were spent listening to music and mostly to jazz in one of its forms. When I was growing up—I was born in September 1939—jazz was a large part of the popular music. The bands of Benny Goodman, with such brilliant soloists as trumpeter Harry James, pianists Teddy Wilson and Jess Stacy; Tommy Dorsey with good soloists and singers such as Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford; Artie Shaw with his big band successes Begin the Beguine and Frenesi and the wonderful sounds of the Gramercy Five. The musicianship, the originality and the jazz of these bands. their arrangements and players was everywhere to be heard. That was what we heard coming out of our radios…

BRYCE ROHDE: A CUSHION OF AIR

by John Shand

www.australianjazz.net, October 7, 2013

The writer John Clare once hit upon the perfect adjective for the sound that Bryce Rohde extracts from a piano: ‘pearly’. All the wondrous aspects of a beautiful pearl are in place: muted luxuriance, translucence and mysterious depth. The lines that flow from that sound dance and float across the rhythm with singular elegance. An element of surprise in where the melodies lead is never far away, so that a sense of adventure is implicit, but muted rather than broadcasting its presence. These qualities, in turn, also characterise Rohde’s substantial body of compositions, the most famous of which is probably the glorious Windows of Arques, used as the theme music for Jim McLeod’s Jazztrack on ABC Classic FM for all those years…

SYDNEY

by Bruce Johnson

Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz, 1987

Jazz in Sydney is not only distinctive in degree, but in kind. In terms of musical interchange, it is the most fluid scene in the country. An unparalleled level of freelancing gives the picture a bewildering diversity. Each entry pertaining to a Sydney musician is therefore likely to be more skeletal than those for other regions; most subjects are, in addition to regular band membership, busy as freelancers, deputizing on short- and long-term bases. This richness of interchange has had a reflexive relationship with the stylistic character of the local music. The lines of stylistic demarcation (traditional, modern, etc) are less clearly defined than anywhere else, not only within the jazz spectrum, but across the whole musical range. There are enclaves of purist exclusivism, but these are exceptions rather than norms, unlike the case in other centres…