JAZZCHORD ARTICLES

Between 1993 and 2002, 53 editions of the bi-monthly magazine JazzChord were published as part of the National Jazz Co-ordination Program. This folder includes a selection of articles from those editions. Articles published in JazzChord appear on this site also in the JOHN CLARE, JAZZ CO-ORDINATION, BOOK REVIEWS, CONTRIBUTIONS and OBITUARIES folders. Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of articles in this folder.

JOHN SANGSTER: AN IMPROMPTU RESPONSE TO HIS DEATH

by Bruce Johnson

JazzChord, Oct/Nov, 1995

On October 27, 1995 I tape recorded the monthly broadcast Home Cooking, to go to air the next day on 2MBS-FM. The series is devoted to special features on Australian jazz and this one was devoted to the part played by the music in the representation of national identity. The programme opened and closed with the work of Dave Dallwitz and John Sangster respectively. I described them as leading figures in the articulation of the Australian experience through jazz composition and performance. I said:  “We could not conclude this survey of jazz and the sense of Australianness without reference to John Sangster…"

12TH TAC WANGARATTA FESTIVAL OF JAZZ 2001

by John Clare, with a brief introduction on the Peace Process

JazzChord, Dec 01/Jan 02

There are morons in Sydney who call Melbourne 'Bleak City', having no receptors for the subtle and intense atmospheric changes of our most fascinating capital. But everyone I know loves Melbourne, and at any rate all that nonsense is left behind when we meet at Wangaratta. Therefore I was distressed to hear rumours of a jihad stirring in the warm South. Some Bin Laden type was howling a prophecy that would madden the remotest resident of Reservoir with dreams of paradise. If enough hatred was directed north, infidel Sydney would explode in time loop for ever and ever and ever. On the first night I did encounter some infantile chauvinism…

ON ARTHUR JAMES RECEIVING THE OAM

by John Sangster

JazzChord, Jan/Feb, 1994

I’ve been lucky enough to have spent the first half of my life as a musician in the ‘trad’ or 'Dixieland’ idiom, where the emphasis is on dancing and having a good time, and generally whooping it up; and the second half of my life in the ‘modern’ jazz framework, where the audiences prefer to sit and actually listen to the musicians. The ten years I spent playing with, and composing for, the various groups at Arthur James’s El Rocco jazz club were, I think, highly significant, not only for my own musical development, but for a host of other ‘modern’ jazz players and composers...