OBITUARIES

This folder includes obituaries for jazz musicians or persons of significance to the Australian jazz community, written by several contributors. Click on the INDEX box to access a list of obituaries contained in this folder.

OBITUARY: JAMIE FIELDING 1960-1993

by Martin Jackson & Sherre Delys

JazzChord, Jul/Aug, 1993

The exceptionally gifted pianist/keyboardist/composer Jamie Fielding was killed in a tragic train accident in Sydney, where he had lived since 1985. A highly individualistic and versatile musician Jamie had two distinct phases of his career: the predominantly acoustic contemporary jazz period in Melbourne, from 1979 to early 1985; and the more experimental electronic period in Sydney from late 1985 to mid-1993. As such, he held a unique position in Australian improvised musics…

OBITUARY: WHITNEY BALLIETT 1926-2007

by John Fordham

The Guardian, 5 February, 2007

Sometime in the late 1960s, as a callow jazz fan, I stumbled across a jazz review anthology, The Sound of Surprise. I had never heard of the writer, New Yorker journalist Whitney Balliett, who has died aged 80. I began reading that book with amazement on the Tube home, and finished it in a blur that night. I knew a little about the music of a few of Balliett's subjects but many of the others were only names to me until that day. Reading his descriptions (which seemed to balance the impressionism and lateral thinking of poetry with the laconic casualness of a gumshoe news reporter) these mysterious figures sprang vividly to life...

EULOGY: CLIFF BARNETT 1930-2006

by Dan Barnett

July 11, 2006

Dad - Cliffy, Hon, Cliff, Cwuffy - was born in Melbourne in 1930. Now this defies popular belief; he was a Pom. It was in Melbourne he started musical studies learning piano, violin and playing the fife in the school band. In 1939 his parents decided that, owing to lack of employment opportunities in Australia, they would head back to England and try their luck. The journey to England saw the boat pass through Sydney, where Dad decided this was the place he would spend the  rest of his days, when he returned to Australia…