Australian jazz
Encyclopedia
Jazz
music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz arena.
Jazz is an American musical genre
originated by African Americans but the style was rapidly and enthusiastically taken up by musicians all over the world, including Australia. Jazz and jazz-influenced syncopated dance music was being performed in Australia within a year of the emergence of jazz as a definable musical genre in the United States.
Until the 1950s the primary form of accompaniment at Australian public dances was jazz-based dance music, modeled on the leading white British and American jazz bands, and this style enjoyed wide popularity.
It was not until after World War II that Australian jazz scene began to diversify as local musicians were finally able to get access to recordings by leading African-American jazz musicians like Charlie Parker
, Dizzy Gillespie
, Miles Davis
and Thelonious Monk
, and bebop
, cool jazz
and free jazz
exerting a strong influence on Australian musicians in the late 1950s and beyond.
Although jazz in Australia suffered a significant drop in popularity during the Sixties, as it did in most other countries, there was a marked resurgence of interest in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties as a new generation of musicians came to the fore.
It is also important to acknowledge the role of New Zealand musicians in the Australian jazz scene, such as jazz historian Andrew Bisset
, it is impossible to properly discuss the subject of Australian jazz without reference to New Zealand. Many of the leading "Australian" jazz playing musicians of the last 80 years have come from New Zealand, beginning with figures like reeds player Abe Romaine in the 1920s and later including renowned pianist-composers Mike Nock
and Dave MacRae
and Judy Bailey, drummer Barry Woods and vocalist Ricky May
.
' minstrels (musician/actors in make-up) brought imitations of slave plantation music (and dance) to Australia by the 1840s, featuring characteristics that later became associated with jazz, such as polyrhythmic 'breaks'. From the 1850s, full minstrel show
s with minstrel 'orchestras', including locally formed troupes, toured the major capital cities and smaller, boom town
s like Ballarat
and Bendigo
. Visits by American vaudeville
troupes became much more common after the introduction of regular steamship services between America and Australia in the 1870s. Some genuine African-American minstrel troupes and jubilee singers (black chamber choirs) toured from the 1870s.
Ragtime
reached Australia in the 1890s in the form of syncopated cakewalk
march music and syncopated "coon-song" and many white and black ragtime artists of repute toured Australia, including the black ragtime vocalist, Ernest Hogan
, and white artists Ben Harney
(the self-proclaimed 'originator' of ragtime) and Gene Greene
(the Emperor of Ragtime). Greene in particular taught many Australian artists how to 'rag' (improvise in ragtime style).
marketing of American music to Australia via phonograph
records, modern dance arrangements, piano roll
s and visiting jazz acts, Australians developed a strong interest in jazz influenced dance music and its related forms. 'Jazz' or 'jass' (hot dance music) was well established by the mid-1920s. Jazz was recorded on piano-rolls in Australia before 1923 and disc recordings like "Red Hot Mamma" and "Sweet Georgia Brown
" by Ray Tellier's San Francisco Orchestra were also being recorded by 1925.
Local exposure to current trends in American jazz in the Twenties was moderated by Australian popular taste, which favoured the polished white style of American jazz (dance) orchestra music, particularly the symphonic jazz style typified by Paul Whiteman
. Public dancing entered a boom period from 1919 with the opening of numerous 'jazz palais' with some in the large cities being able to hold thousands of patrons. The Australian style of jazz dance music was further determined by the very limited range of jazz recordings imported into Australia at that time. Australian jazz veteran Graeme Bell
has commented that, in the 1920s and 1930s, recordings by jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong
were not available locally in Australia until several years after their release in the USA.
The biggest musical influence in the period 1923-1928 was a succession of visiting white American jazz (or dance) orchestras, mainly from the West Coast. Frank Ellis and his Californians, who arrived in 1923. Thousands of dance fans regularly flocked to see them at Sydney's largest dance hall, the Palais Royale (the Royal Hall of Industries at Moore Park
, which still stands today). American bands and individual imported 'jazz specialists'continued to be imported by Australian theatrical entrepreneurs until the end of the 1920s. Australians could study the performance and presentation style of these bands first-hand and talented local musicians were soon offered places in some of them.
Restrictions on touring American bands after 1928, resulting from the forced departure of the visiting African-American band Sonny Clay
's Plantation Orchestra meant that Australian dance musician usually had to learn about jazz from recorded or written sources. These included imported recordings, dance arrangements, jazz on film (after 1929), patent 'how to jazz courses', individual visiting artists (most of whom were white) and literature such as Australian Dance Band News (1932-with subsequent title changes).
However, from the early 1930s, Australian dance musicians began to hear and absorb the work of black artists and leaders like Duke Ellington
and Armstrong as well as English jazz influences. Notable swing bands of the 1930s included Jim Davidson & His New Palais Royal Orchestra, Frank Coughlan & His Trocadero Orchestra, Dudley Cantrell & His Grace Grenadiers, and numerous others and many were recorded.
Trombonist and bandleader Frank Coughlan (1904-1979) has been called "The Father of Australian Jazz". He had an illustrious career that lasted from the early 1920s to the 1970s. He was chosen to lead the famous jazz orchestra that was put together for the opening in 1936 of the Sydney Trocadero
, which became the city's leading dance venue for the next 35 years, and Coughlan led the orchestra at "The Troc" until its closure in 1971.
or 'traditional jazz' (early jazz) and modern styles like progressive swing, boogie-woogie
and bop
as exemplified by the music of Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie
Graeme Bell
was an important contributor to Melbourne's 1940s traditional jazz boom and in 1947 his band was a great success when they played at the World Youth Festival in Prague
, Czechoslovakia
, going on to tour Europe and finally basing themselves in England where they are said to have exerted a strong influence on the European traditional jazz revival of that era. On returning to Australia Graeme Bell's Jazz Band worked successfully on the local club circuit, as well as recording and touring extensively.
The Australian Jazz Quartet/Quintet was a contemporary Australian jazz group that did very well in the USA at that time. In the early 1950s pianist Bryce Rohde
along with Errol Buddle (reeds) and Jack Brokensha
(vibes and drums) moved from Australia to Windsor in Canada. An agent heard them play locally and asked if they would come across the border to back female vocalist Chris Connor
at a nightclub in Detroit. This started the ball rolling, and in 1953, along with American saxophonist and bassist Dick Healey, they formed the Australian Jazz Quartet.
This extremely successful unit recorded ten albums and worked at most major US jazz venues. Sometimes a bass player and drummer would be hired to complement the group during recording sessions, and when they ultimately added a permanent bass player they renamed themselves the Australian Jazz Quintet (AJQ). American bassist Ed Gaston joined the AJQ while they were touring the USA in 1958 and he later married and settled down in Australia, becoming an important contributor to the local jazz scene in the ensuing years.
The AJQ was highly rated in polls run by US jazz magazines such as Down Beat
. They worked on the same bill as names like Miles Davis
, Count Basie
, Gerry Mulligan
, Dave Brubeck
and the Modern Jazz Quartet
; backed singers Billie Holiday
and Carmen McRae
; and played at top venues such as Carnegie Hall
and Birdland
.
By the late 1950s, modern players were widely influenced by the more restrained cool
or West Coast style
but some were also influenced by the more aggressive and polyrhythmic 'hard bop
' style. Leading modern jazz venues in the 1950s and 60s included Jazz Centre 44, The Embers and the Fat Black Pussycat in Melbourne and the Sky Lounge, El Rocco and the Mocambo in Sydney.
The El Rocco became a legend in Australian jazz history and in the 1980s a documentary movie Beyond The El Rocco was made about the club. Many of Sydney's top musicians worked there early in their careers including John Sangster
, John Pochée
, Don Burrows
, George Golla
, Alan Turnbull
The Three Out Trio with Mike Nock
(Piano), Freddy Logan (Bass), and Chris Karan
(Drums) attracted some of the largest crowds at Sydney's El Rocco, a small cellar club situated in Kings Cross
. Originally from New Zealand, Mike Nock came to Sydney in the late 1950s and almost immediately scored a regular spot at the El Rocco. Bassist Freddy Logan hailed from Holland and had already been very active in the Sydney jazz scene both as a player and a promoter of jazz, and in later years drummer Chris Karan would gain international recognition as a member of the Dudley Moore
Trio.
The members of the Three Out Trio first got together as part of a group that Sydney alto saxophonist Frank Smith put together as the house band at "The Embers", a very successful jazz club in Melbourne that also featured top international jazz artists such as the Oscar Peterson Trio and Benny Carter
. Before he left for Melbourne Frank Smith had made a big impression in Sydney, he worked with most of the top professional bands and could often be found playing at the El Rocco in its earlier years. A handful of Sydney jazz musicians including John Pochée
, Barry Woods, Dave MacRae, Andy Brown and Bernie McGann
also travelled south around that time, finding work in venues such as "The Fat Black Pussycat", another Melbourne jazz club that provided an outlet for those intent on playing uncompromising forms of jazz.
The most successful group to appear at Sydney's Mocambo Restaurant in King St Newtown was the Mocambo Four, with Sid Edwards (Vibraphone), Tony Esterman (Piano), Winston Sterling (Bass) and Laurie Kennedy (Drums). The piano chair was also filled by Tony Curby or Bob Dunn over the band's stint of around 4 years during the early 1960s. This venue was very well attended, often people were lined up in the street waiting to get in and a lot of people would drop in to hear the band after a night out at a City cinema.
In 1957, jazz producer Horst Liepolt
set up a new venue in Melbourne, "Jazz Centre 44". For four to five nights a week, and Sunday afternoons, up to 200 people would gather in the upstairs room to hear Brian Brown
, Stewie Speer
, Alan Lee, Graeme Morgan, Keith Hounslow, the Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band and many other local jazz musicians, and Jazz Centre 44 remained a major venue for jazz in Melbourne for almost a decade.
's In Melbourne Tonight
employing regular house bands that comprised many of best players on the Melbourne jazz/session scene
. Melbourne musicians like Bruce Clarke
and Frank Smith also worked extensively on soundtracks and advertising music, and Clarkes' Jingle Workshop studio in St Kilda, which produced much important music in these genres, was a significant focus, not merely for its commercial work, but also because it was the venue for regular Sunday jam sessions, many of which Clarke recorded.
Rock 'n' roll had dominated the youth music scene from the mid-1950s and pop and rock continued to dominate in the sixties and beyond. Many leading jazz performers like Graeme Lyall
, Stewie Speer
and John Sangster
worked with rock groups and absorbed important stylistic influences from the Motown, soul music
and funk
genres.
From the late 1960s, there was a revival to the 'big band
' format, partly fuelled by the popularity of big band rock ensembles like Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago
. The most notable local modern big band was the highly acclaimed but short-lived Daly Wilson Big Band, which enjoyed considerable popularity and which was the first Australian musical act to tour the Soviet Union
. Another very popular band is Galapagos Duck
, who exerted a huge influence on the Sydney jazz scene as part-owners of and regular performers at Sydney's longest-running jazz venue, The Basement, which opened in 1973.
Serge Ermoll's Free Kata, the first free jazz ensemble to record and internationally release a series of albums The New Language of Music on
EMI and Philips entitles Spontaneous Improvisations.
, the first jazz course to be offered by an Australian tertiary institution. The then Director of the Sydney Conservatorium, Rex Hobcroft, was approached by jazz musician Don Burrows
about the idea of putting together a jazz studies course.
Ultimately US saxophonist and music educator Howie Smith
was brought to Sydney on a grant from the Fulbright Program
to set up the course. The grant was originally for 9 months but Howie Smith ended up staying for three years, and as well as his involvement with the Conservatorium he also became very active in the Sydney jazz scene, mostly with the group Jazz Co/op which also included local musicians Roger Frampton
(piano), Jack Thorncraft (bass)and Phil Treloar
(drums).
When The Basement opened its doors it became Sydney's major jazz club during the seventies, and its success encouraged many other venue owners to hire jazz groups. Jazz producer Horst Liepolt
, who was booking bands for The Basement, became very active at that time and he set in motion a number of jazz venues and events, including The Manly Jazz Festival, Jazz at the Sydney Festival
and his own series of jazz concerts titled "Music is an Open Sky". Horst Liepolt also set up the 44 record label (a subsidiary of Phonogram records) which recorded over 30 albums of local jazz. He also organised numerous successful concerts at many of Sydney's high profile entertainment venues including the Sydney Opera House
and the Regent Theatre
.
This major resurgence of Australian jazz took place mostly in Sydney, but it had some flow-on effects in the jazz scene throughout Australia. Many jazz musicians came to Sydney from other areas of Australia during this decade, either to perform at special concerts or in some cases to live permanently and pursue a career in music. There was also a more than usual interest for jazz in Melbourne during the 1970s. Jazz performances were included in the Moomba Festival and Melbourne jazz musicians such as Tony Gould, Brian Brown, Bob Sedergreen
and Ted Vining benefited from the resurgence of interest in the music at that time.
A lot of top American jazz musicians performed in Sydney during the seventies, and major players such as Dave Liebman
, John Scofield
and Miroslav Vitous
gave master classes and workshops while they were here.
Bob Barnard has become an icon of Australian jazz and has probably made more of an impression internationally than any other Australian jazz musician. In the year of 1974 the Bob Barnard Jazz Band was formed.
Jazz fusion
, as typified by groups like Return to Forever
, largely passed Australia by, although the group Crossfire was probably the best and best-known Australian act to work in this area.
Some of the many working jazz groups in Sydney during the seventies were the Jazz Co/op, John Pochee
's The Last Straw, The Don Burrows
Quartet, the Galapagos Duck
, The Judy Bailey Quartet, Kerrie Biddell and Compared to What, the Bob Barnard Jazz Band, Paul Furniss
' Eclipse Alley Five, Col Nolan and the Soul Syndicate, the Peter Boothman
/ Sid Edwards quartet, Serge Ermoll and Free Kata, and Craig Benjamin's Out To Lunch.
The jazz scene in Sydney slowed down a little towards the start of the 1980s when The Basement pursued a more commercial music policy after extending their premises by adding a large upstairs area. Around that same time Horst Liepolt left Australia, going on to a successful career in jazz production in New York, and this left a major gap in the area of jazz promotion in Sydney. However traditional and mainstream bands continued to do well in the pub scene and contemporary jazz could still be found in venues such as The Paradise at Kings Cross, Jenny's in the inner city and Morgan's Feedwell at Glebe.
in 1982. Both sought and gained Federal Government Arts Council
funding soon after establishment. Similar Jazz co-ordination programs were established in other states with Arts Council and State Government Funding.
Through the 1980s and 1990s jazz remained a small but vibrant sector of the Australian music industry. Despite its relative lack of visibility in the mass market, Australian jazz continued to develop to a high level of creativity and professionalism that, for the most part, has been inversely proportional to its low level of public and industry recognition and acceptance.
Players who were more influenced by traditional or cool jazz
streams tended to dominate public attention and some moved successfully into academia. Multi-instrumentalist Don Burrows
was for several decades a regular presence on television and radio, as well as being a prolific session musician. His quartets (usually with George Golla
on guitar) played at many of the top international jazz festivals and he recorded prolifically in the 1970s and 80s. Although Burrows made no secret of his dislike for the bebop and free jazz
strands, he became a senior teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
and has exerted a strong influence on Australian jazz through his recordings, performances and teaching.
His protege, trumpeter James Morrison
, who was heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong
, has carved out a very successful career playing a style not unlike that of Wynton Marsalis
, that blended some modern elements (e.g. the crowd-pleasing high-register technical bravura of Dizzy Gillespie) with the accessible structures and melodies of 'trad' and 'cool' jazz.
Multi-instrumental wind player Dale Barlow
emerged in the late 1970s as one of the most promising new talents on the Australian scene, and after stints in the Young Northside Big Band and a formative period in the David Martin Quintet (with James Morrison), he moved to New York, where he was a member of two famed groups, the Cedar Walton
Quartet and Art Blakey
's Jazz Messengers. Barlow has also toured and recorded with many other jazz greats including Sonny Stitt
, Chet Baker
, Gil Evans
, Jackie McLean
, Billy Cobham
, Curtis Fuller
, Eddie Palmieri
, Dizzy Gillespie
, Benny Golson
, Lee Konitz
, Sonny Stitt
, Helen Merrill
, Mulgrew Miller
and Kenny Barron
.In 1980 he performed at concerts in Adelaide
and Sydney
with the Bruce Cale Quartet with Roger Frampton
(piano and saxes) Bruce Cale
(bass) and Phil Treloar
(drums). Two exceptional live concerts by this group have been recorded, The Bruce Cale Quartet Live (Adelaide concert) and On Fire - The Sydney Concert.
Many "second generation" bebop-influenced performers like New Zealand
born pianist Mike Nock
, bassist Lloyd Swanton
, saxophonist Dale Barlow
, pianist Chris Abrahams
, saxophonist Sandy Evans and pianist Roger Frampton
(who died in 2000) rose to prominence in this period, alongside their older contemporaries, led by Bernie McGann
and John Pochee
, whose long-running group The Last Straw (founded in 1974) has carried the torch for this stream of jazz for many years.
New Zealand-born pianist-composer Dave McRae established himself as a performer of note in Australia in the 1960s before moving overseas, where he branched out into a diverse range of activities including a stint as the keyboard player in the British 1970s progressive rock group Matching Mole
and collaborating with Bill Oddie
of The Goodies
on music for their TV series.
The trio of Tony Buck
(drums), and the aforementioned Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Chris Abrahams (piano), known together as The Necks
since forming in 1987 (see 1987 in music
), have been particularly notable for hypnotic hour-long jazz, ambient and otherwise widely influenced spontaneous compositions, gaining widespread attention both in Australia and internationally. Their album Drive-By, which consists of a single 60-minute track, was named Jazz Album of the Year in the 2004 ARIA Awards.
, Dannielle Gaha
and The Whitlams
who all released traditional jazz or jazz-influenced albums within a very short space of time.
Compared to the latter years of the 1900s jazz lost some of its impetus in Australia in the first decade of the twenty first century. However it is still very visible in a number of venues including Melbourne's Bennett's Lane Jazz Club
and concerts in Sydney staged by groups such as Sydney Improvised Music Association, Venue 505, The Jazzgroove Association, and The Jazz Action Society. The Melbourne Jazz Co-operative
since 2007 has run three jazz concerts a week in Melbourne, the most active jazz presenter organisation in Australia.
In 2010 jazz music continues to be a valid and visible form of expression in Australia. Although jazz is virtually ignored by mainstream media there is considerable coverage in alternative media outlets such as community radio, and the ABC Dig Jazz digital radio station now plays jazz 24 hours a day non-stop, with a considerable amount of local content.
The standard of musicianship amongst younger players entering the scene continues to be high, and in recent years there has been a trend towards contemporary groups playing primarily original material, rather than standards and jazz standards.
A non-college style of jazz has also evolved with a harder"street edge" style.The Conglomerate, The Bamboos, Damage, Cookin' on Three Burners, John Mcalls Black Money are examples of this.
There are also a number of jazz festivals that continue to be staged including the Melbourne Jazz Festival
, Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival
, Wagga Wagga Jazz Festival
, the Jazzgroove Summer Festival in Sydney and the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz
.
Jazzgroove in Sydney promotes young jazz musicians and host gigs in venues such as 505 and the Basement
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz arena.
Jazz is an American musical genre
Music of the United States
The music of the United States reflects the country's multi-ethnic population through a diverse array of styles. Among the country's most internationally-renowned genres are hip hop, blues, country, rhythm and blues, jazz, barbershop, pop, techno, and rock and roll. The United States has the...
originated by African Americans but the style was rapidly and enthusiastically taken up by musicians all over the world, including Australia. Jazz and jazz-influenced syncopated dance music was being performed in Australia within a year of the emergence of jazz as a definable musical genre in the United States.
Until the 1950s the primary form of accompaniment at Australian public dances was jazz-based dance music, modeled on the leading white British and American jazz bands, and this style enjoyed wide popularity.
It was not until after World War II that Australian jazz scene began to diversify as local musicians were finally able to get access to recordings by leading African-American jazz musicians like Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
and Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, and bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
and free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
exerting a strong influence on Australian musicians in the late 1950s and beyond.
Although jazz in Australia suffered a significant drop in popularity during the Sixties, as it did in most other countries, there was a marked resurgence of interest in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties as a new generation of musicians came to the fore.
It is also important to acknowledge the role of New Zealand musicians in the Australian jazz scene, such as jazz historian Andrew Bisset
Andrew Bisset
Andrew Bisset was an Australian author, music educator and singer, based in Canberra.- Author :Andrew Bisset was particularly noted for his excellent book Black Roots White Flowers - A History of Jazz in Australia, which traces jazz influences and performances from the early days of visiting...
, it is impossible to properly discuss the subject of Australian jazz without reference to New Zealand. Many of the leading "Australian" jazz playing musicians of the last 80 years have come from New Zealand, beginning with figures like reeds player Abe Romaine in the 1920s and later including renowned pianist-composers Mike Nock
Mike Nock
Mike Nock is a jazz pianist, currently based in Australia. He began studying piano at 11 and by 18 was performing in Australia. He headed a trio that toured England in 1961 and then attended Berklee College of Music...
and Dave MacRae
Dave MacRae
David Scott MacRae is a keyboardist from New Zealand, noted for his contributions in jazz and the Canterbury scene....
and Judy Bailey, drummer Barry Woods and vocalist Ricky May
Ricky May
Ricky May was a musician who found fame in New Zealand and Australia.He was of Māori descent. He played a little drums and piano but was known best as a vocalist...
.
Jazz precursors in Australia
White American and British 'black faceBlack Face
Black Face is the south wall of an east-west ridge in Arena Valley, south of East Beacon, in the Quartermain Mountains, Victoria Land. The feature is a prominent landmark and is formed by a dolerite dike which rises over above the floor of the valley...
' minstrels (musician/actors in make-up) brought imitations of slave plantation music (and dance) to Australia by the 1840s, featuring characteristics that later became associated with jazz, such as polyrhythmic 'breaks'. From the 1850s, full minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
s with minstrel 'orchestras', including locally formed troupes, toured the major capital cities and smaller, boom town
Boomtown
A boomtown is a community that experiences sudden and rapid population and economic growth. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons,...
s like Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
and Bendigo
Bendigo, Victoria
Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...
. Visits by American vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
troupes became much more common after the introduction of regular steamship services between America and Australia in the 1870s. Some genuine African-American minstrel troupes and jubilee singers (black chamber choirs) toured from the 1870s.
Ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
reached Australia in the 1890s in the form of syncopated cakewalk
Cakewalk
The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...
march music and syncopated "coon-song" and many white and black ragtime artists of repute toured Australia, including the black ragtime vocalist, Ernest Hogan
Ernest Hogan
Ernest Hogan was the first African American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show and helped create the musical genre of ragtime....
, and white artists Ben Harney
Ben Harney
Benjamin Robertson "Ben" Harney was a United States of America songwriter, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime music. His 1895 composition "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" is regarded as one of the first published ragtime songs...
(the self-proclaimed 'originator' of ragtime) and Gene Greene
Gene Greene
Eugene Delbert Greene , better known as Gene Greene was an American entertainer, singer and composer, nicknamed The Ragtime King. He was a vaudeville star and made some of the earliest sound recordings of scat singing in 1911 for Columbia Records and Victor Records and was a popular Ragtime performer...
(the Emperor of Ragtime). Greene in particular taught many Australian artists how to 'rag' (improvise in ragtime style).
Early 20th century
Thanks to close Australian links with American theatrical entertainment circuits, and Tin Pan AlleyTin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
marketing of American music to Australia via phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
records, modern dance arrangements, piano roll
Piano roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. A piano roll is a continuous roll of paper with perforations punched into it. The peforations represent note control data...
s and visiting jazz acts, Australians developed a strong interest in jazz influenced dance music and its related forms. 'Jazz' or 'jass' (hot dance music) was well established by the mid-1920s. Jazz was recorded on piano-rolls in Australia before 1923 and disc recordings like "Red Hot Mamma" and "Sweet Georgia Brown
Sweet Georgia Brown
"Sweet Georgia Brown" is a jazz standard and pop tune written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey .The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925 by bandleader Ben Bernie, resulting in a five-week No. 1 for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra...
" by Ray Tellier's San Francisco Orchestra were also being recorded by 1925.
Local exposure to current trends in American jazz in the Twenties was moderated by Australian popular taste, which favoured the polished white style of American jazz (dance) orchestra music, particularly the symphonic jazz style typified by Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
. Public dancing entered a boom period from 1919 with the opening of numerous 'jazz palais' with some in the large cities being able to hold thousands of patrons. The Australian style of jazz dance music was further determined by the very limited range of jazz recordings imported into Australia at that time. Australian jazz veteran Graeme Bell
Graeme Bell
Graeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...
has commented that, in the 1920s and 1930s, recordings by jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
were not available locally in Australia until several years after their release in the USA.
The biggest musical influence in the period 1923-1928 was a succession of visiting white American jazz (or dance) orchestras, mainly from the West Coast. Frank Ellis and his Californians, who arrived in 1923. Thousands of dance fans regularly flocked to see them at Sydney's largest dance hall, the Palais Royale (the Royal Hall of Industries at Moore Park
Moore Park, New South Wales
Moore Park is a large area of parkland in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of Centennial Parklands, a collective of three parks being Moore Park, Centennial Park and Queens Park. Centennial Parklands is administered by the Centennial Park &...
, which still stands today). American bands and individual imported 'jazz specialists'continued to be imported by Australian theatrical entrepreneurs until the end of the 1920s. Australians could study the performance and presentation style of these bands first-hand and talented local musicians were soon offered places in some of them.
Restrictions on touring American bands after 1928, resulting from the forced departure of the visiting African-American band Sonny Clay
Sonny Clay
William Rogers Campbell "Sonny" Clay was an American jazz pianist, drummer, and bandleader, who had an unusual impact on the development of Australian jazz....
's Plantation Orchestra meant that Australian dance musician usually had to learn about jazz from recorded or written sources. These included imported recordings, dance arrangements, jazz on film (after 1929), patent 'how to jazz courses', individual visiting artists (most of whom were white) and literature such as Australian Dance Band News (1932-with subsequent title changes).
However, from the early 1930s, Australian dance musicians began to hear and absorb the work of black artists and leaders like Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and Armstrong as well as English jazz influences. Notable swing bands of the 1930s included Jim Davidson & His New Palais Royal Orchestra, Frank Coughlan & His Trocadero Orchestra, Dudley Cantrell & His Grace Grenadiers, and numerous others and many were recorded.
Trombonist and bandleader Frank Coughlan (1904-1979) has been called "The Father of Australian Jazz". He had an illustrious career that lasted from the early 1920s to the 1970s. He was chosen to lead the famous jazz orchestra that was put together for the opening in 1936 of the Sydney Trocadero
Sydney Trocadero
The Sydney Trocadero in Sydney, Australia, opened with a full-dress gala on 3 April 1936. It was the main venue of Big Band jazz orchestras, with the resident Trocadero Orchestra under the baton of Frank Coughlan, and the All Girl Trocadero Band....
, which became the city's leading dance venue for the next 35 years, and Coughlan led the orchestra at "The Troc" until its closure in 1971.
Post-World War II jazz
After the end of World War II Australian jazz began to diverge into two major strands: dixielandDixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
or 'traditional jazz' (early jazz) and modern styles like progressive swing, boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
and bop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
as exemplified by the music of Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
Graeme Bell
Graeme Bell
Graeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...
was an important contributor to Melbourne's 1940s traditional jazz boom and in 1947 his band was a great success when they played at the World Youth Festival in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, going on to tour Europe and finally basing themselves in England where they are said to have exerted a strong influence on the European traditional jazz revival of that era. On returning to Australia Graeme Bell's Jazz Band worked successfully on the local club circuit, as well as recording and touring extensively.
The Australian Jazz Quartet/Quintet was a contemporary Australian jazz group that did very well in the USA at that time. In the early 1950s pianist Bryce Rohde
Bryce Rohde
Bryce Benno Rohde is an Australian jazz pianist and composer. He was strongly influenced by George Russell's musical conceptions....
along with Errol Buddle (reeds) and Jack Brokensha
Jack Brokensha
John Joseph "Jack" Brokensha was an Australian-born American jazz vibraphonist.Brokensha was born in Nailsworth, Adelaide, South Australia. He studied percussion under his father, and played xylophone in vaudeville shows and on radio...
(vibes and drums) moved from Australia to Windsor in Canada. An agent heard them play locally and asked if they would come across the border to back female vocalist Chris Connor
Chris Connor
Chris Connor was an American jazz singer.-Biography:She was born as Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Missouri to Clyde and Mabel Loutsenhizer. She studied and became proficient on the clarinet, having studied for 8 years throughout junior high and high school...
at a nightclub in Detroit. This started the ball rolling, and in 1953, along with American saxophonist and bassist Dick Healey, they formed the Australian Jazz Quartet.
This extremely successful unit recorded ten albums and worked at most major US jazz venues. Sometimes a bass player and drummer would be hired to complement the group during recording sessions, and when they ultimately added a permanent bass player they renamed themselves the Australian Jazz Quintet (AJQ). American bassist Ed Gaston joined the AJQ while they were touring the USA in 1958 and he later married and settled down in Australia, becoming an important contributor to the local jazz scene in the ensuing years.
The AJQ was highly rated in polls run by US jazz magazines such as Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
. They worked on the same bill as names like Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
, Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
and the Modern Jazz Quartet
Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson , John Lewis , Percy Heath , and Kenny Clarke . Connie Kay replaced Clarke in 1955...
; backed singers Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
and Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...
; and played at top venues such as Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
and Birdland
Birdland (jazz club)
Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979...
.
By the late 1950s, modern players were widely influenced by the more restrained cool
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
or West Coast style
West coast jazz
West Coast jazz refers to various styles of jazz music that developed around Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz, which featured a less frenetic, calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged,...
but some were also influenced by the more aggressive and polyrhythmic 'hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
' style. Leading modern jazz venues in the 1950s and 60s included Jazz Centre 44, The Embers and the Fat Black Pussycat in Melbourne and the Sky Lounge, El Rocco and the Mocambo in Sydney.
The El Rocco became a legend in Australian jazz history and in the 1980s a documentary movie Beyond The El Rocco was made about the club. Many of Sydney's top musicians worked there early in their careers including John Sangster
John Sangster
John Sangster was an Australian jazz composer, arranger, drummer, cornettist and Vibraphonist born in Melbourne, most well known as a composer though also a gifted multi-instrumentalist...
, John Pochée
John Pochee
John Pochée, is a Jazz Drummer and Bandleader.John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979...
, Don Burrows
Don Burrows
Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
, George Golla
George Golla
George Golla AM is an Australian jazz guitarist. In 1959 he commenced a long-term working musical partnership with clarinetist/flautist/saxophonist Don Burrows that continued for almost forty years. On 10 June 1985, Golla was made a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation, For service...
, Alan Turnbull
Alan Lawrence Turnbull
Alan Lawrence Turnbull, is a jazz drummer and freelance professional musicianAlan Turnbull was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1943...
The Three Out Trio with Mike Nock
Mike Nock
Mike Nock is a jazz pianist, currently based in Australia. He began studying piano at 11 and by 18 was performing in Australia. He headed a trio that toured England in 1961 and then attended Berklee College of Music...
(Piano), Freddy Logan (Bass), and Chris Karan
Chris Karan
Chris Karan is a jazz percussionist, primarily a drummer, of Greek descent from Melbourne. He played in Mike Nock's trio in Sydney in the early 1960s...
(Drums) attracted some of the largest crowds at Sydney's El Rocco, a small cellar club situated in Kings Cross
Kings Cross, New South Wales
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
. Originally from New Zealand, Mike Nock came to Sydney in the late 1950s and almost immediately scored a regular spot at the El Rocco. Bassist Freddy Logan hailed from Holland and had already been very active in the Sydney jazz scene both as a player and a promoter of jazz, and in later years drummer Chris Karan would gain international recognition as a member of the Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
Trio.
The members of the Three Out Trio first got together as part of a group that Sydney alto saxophonist Frank Smith put together as the house band at "The Embers", a very successful jazz club in Melbourne that also featured top international jazz artists such as the Oscar Peterson Trio and Benny Carter
Benny Carter
Bennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...
. Before he left for Melbourne Frank Smith had made a big impression in Sydney, he worked with most of the top professional bands and could often be found playing at the El Rocco in its earlier years. A handful of Sydney jazz musicians including John Pochée
John Pochee
John Pochée, is a Jazz Drummer and Bandleader.John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979...
, Barry Woods, Dave MacRae, Andy Brown and Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann is an Australian jazz alto saxophone player. He began his career in the late 1950s and is still active as a performer, composer and recording artist.- Biography :...
also travelled south around that time, finding work in venues such as "The Fat Black Pussycat", another Melbourne jazz club that provided an outlet for those intent on playing uncompromising forms of jazz.
The most successful group to appear at Sydney's Mocambo Restaurant in King St Newtown was the Mocambo Four, with Sid Edwards (Vibraphone), Tony Esterman (Piano), Winston Sterling (Bass) and Laurie Kennedy (Drums). The piano chair was also filled by Tony Curby or Bob Dunn over the band's stint of around 4 years during the early 1960s. This venue was very well attended, often people were lined up in the street waiting to get in and a lot of people would drop in to hear the band after a night out at a City cinema.
In 1957, jazz producer Horst Liepolt
Horst Liepolt
Horst Liepolt is a jazz producer and artist.In Australia, and later in the United States, he organized numerous successful jazz concerts and festivals and also produced a large number of jazz recordings....
set up a new venue in Melbourne, "Jazz Centre 44". For four to five nights a week, and Sunday afternoons, up to 200 people would gather in the upstairs room to hear Brian Brown
Brian Brown (musician)
Brian Brown OAM, is an Australian Jazz musician and educator. He plays the soprano and tenor saxophones, flutes, synthesizers , panpipes and a leather bowhorn designed by the late Garry Greenwood, .-Biography:Brown has performed as a soloist and with his own ensembles since the mid 1950s throughout...
, Stewie Speer
Stewie Speer
Stewie Speer was an Australian jazz and rock drummer who is best known as a member of the 1960s-70s Australian group Max Merritt & The Meteors....
, Alan Lee, Graeme Morgan, Keith Hounslow, the Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band and many other local jazz musicians, and Jazz Centre 44 remained a major venue for jazz in Melbourne for almost a decade.
Advent of Television
Television was an important source of work for jazz musicians in the early-mid 1960s, with programs like Graham KennedyGraham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
's In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight, also known as "IMT", was a highly popular nightly variety television show produced at GTV-9 Melbourne from 6 May 1957 to 1970....
employing regular house bands that comprised many of best players on the Melbourne jazz/session scene
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
. Melbourne musicians like Bruce Clarke
Bruce Clarke (jazz musician)
Bruce Clarke, OAM was an Australian jazz guitarist, composer and educator. He lived in Melbourne.-Biography:From 1949-1956 Clarke worked as a freelance guitarist-arranger among the many live radio orchestras...
and Frank Smith also worked extensively on soundtracks and advertising music, and Clarkes' Jingle Workshop studio in St Kilda, which produced much important music in these genres, was a significant focus, not merely for its commercial work, but also because it was the venue for regular Sunday jam sessions, many of which Clarke recorded.
Rock 'n' roll had dominated the youth music scene from the mid-1950s and pop and rock continued to dominate in the sixties and beyond. Many leading jazz performers like Graeme Lyall
Graeme Lyall
Graeme William Lyall , is a Western Australian saxophonist, composer and arranger. He became a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2003: "For service to music as Artistic Director of the Western Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra, and as a musical director, composer and...
, Stewie Speer
Stewie Speer
Stewie Speer was an Australian jazz and rock drummer who is best known as a member of the 1960s-70s Australian group Max Merritt & The Meteors....
and John Sangster
John Sangster
John Sangster was an Australian jazz composer, arranger, drummer, cornettist and Vibraphonist born in Melbourne, most well known as a composer though also a gifted multi-instrumentalist...
worked with rock groups and absorbed important stylistic influences from the Motown, soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
genres.
From the late 1960s, there was a revival to the 'big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
' format, partly fuelled by the popularity of big band rock ensembles like Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
. The most notable local modern big band was the highly acclaimed but short-lived Daly Wilson Big Band, which enjoyed considerable popularity and which was the first Australian musical act to tour the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Another very popular band is Galapagos Duck
Galapagos Duck
Galapagos Duck is a popular Australian jazz band. Formed in 1969, they have an extensive history of international touring, including:*Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland*Jazz Yatra Festival, Bombay, India*American Musexpo...
, who exerted a huge influence on the Sydney jazz scene as part-owners of and regular performers at Sydney's longest-running jazz venue, The Basement, which opened in 1973.
Serge Ermoll's Free Kata, the first free jazz ensemble to record and internationally release a series of albums The New Language of Music on
EMI and Philips entitles Spontaneous Improvisations.
Jazz in the 1970s
A very significant development in 1973 was the inception of the jazz studies course at the Sydney Conservatorium of MusicSydney Conservatorium of Music
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...
, the first jazz course to be offered by an Australian tertiary institution. The then Director of the Sydney Conservatorium, Rex Hobcroft, was approached by jazz musician Don Burrows
Don Burrows
Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
about the idea of putting together a jazz studies course.
Ultimately US saxophonist and music educator Howie Smith
Howie Smith
Howie Smith, is a saxophonist, composer, jazz musician and educatorHowie Smith was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1943...
was brought to Sydney on a grant from the Fulbright Program
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
to set up the course. The grant was originally for 9 months but Howie Smith ended up staying for three years, and as well as his involvement with the Conservatorium he also became very active in the Sydney jazz scene, mostly with the group Jazz Co/op which also included local musicians Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...
(piano), Jack Thorncraft (bass)and Phil Treloar
Phil Treloar
Phillip Maurice Treloar is an Australian jazz drummer, percussionist and composer. In an extensive career devoted to creative pursuit Treloar has addressed himself to the problems of relationship found at the intersection of notated music-composition and improvisation...
(drums).
When The Basement opened its doors it became Sydney's major jazz club during the seventies, and its success encouraged many other venue owners to hire jazz groups. Jazz producer Horst Liepolt
Horst Liepolt
Horst Liepolt is a jazz producer and artist.In Australia, and later in the United States, he organized numerous successful jazz concerts and festivals and also produced a large number of jazz recordings....
, who was booking bands for The Basement, became very active at that time and he set in motion a number of jazz venues and events, including The Manly Jazz Festival, Jazz at the Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks...
and his own series of jazz concerts titled "Music is an Open Sky". Horst Liepolt also set up the 44 record label (a subsidiary of Phonogram records) which recorded over 30 albums of local jazz. He also organised numerous successful concerts at many of Sydney's high profile entertainment venues including the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
and the Regent Theatre
Regent Theatre (Sydney)
The Regent Theatre was a heritage-listed theatre in Sydney, Australia, which was demolished in 1988.-Description and history:The Regent Theatre was Hoyts' showcase "picture palace" in Sydney, designed by the distinguished architect Cedric Ballantyne and built by James Porter & Sons.Located at...
.
This major resurgence of Australian jazz took place mostly in Sydney, but it had some flow-on effects in the jazz scene throughout Australia. Many jazz musicians came to Sydney from other areas of Australia during this decade, either to perform at special concerts or in some cases to live permanently and pursue a career in music. There was also a more than usual interest for jazz in Melbourne during the 1970s. Jazz performances were included in the Moomba Festival and Melbourne jazz musicians such as Tony Gould, Brian Brown, Bob Sedergreen
Bob Sedergreen
Bob Sedergreen is a renowned Australian jazz pianist. Bob has had a long and distinguished career as a performer, bandleader and educator. He has collaborated with leading Australian artists, such as John Sangster, Don Burrows, Brian Brown and Judy Jacques, and supported some of the biggest names...
and Ted Vining benefited from the resurgence of interest in the music at that time.
A lot of top American jazz musicians performed in Sydney during the seventies, and major players such as Dave Liebman
Dave Liebman
Dave Liebman is an American saxophonist and flautist. In June 2010, he received a NEA Jazz Masters lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts.-Biography:...
, John Scofield
John Scofield
John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...
and Miroslav Vitous
Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš , is a Czech jazz bassist.-Biography:Born in Prague, he began the violin at age six, and started playing the piano at age ten, and bass at fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his...
gave master classes and workshops while they were here.
Bob Barnard has become an icon of Australian jazz and has probably made more of an impression internationally than any other Australian jazz musician. In the year of 1974 the Bob Barnard Jazz Band was formed.
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, as typified by groups like Return to Forever
Return to Forever
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...
, largely passed Australia by, although the group Crossfire was probably the best and best-known Australian act to work in this area.
Some of the many working jazz groups in Sydney during the seventies were the Jazz Co/op, John Pochee
John Pochee
John Pochée, is a Jazz Drummer and Bandleader.John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979...
's The Last Straw, The Don Burrows
Don Burrows
Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
Quartet, the Galapagos Duck
Galapagos Duck
Galapagos Duck is a popular Australian jazz band. Formed in 1969, they have an extensive history of international touring, including:*Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland*Jazz Yatra Festival, Bombay, India*American Musexpo...
, The Judy Bailey Quartet, Kerrie Biddell and Compared to What, the Bob Barnard Jazz Band, Paul Furniss
Paul Furniss
Paul Furniss is an Australian jazz musician who has been recognised internationally. He is regarded as one of Australia's best jazz musicians. He is a noted clarinetist and saxophonist but can play a number of instruments including clarinet, flute, soprano, alto and tenor saxophones. -Early...
' Eclipse Alley Five, Col Nolan and the Soul Syndicate, the Peter Boothman
Peter Boothman
Peter Boothman is an Australian jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. Since he started playing in the late 1960s he has worked at most top jazz venues in Sydney including The Basement, Festival of Sydney, Sydney Opera House, Jenny's, The Rocks Push, El Rocco, Wentworth Supper Club, and Horst...
/ Sid Edwards quartet, Serge Ermoll and Free Kata, and Craig Benjamin's Out To Lunch.
The jazz scene in Sydney slowed down a little towards the start of the 1980s when The Basement pursued a more commercial music policy after extending their premises by adding a large upstairs area. Around that same time Horst Liepolt left Australia, going on to a successful career in jazz production in New York, and this left a major gap in the area of jazz promotion in Sydney. However traditional and mainstream bands continued to do well in the pub scene and contemporary jazz could still be found in venues such as The Paradise at Kings Cross, Jenny's in the inner city and Morgan's Feedwell at Glebe.
1980s and 1990s
Before the 1980s co-ordination of Jazz concerts was particularly lacking. The NSW Jazz Co-ordination program helped the establishment of the Sydney Improvised Music Association in Sydney quickly followed by the establishment of the Melbourne Jazz Co-operativeMelbourne Jazz Co-operative
The Melbourne Jazz Co-operative , better known as the Melbourne Jazz Co-op runs two jazz concerts a week in Melbourne, the most active jazz presenter organisation in Australia...
in 1982. Both sought and gained Federal Government Arts Council
Arts council
An arts council is a government or private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing events at home and abroad...
funding soon after establishment. Similar Jazz co-ordination programs were established in other states with Arts Council and State Government Funding.
Through the 1980s and 1990s jazz remained a small but vibrant sector of the Australian music industry. Despite its relative lack of visibility in the mass market, Australian jazz continued to develop to a high level of creativity and professionalism that, for the most part, has been inversely proportional to its low level of public and industry recognition and acceptance.
Players who were more influenced by traditional or cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
streams tended to dominate public attention and some moved successfully into academia. Multi-instrumentalist Don Burrows
Don Burrows
Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
was for several decades a regular presence on television and radio, as well as being a prolific session musician. His quartets (usually with George Golla
George Golla
George Golla AM is an Australian jazz guitarist. In 1959 he commenced a long-term working musical partnership with clarinetist/flautist/saxophonist Don Burrows that continued for almost forty years. On 10 June 1985, Golla was made a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation, For service...
on guitar) played at many of the top international jazz festivals and he recorded prolifically in the 1970s and 80s. Although Burrows made no secret of his dislike for the bebop and free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
strands, he became a senior teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...
and has exerted a strong influence on Australian jazz through his recordings, performances and teaching.
His protege, trumpeter James Morrison
James Morrison (musician)
James Morrison AM is an Australian jazz musician who plays numerous instruments, but is best known for his trumpet playing...
, who was heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, has carved out a very successful career playing a style not unlike that of Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
, that blended some modern elements (e.g. the crowd-pleasing high-register technical bravura of Dizzy Gillespie) with the accessible structures and melodies of 'trad' and 'cool' jazz.
Multi-instrumental wind player Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow is an Australian jazz composer, multi-instrumentalist: especially tenor, alto saxophone, soprano saxophonist, baritone saxophone and flute....
emerged in the late 1970s as one of the most promising new talents on the Australian scene, and after stints in the Young Northside Big Band and a formative period in the David Martin Quintet (with James Morrison), he moved to New York, where he was a member of two famed groups, the Cedar Walton
Cedar Walton
Cedar Anthony Walton, Junior is an American hard bop jazz pianist.-Biography:Walton grew up in Dallas, Texas. His mother was an aspiring concert pianist, and was Walton's initial teacher. She also took him to jazz performances around Dallas...
Quartet and Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
's Jazz Messengers. Barlow has also toured and recorded with many other jazz greats including Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
, Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...
, Billy Cobham
Billy Cobham
William C. Cobham is a Panamanian American jazz drummer, composer and bandleader, who has called Switzerland home since the late 1970s....
, Curtis Fuller
Curtis Fuller
Curtis DuBois Fuller is an American jazz trombonist, known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and contributor to many classic jazz recordings.-Biography:...
, Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Benny Golson
Benny Golson
Benny Golson is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.-Biography:While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and...
, Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Helen Merrill
Helen Merrill
Helen Merrill is an internationally known jazz vocalist.Merrill's recording career has spanned six decades and she is popular with fans of jazz in Japan and Italy as well as in her native United States...
, Mulgrew Miller
Mulgrew Miller
Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...
and Kenny Barron
Kenny Barron
Kenny Barron , is an American jazz pianist. He is the younger brother of tenor saxophonist Bill Barron, and known for his lyrical, adaptive style.-Biography:...
.In 1980 he performed at concerts in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
and Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
with the Bruce Cale Quartet with Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...
(piano and saxes) Bruce Cale
Bruce Cale
Bruce Cale is an Australian jazz double-bassist and composer.Cale began studying music at age nine, and worked professionally in Sydney from 1958. He worked with Bryce Rohde from 1962-65, then moved to England, where he played with Tubby Hayes and worked in John Stevens's Spontaneous Music Ensemble...
(bass) and Phil Treloar
Phil Treloar
Phillip Maurice Treloar is an Australian jazz drummer, percussionist and composer. In an extensive career devoted to creative pursuit Treloar has addressed himself to the problems of relationship found at the intersection of notated music-composition and improvisation...
(drums). Two exceptional live concerts by this group have been recorded, The Bruce Cale Quartet Live (Adelaide concert) and On Fire - The Sydney Concert.
Many "second generation" bebop-influenced performers like New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
born pianist Mike Nock
Mike Nock
Mike Nock is a jazz pianist, currently based in Australia. He began studying piano at 11 and by 18 was performing in Australia. He headed a trio that toured England in 1961 and then attended Berklee College of Music...
, bassist Lloyd Swanton
Lloyd Swanton
Lloyd Stuart Swanton is an Australian jazz double bassist/bass guitarist and composer, based in Sydney. Swanton was a member of Dynamic Hepnotics in 1986 and co-founded, jazz trio The Necks in 1987 with Chris Abrahams and Tony Buck....
, saxophonist Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow is an Australian jazz composer, multi-instrumentalist: especially tenor, alto saxophone, soprano saxophonist, baritone saxophone and flute....
, pianist Chris Abrahams
Chris Abrahams
Chris Abrahams is a Sydney-based pianist, best known for his jazz work.Abrahams has been a member of the Benders, the Laughing Clowns, The Sparklers and The Necks. He has recorded several solo albums, as well as collaborations with Melanie Oxley from the Sparklers...
, saxophonist Sandy Evans and pianist Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...
(who died in 2000) rose to prominence in this period, alongside their older contemporaries, led by Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann
Bernie McGann is an Australian jazz alto saxophone player. He began his career in the late 1950s and is still active as a performer, composer and recording artist.- Biography :...
and John Pochee
John Pochee
John Pochée, is a Jazz Drummer and Bandleader.John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979...
, whose long-running group The Last Straw (founded in 1974) has carried the torch for this stream of jazz for many years.
New Zealand-born pianist-composer Dave McRae established himself as a performer of note in Australia in the 1960s before moving overseas, where he branched out into a diverse range of activities including a stint as the keyboard player in the British 1970s progressive rock group Matching Mole
Matching Mole
Matching Mole was a short-lived UK progressive rock band from the Canterbury scene best known for the song "O Caroline". Robert Wyatt formed the band in October 1971 after he left Soft Machine and recorded his first solo album The End of an Ear...
and collaborating with Bill Oddie
Bill Oddie
William "Bill" Edgar Oddie OBE is an English author, actor, comedian, artist, naturalist and musician, who became famous as one of The Goodies....
of The Goodies
The Goodies
The Goodies are a trio of British comedians who created, wrote, and starred in a surreal British television comedy series called The Goodies during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy.-Honours:All three Goodies now have OBEs...
on music for their TV series.
The trio of Tony Buck
Tony Buck
Tony Buck is a drummer and percussionist. He graduated from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music , becoming involved in the Australian jazz scene....
(drums), and the aforementioned Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Chris Abrahams (piano), known together as The Necks
The Necks
The Necks are an experimental jazz trio from Sydney, Australia, comprising Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass...
since forming in 1987 (see 1987 in music
1987 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1987.See also:Record labels established in 1987-January-February:*January 3 – Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
), have been particularly notable for hypnotic hour-long jazz, ambient and otherwise widely influenced spontaneous compositions, gaining widespread attention both in Australia and internationally. Their album Drive-By, which consists of a single 60-minute track, was named Jazz Album of the Year in the 2004 ARIA Awards.
2000 and later
During the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a noticeable trend back towards jazz by many popular performers who had been associated with the rock genre. Most notable amongst these were Kate CeberanoKate Ceberano
Kate Ceberano is an Australian singer. She achieved success in the soul, jazz and pop genres as well as in her brief forays into musicals with Jesus Christ Superstar and film...
, Dannielle Gaha
Dannielle Gaha
Dannielle Gaha DeAndrea, sometimes styled as Danni'elle, is an Australian singer-songwriter. She has toured and recorded with fellow Australian John Farnham, their 1989 duet, "Communication", peaked at number 13 on the Australian Recording Industry Association Singles Chart...
and The Whitlams
The Whitlams
The discography of The Whitlams consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, and eighteen singles.-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Videos:-Music videos:-Awards:...
who all released traditional jazz or jazz-influenced albums within a very short space of time.
Compared to the latter years of the 1900s jazz lost some of its impetus in Australia in the first decade of the twenty first century. However it is still very visible in a number of venues including Melbourne's Bennett's Lane Jazz Club
Bennetts Lane Jazz Club
The Bennetts Lane Jazz Club is a music venue, located off Little Lonsdale Street, in the Melbourne CBD. The club hosts local and international musicians. Lonely Planet has called Bennett's "the world's best jazz club". Bennetts Lane has been hosting musicians for 17 years The venue hosts musicians...
and concerts in Sydney staged by groups such as Sydney Improvised Music Association, Venue 505, The Jazzgroove Association, and The Jazz Action Society. The Melbourne Jazz Co-operative
Melbourne Jazz Co-operative
The Melbourne Jazz Co-operative , better known as the Melbourne Jazz Co-op runs two jazz concerts a week in Melbourne, the most active jazz presenter organisation in Australia...
since 2007 has run three jazz concerts a week in Melbourne, the most active jazz presenter organisation in Australia.
In 2010 jazz music continues to be a valid and visible form of expression in Australia. Although jazz is virtually ignored by mainstream media there is considerable coverage in alternative media outlets such as community radio, and the ABC Dig Jazz digital radio station now plays jazz 24 hours a day non-stop, with a considerable amount of local content.
The standard of musicianship amongst younger players entering the scene continues to be high, and in recent years there has been a trend towards contemporary groups playing primarily original material, rather than standards and jazz standards.
A non-college style of jazz has also evolved with a harder"street edge" style.The Conglomerate, The Bamboos, Damage, Cookin' on Three Burners, John Mcalls Black Money are examples of this.
There are also a number of jazz festivals that continue to be staged including the Melbourne Jazz Festival
Melbourne Jazz Festival
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival is an annual jazz music festival held in Melbourne, Australia from 4 - 13 June 2011.-History:The Melbourne International Jazz Festival was first held in 1998....
, Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival
Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival
The Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival is an annual international jazz festival held in Melbourne, Australia in April or May. The festival was formed in 2005 to celebrate Melbourne’s burgeoning creative jazz scene...
, Wagga Wagga Jazz Festival
Wagga Wagga Jazz Festival
The Wagga Wagga Jazz and Blues Festival is a three day event held in September of each year, in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales which is the major city of the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia...
, the Jazzgroove Summer Festival in Sydney and the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz
Wangaratta Festival of Jazz
The Wangaratta Festival of Jazz is an annual festival of jazz and blues held in the town of Wangaratta, 2.5 hours from Melbourne in North East Victoria, Australia. It has become the premier jazz event in Australia and is renowned internationally....
.
Jazzgroove in Sydney promotes young jazz musicians and host gigs in venues such as 505 and the Basement
Australian Jazz Singers, Musicians and ensembles
- Anita Spring
- Eugene BallEugene BallEugene Ball is an Australian jazz music composer and acclaimed trumpeter who won the best Australian jazz composition award for Fool Poet's Portion in 2008....
- Shannon Barnett
- Annaliesa Rose
- Graeme BellGraeme BellGraeme Emerson Bell AO MBE is an Australian Dixieland and classical jazz pianist, composer and band leader...
- Bob BertlesBob Bertles-Career:A self taught musician, Bertles began his performing career in 1956. In the late 1950s and early 60s Bertles was a member of the developing modern jazz scene that grew out of venues like the Mocambo in Newtown and the El Rocco Jazz Cellar in Sydney's Kings Cross.Active in clubs, on TV, as a...
- Dale BarlowDale BarlowDale Barlow is an Australian jazz composer, multi-instrumentalist: especially tenor, alto saxophone, soprano saxophonist, baritone saxophone and flute....
- Kerrie Biddell
- Miroslav BukovskyMiroslav BukovskyMiroslav Bukovsky is one of Australia's leading jazz trumpeters and composer/arrangers.He has won the Jazz Action Society's Jazz Composers Competition several times and also teaches and does session work. He won an ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album of 1994 with his band Wanderlust, formed in 1991,...
- Don BurrowsDon BurrowsDonald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
- Ian CooperIan Cooper (violinist)Ian Cooper is an Australian Violinist. He was commissioned to compose the "Tin Symphony" for the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney and is proficient in many musical styles including Classical, Gypsy, Jazz, Irish & Country music...
- Roger FramptonRoger FramptonRoger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...
- Peter BoothmanPeter BoothmanPeter Boothman is an Australian jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. Since he started playing in the late 1960s he has worked at most top jazz venues in Sydney including The Basement, Festival of Sydney, Sydney Opera House, Jenny's, The Rocks Push, El Rocco, Wentworth Supper Club, and Horst...
- Paul FurnissPaul FurnissPaul Furniss is an Australian jazz musician who has been recognised internationally. He is regarded as one of Australia's best jazz musicians. He is a noted clarinetist and saxophonist but can play a number of instruments including clarinet, flute, soprano, alto and tenor saxophones. -Early...
- Dannielle GahaDannielle GahaDannielle Gaha DeAndrea, sometimes styled as Danni'elle, is an Australian singer-songwriter. She has toured and recorded with fellow Australian John Farnham, their 1989 duet, "Communication", peaked at number 13 on the Australian Recording Industry Association Singles Chart...
aka Dannielle DeAndrea - Elizabeth Geyer
- Dave Glyde
- George GollaGeorge GollaGeorge Golla AM is an Australian jazz guitarist. In 1959 he commenced a long-term working musical partnership with clarinetist/flautist/saxophonist Don Burrows that continued for almost forty years. On 10 June 1985, Golla was made a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation, For service...
- Christopher Hale
- Roz Hatfield
- Nick HaywoodNick HaywoodNick Haywood is a prominent Australian jazz double bass player, composer and music educator in Melbourne.He has worked with many of Australia's best known Australian jazz musicians including Don Burrows, Dale Barlow, Paul Grabowsky, Bernie McGann, and James Morrison, and with many international...
- Vince JonesVince JonesVince Jones is an Australian jazz artist. He is a singer, songwriter, and trumpet/flugelhorn player. His music includes both original music and new contemporary versions of jazz standards. His themes are often love, inequity, injustice, peace and anti-greed.He attributes his love of jazz to...
- Blake Kearney
- Andrea Keller
- Adrian KlumpesAdrian KlumpesAdrian Klumpes is a pianist from Sydney, Australia who, recording under his own name, released his debut album, Be Still in 2006 on The Leaf Label.Klumpes was a member of electronic jazz trio Triosk....
- Graeme LyallGraeme LyallGraeme William Lyall , is a Western Australian saxophonist, composer and arranger. He became a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2003: "For service to music as Artistic Director of the Western Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra, and as a musical director, composer and...
- Barney McAllBarney McAllBarney McAll is a jazz pianist and composer.Barney McAll completed a Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, studying with pianists Paul Grabowsky, Tony Gould and Mike Nock and with guitarist Doug Devries.He moved to New York City from Australia in 1997 to join...
- John McAllJohn McAllJohn McAll is a pianist, composer, arranger and producer with experience ranging from jazz, pop, blues, contemporary classical, afrobeat and theatre....
- Bernie McGannBernie McGannBernie McGann is an Australian jazz alto saxophone player. He began his career in the late 1950s and is still active as a performer, composer and recording artist.- Biography :...
- John Morrison
- James MorrisonJames Morrison (musician)James Morrison AM is an Australian jazz musician who plays numerous instruments, but is best known for his trumpet playing...
- Michelle Nicolle
- Serge Ermoll
- Jamie Oehlers
- Dave PanichiDave PanichiDave Panichi is an Australian jazz musician, trombonist and composer who began his professional musical career in 1975.In 1981 Panichi moved to New York, where he lived for 18 years...
- Emma PaskEmma PaskEmma Pask is an Australian jazz vocalist. She is best known for her work with big bands and her continuing collaboration with noted Australian virtuoso James Morrison.-Background:...
- John PocheeJohn PocheeJohn Pochée, is a Jazz Drummer and Bandleader.John Pochée was born in Sydney, Australia in 1940.His career as a professional musician began in 1956. He formed The Last Straw in 1974 and also played with the Judy Bailey Quartet from 1974 to 1979...
- John SangsterJohn SangsterJohn Sangster was an Australian jazz composer, arranger, drummer, cornettist and Vibraphonist born in Melbourne, most well known as a composer though also a gifted multi-instrumentalist...
- Janet Seidell
- Craig Scott
- Bob SedergreenBob SedergreenBob Sedergreen is a renowned Australian jazz pianist. Bob has had a long and distinguished career as a performer, bandleader and educator. He has collaborated with leading Australian artists, such as John Sangster, Don Burrows, Brian Brown and Judy Jacques, and supported some of the biggest names...
- Tom Vincent (pianist)
- Alan TurnbullAlan Lawrence TurnbullAlan Lawrence Turnbull, is a jazz drummer and freelance professional musicianAlan Turnbull was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1943...
- Warwick Alder
Ensembles
- Bennetts Lane Big BandBennetts Lane Big BandThe Bennetts Lane Big Band is an Australian large ensemble band playing jazz compositions and improvisations that was formed in 2001 to provide an avenue for original new work....
- Jive Bombers
- Galapagos DuckGalapagos DuckGalapagos Duck is a popular Australian jazz band. Formed in 1969, they have an extensive history of international touring, including:*Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland*Jazz Yatra Festival, Bombay, India*American Musexpo...
- Swing City
- Ten Part Invention
- Tom Vincent TrioTom Vincent TrioThe Tom Vincent Trio is an Australian piano trio led by Tom Vincent . The first trio line up performed in Sydney in 1988....
- TrioskTrioskTriosk were an experimental jazz band from Sydney, Australia, who formed in 2001 and disbanded in 2007. Though coming from a jazz foundation, their sound has very strong electronica elements as well as influences from the textures of musique concrète, with their use of loops of hisses and...
- WanderlustWanderlustWanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world.-Etymology:The loanword from German language became an English term in 1902 as a reflection of what was then seen as a characteristically German predilection for wandering that may be traced back to German...
- Serge Ermoll
- Free Kata
- John McAlls Black Money
- The Austin Benjamin Trio