Each year since 2005, in the month leading up to the jazz festival in Wangaratta, Miriam Zolin interviews the finalists in the National Jazz Awards. The awards are decided at Wangaratta in a series of heats culminating in a finals performance on the Sunday of the festival. Wangaratta Jazz Festival in 2014 runs from Friday …
The jazz thing started in high school for me. I remember one morning in roll call, a very close friend showed me a recording of Pat Metheny playing ‘Have You Heard’. I was about 13 and had really only been flirting with the guitar up until then. Magic! I was instantly addicted to it.
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When I first came to Sydney as a vocal student, Jonathan Zwartz really took me under his wing, giving me the opportunity to perform with him and introducing me to many great Sydney musicians. In more recent times I’ve been playing (and getting into trouble) with great jazz pianist Gerard Masters, which has been an incredible learning curve.
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“I’m looking forward to getting the competition over and done with so that I can relax and enjoy the festival. Gerald Clayton’s trio will be a highlight.”
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My first teacher was a passionate jazz pianist and the only teacher in the phonebook willing to take on such a young pupil. He taught me the language of jazz from my very first lesson.
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I was always a fairly unconventional student. I wasn’t interested in reading the dots as a kid, and would learn everything by ear, make arrangements and compose my own pieces. I wondered why in Art class you were encouraged to make your own paintings, but in Music class you were only encouraged to learn other people’s creations.
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Each year since 2005, in the month leading up to the jazz festival in Wangaratta, Miriam Zolin interviews the finalists in the National Jazz Awards. The awards are decided at Wangaratta in a series of heats culminating in a finals performance on the Sunday of the festival. Wangaratta Jazz Festival in 2013 runs from Friday 1 to …
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Early on I was really into Brad Mehldau and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Rosenwinkel for his tone and compositional sense and Mehldau for his standard playing, which I always found fresh, exploratory and exciting. I never checked either artist out on a technical level, but I did listen prolifically.
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Each year since 2005, in the month leading up to the jazz festival in Wangaratta, Miriam Zolin interviews the finalists in the National Jazz Awards. The awards are decided at Wangaratta in a series of heats culminating in a finals performance on the Sunday of the festival. Wangaratta Jazz Festival in 2013 runs from Friday …
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I was lucky enough to have very inspiring teachers in high school and beyond – I distinctly remember one teacher in particular recommending that I buy Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and a live Oscar Peterson disc while we were on a school band trip to ‘the big smoke’ (Melbourne) – these records opened the door for me…
