“When you think of Bob Marley or Peter Tosh and their music, it’s a snapshot of what the political landscape is, they’re saying: this is the world we live today; wouldn’t it be better if it was a better place? I think that’s the question that I want to raise in my music.”
Angela Davis: “It has always been a dream of mine to record with strings – some of my favourite albums are ventures in jazz with strings; Art Pepper’s Winter Moon, Lee Konitz Strings for Holiday and Paul Desmond’s Desmond Blue. To me there’s something profoundly beautiful about the timbre of the alto saxophone blending with a string section.”
Jamie Oehlers: “Everything we do is enveloped in the arts, from the music we hear on the radio, the television shows we watch, the community events that draw people together, the phone we put in our hand. Art is all around us and inspires new thought and communication. This is how we create an identity as a national – not through digging up coal.”
The reports were true. Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock are among us, walking in the streets of Melbourne, even checking out Bopstretch’s electifying-as-usual performance at the Uptown Jazz Cafe. Their sold-out concerts are, of course, the highlights of this year’s edition of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, accounting for its labeling as pianocentric. Though it’s true that …
To see the two men working together, obviously digging each other’s playing was a thrill that pointed to this being one of the jazz gigs of the year for me. Griffin was overjoyed to be locking horns, literally, with the great Dale; Barlow, for his part, equally seemed to enjoy having the younger player’s sparkling alto nipping at his heels, pushing him into some hair-raising tenor work.
I have come late to the amazing playing of Sydney’s Michael Griffin. Walking into an Andrew Dickerson Quintet gig off the street I was floored by this pale young man utterly flying on that most nimble of the jazz horns–the alto. It seems I am just one in a long line of admirers, many notable, …
Willow’s latest release Lightbulb Life has been in my headphones for the last few days. It’s a sound window into an exotic location, an insight into a city and its people through Willow’s ears.
When did you start playing saxophone and why? For example, was there a ‘moment’ when it came to you as a calling or vocation? When I was eight years old I heard a jazz band in a Christmas Pageant. The music hit me like an electric shock and I felt a real sense of urgency …
Phil Noy, from Melbourne When did you start playing saxophone and why? For example, was there a ‘moment’ when it came to you as a calling or vocation? I started Playing saxophone around the age of 12 when my brother, whilst under the spell of the incredibly fashionable and hip ‘Commodore 64? computer,left his saxophone …
Miriam Zolin: When did you start playing saxophone and why? For example, was there a ‘moment’ when it came to you as a calling or vocation? David Jackson: When did you start playing saxophone and why? For example, was there a ‘moment’ when it came to you as a calling or vocation? I started playing music …