THE AUSTRALIA/ NEW ZEALAND JAZZ COMMUNITy is MOURNING THE PASSING OF JUDY BAILEY (3 OCTOBER 1935 – 8 AUGUST 2025), PIANIST, COMPOSER, EDUCATOR, AND ONE OF THE TRULY GREATS. WHEN SHE RELEASED YOU AND THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC IN 1964 — FOLLOWED BY MY FAVOURITE THINGS IN 1965 — YOU COULD COUNT THE NUMBER OF FEMALE JAZZ PIANISTS (RECORDING UNDER THEIR OWN NAME, NO LESS) ON THE FINGERS OF ONE HAND. SIX DECADES LATER, THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE, AND SHE CERTAINLY PLAYED A PART IN IT.
IN 1979 Judy Bailey gave an interview to Pop/Jazz legend janice slater, one of the leading figures of the AUSTRALIAN music scene of the ’60s and ’70s. originally posted on janice’s personal blog in two parts (both reposted here, with her generous permission, and slightly edited), long after it was recorded, it is a snapshot of its time (including the tai-chi references), but it is also a testament to judy bailey’s lifelong commitment to her craft and the art form she chose as a means of expression.
BIG THANKS TO janice slater, to jane march for the photos, AND MOST OF ALL, TO JUDY BAILEY herself, FOR THE MUSIC.
JUDY BAILEY Interview by janice slater* (Parts 2 and 3)
I interviewed Judy in (perhaps) late 1979. There is a Part One of this interview but I’ve yet to locate it. I was studying Jazz theory with visiting USA Jazz musicians, courtesy of Jeanette and Greg Quigley who had organized Jamie Aebersold to teach in Australia.
It was around this time that I managed to sit down and have a chat with Judy with my trusted tape recorder. As this interview will show, Judy displays a brilliant, quirky, humorous and insightful take on her idiom along with the generalities of life in the Antipodes.
I’ve decided to try to stick to the original transcription with as few edits as possible. Those familiar with Judy’s work will enjoy hearing her responses to my questions and those new to her will check out her gorgeous music.
Jan: I’d like to quote the author Anais Nin; from The Novel of the Future. She says here: “The Japanese speak of achieving balance between serenity and intensity, it is very essential in their life.” That again brought me to thinking not only about your playing but all the myriad things that you do.
Judy: That’s interesting too, because you know, Japan too is over a volcanic belt (like New Zealand) and that need to achieve a balance between serenity and intensity I’m sure it must have something to do with the actual physical surroundings and that awareness of what’s going on.
Jan: It brings me to the question of the difficulty of combining performing, teaching and being on the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. Also that you’re the first active jazz musician on the music board.
Judy: As far as I know, yes.
Jan: The balancing between all those activities, in terms of hours, days. You’re able to switch from one thing to the other, or do you see it as a continuation? Do you feel that they’re all feeding in to the one thing?
Judy: Yes, I can’t separate them really into little slots and wear different hats. I have to do it that way, otherwise I don’t think I could do any of it. It’s really only something I’ve become aware of, of the process that was going on and allowed it to happen.
Jan: I remember seeing you at the Tai Chi Master, Al Huang‘s concert and you were playing for him. An interesting thing for me was that I hadn’t made those connections with you and Tai Chi. It was pretty exciting for me because I’d been doing Tai Chi for a few years then. I wonder what you felt about those sort of art forms, the fact that he’d been able to merge Tai Chi with the art form of dance and entertainment. He is an improvisor. How did you feel working with him?
Judy: I felt marvellous. It was great! You’ve just made me realize something about him being an improvisor. In a sense, aren’t we all? Improvisors?
Jan: How many of us give ourselves permission?
Judy: Our whole life is an improvisation, really, when you think about it and I’ve never quite thought about it till this very moment. Thank you for putting the thought in my head.
Jan: What was also exciting on that night, was the combination of yourself and there was someone else with you.
Judy: It was Ron Philpott.
Jan: You actually got the audience participating, there was that feeling that the musicians, the audience and Al Huang weren’t separate and that’s a rare situation.
Judy: That’s a magic feeling. It doesn’t happen often and it’s magic when it does and in fact, because they were willing, that’s why that thing happened. There was such a marvellous feeling of goodwill because everyone was improvising!
Jan: I know you work with children and you work in all sorts of other fields and it seems to me that you’re also trying to break down those barriers, those preconceptions.
Judy: Yes, that’s why I get such a buzz taking the ensemble at the Conservatorium because that’s what’s going on. The preconceptions are gradually dissipating and all sorts of exciting things are starting to happen.
Jan: Is that a Jazz Ensemble or various ensembles?
Judy: There are various, but I only take one, a Jazz Ensemble. That way I can keep my energy high and my enthusiasm high and I also, since last year, have been taking the Final Year Bachelor of Music Education students and that’s really a challenge, because here are students who pretty well all of them have had strict classical training and for the first time in their lives they’re starting to know something about jazz and boy, when you start to get through, you know when the doors start being opened…wow!
Jan: Really exciting!
Judy: It’s great!
Jan: I wanted to ask you…
Judy: Excuse me… Can you imagine thirty-two classically trained students all articulating and singing beautifully in tune ‘Anthropology’?
Jan: Great! So you include a lot of singing?
Judy: Oh yes, even with my instrumental students in the Jazz Ensemble. I figure if they can articulate the phrase, they’re gonna be able to play it so much better on their instrument, they’re gonna feel comfortable with it.
Jan: What about development of craft?
Judy: Do you mean that whole business of combining awareness of technique, awareness of phrasing, awareness of… the musical ways to move throughout a progression, rather than the clever ways, the overall architecture of the piece. To me that’s a very important ingredient.
I think it’s vital to be aware of and have your students become aware of the importance of looking at the overall structure rather than going along beat by beat, bar by bar, till you get to the end.
To try and develop a way of looking at a piece in its entirety, so that when you’re improvising for instance, you can retain what you’ve already played; it’s as though you’ve recorded it.
You’ve got your little tape recorder in the back of your head and you can retain a memory of what you’ve played, what you’re playing now and where you’re going to, so that you’re building from what you’ve started with and you bring it to hopefully a satisfactory conclusion, because you’ve used the principles of successful building techniques and those I think are pretty universal.
Jan: Do you think that comes from having had a Classical background?
Judy: I wonder if having been exposed to classical music earlier you instinctively learn something about structure, about the architecture of music, or perhaps on the other hand it can be an instinctive thing that allows one to be able to stand in front of a painting, and one may have never studied painting, art, but you can stand in front of a certain painting and immediately have a feeling of the rightness of it. I don’t quite know what other words to use, that’s an instinctive thing.
Or if you’re looking at, I don’t know, floral arrangements, sometimes you can see one and go: “Wow, look at that” — why does it look good? Because, architecturally, it’s laid out in such a way that it’s ‘right’ and yet that’s a pretty funny thing to say, because a lot of people will say “come on, if that were so, people would end up liking the one thing and not liking another thing.”
Everyone’s tastes are different, and then there’s an emotional content in there too, something might appeal to a person purely on an emotional basis. I think it’s possible to be able to evaluate the architecture objectively and yet to be quite subjective when it comes to the emotional content.
Jan: I think that for me that is simply one of the most lacking elements and I think for younger musicians, whatever age, it’s instinctive from an appreciation point of view, but that is an area where someone like yourself could really share with other people that don’t have that an as inherent thing. We might have the appreciation, but don’t have the insight into it.
Judy: I think that perhaps with some people it’s… something; I know it’s happening more and more with me, the older I get, and hopefully the more mature, then my appreciation of and my, hopefully, ability to indicate that awareness and architecture in the music is growing.
So maybe it’s just something that becomes honed and maybe in that sense being part of, working on a craft aspect of what one does, then maybe this too, is just part of a growing thing that tends to become more refined, more honed, more polished.
Jan: I know for myself, it wasn’t until I attended the Jazz Clinics that I started to get a sense of the history of jazz. I was fortunate, I grew up in a house with a brother who was 20 years older than me who was a very good jazz singer and had a great record collection, but I missed out on Charlie Parker, be-bop and it’s only now that I’m beginning to understand the architecture of that. I missed out also on the Rag thing, I heard New Orleans jazz and Swing but I didn’t hear many other things. A person like yourself has a great deal to offer us.
Judy: I agree entirely.
Jan: There’s all this history out there, and it’s so dense and it’s so magnificent!
Judy: All of those forms contain their own inherent architecture, (spoken softly) don’t they?
