John Shand’s feature on Bryce Rohde, ‘He is a pivotal figure in Australian jazz.’
Author: John Shand
John Shand is a playwright, author, journalist, critic and musician. He began writing about jazz in 1981, and has been The Sydney Morning Herald’s critic for over 21 years. He edited Jazz’n’Blues magazine and the 24 Hours Essential Guide to Jazz, contributed to The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and wrote Jazz – The Australian Accent (UNSW Press).
Katz has come up with an appealing, thoughtful and lyrical take on jazz-rock, ‘Mistral’ and ‘Working Title’ being especially strong.
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This is the musical equivalent of slow food, and will amply repay the patient. Eleven years on and this Melbourne/Sydney collective restores itself to its rightful place near the pinnacle of Australian jazz.
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Is this a new genre? Pub jazz-rock? I remember that hearing the Subterraneans for the first time was a hallelujah moment. Finally here was a band combining rock’s visceral energy with jazz’s lithe spontaneity without compromising either.
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Amid the entertaining anecdotes we pick up on Barnard’s perspectives on his colleagues, his recordings and his idols, including Louis Armstrong, the first encounter with whom he describes as ‘possibly the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me’.
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He remains only interested in musicians who ‘slam their heart down on the table, and go, “There I am!”‘
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“In his last dozen years Motian began to sound like a complete neophyte who just happened to be blessed with an unerring instinct for what that music demanded, moment by moment.”
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Nock’s story may not be quite one of rags to riches: few jazz stories end in riches, whatever garb they began in. But it is a boondocks-boy-made-good tale, an against-the-odds tale…
