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. […] Read More
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. […] Read More
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.
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.
The Life Electric is of its time but is also of the tradition of jazz. PW Farrell has caught the balance of both deftly – not an easy thing to do: too many have failed by tipping too far one way or another.
Rivett has broken cover not with yet another musical artefact from a schooled and accomplished improvising musician, but with a true work of the imagination.
Though only 23 years of age, Jodie has been playing the drums for a decade. Her music career started in high school. Her brilliance was already on display when she attended SIMA’s improvisation workshops for young women in 2005. During high school Jodie gained valuable experience in jazz ensemble playing at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music. She was awarded jazz scholarships from Wollongong Conservatorium and IAJE Pan-Pacific Jazz camps.
On the strength of his eponymous debut album, Steve Barry, I get the feeling we will have to do as we did with the Finn brothers and Rusty Crowe (and any other frighteningly talented Kiwi) and willingly refer to him as the Australian pianist and composer Steve Barry. The album really is that good.
‘That’s the exciting thing about this music – like any human relationships, the variables are so intricate and so intertwined that the result is never predictable.’