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Beat hits the beach
THIS
weekend's Glenelg Jazz Festival is visiting most of
the great names of Australian jazz. Many of these names will feature at the festival's Best of the Fest concerts each night at the Big Top tent. The Big Top will host late-night parties from 10.30 with different themes: Latin Salsa with TNT Latino, Friday; a big band funk explosion with Goose, Saturday; and an artist party with Blues Brothers and Sisters of Soul, on Sunday. The festival will be a slice of the living history of jazz in Australia. Jazz's unofficial historian, Bruce Johnson, also will play and talk jazz. The Adelaide-born, Sydney-based trumpeter took up the instrument as a University of Adelaide undergraduate. "I used to hang out in the Velvet Tavern in Hindley St ... and I started forming my own bands in the mid-1960s," Johnson says. "We played mostly trad jazz because that was the scene I had stumbled into, although my jazz interests are much broader now." Among his influences is Australia's great trad jazz star, Graeme Bell. Johnson joined Bell's All Stars in the 1970s. "Although I enjoyed it, I didn't fully understand how important that band was," says Johnson. He will join two local bands, one led by Bruce Gray, the other by trombonist Gordon Coulson, during his Adelaide visit. Coulson sat in with Johnson's band in Sydney and this is his chance to return the favour. However, the main purpose for coming to the Glenelg Jazz Festival is to talk about jazz. "It's more of an informal presentation rather than a lecture," Johnson says. "It's about aspects of the history of jazz in Australia and trying to identify its various strands." As part of the festival, there will be a screening of the earliest surviving film footage of jazz being played in Australia. The footage of a jazz band playing as a woman dances is from Charles Chauvel's silent 1926 film Green Hide. Johnson found the shooting script in which Chauvel states the cinema band should play A Certain Party, a hit recorded by popular Australian jazz trumpeter and trombonist Frank Coughlan. In the 1920s, cinema bands would play live music to accompany silent movies. Johnson's Big Picture presentation will be at St Peter's Church on Saturday at 4pm. Graeme Bell and his Reunion Band head up the trad jazz. One of his old band members, and one of Australia's great trumpeters, Bob Barnard also is here with his famed band. Modern jazz is served up care of reeds man Errol Buddle, who became a jazz legend in the 1950s through the Australian Jazz Quintet, while the Paul Grabowsky Trio is also making an appearance. More contemporary flavours come via Bernie McGann Trio, with Lee Gunness providing firework vocals with Ken Way's All Stars. Local bands will serve doses of cool from E-Type Jazz, bebop from Ted Nettlebeck and Schmoe and cutting edge from ACME Jazz Unit. High-school bands will feature free on Stage 4 both days. Adelaide favourites, including the SA Police Band and its Dixie Band offshoot will play, as will Air Force Jazz Ensemble. Source: Advertiser, Australia Other news:
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