ESSAYS

This section includes essays on various jazz subjects, written by a number of writers. Contributions are welcome. Writers interested in contributing are welcome to contact the editor by filling out the form in the CONTACT tab. Photographs to illustrate those essays are welcome. Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of articles in this folder.

FOCUS ON NOLAN/BUDDLE SYNDICATE

by John Clare

Jazz Down Under, May/June, 1975

Back in the Music Maker days, I got Ray Sutton to do us a story about Col Nolan. The upshot of this piece, which I thought an excellent one, was a brief angry correspondence in our Letters section between Nolan and Sutton. I always suspected that Ray Price may have influenced the uncharacteristically pedantic style of Col's letter. In any case, Ray parodied that style in his reply: "…may I quote (out of context) a particularly apt and succinct pivot of the late Onkel Wallace: 'Back on your organ, Mother Morgan!" – which Col now admits was a pretty good line. The misunderstanding involved is too complicated to go into…

TED VINING: IN THE JAZZ WILDERNESS

by Neville Meyers

Jazz Magazine, Spring 1983

Talent, and high-powered creative drive, can be self-alienating qualities. Blessed — or cursed — with them, the artist stands apart, adopts a critical stance, and inevitably comes into conflict with his or her artistic environment. The conflict may out of sheer frustration cost you an ear (Van Gogh), thrust upon the artist a self-protective cloak of stark eccentricity (Monk), or in much less dramatic fashion — in the case of Ted Vining —manifest itself in striving to create an environment for change…

TED VINING: BAND MAESTRO TO LIFT SA SCENE

by Richard Ogier

Adelaide Advertiser, January 12, 1993.

When great bandleaders die, the music schools that were their groups die with them. But when, like Melbourne contemporary jazz drummer Ted Vining, they move interstate, a new city of aspiring artists gains access: watching, playing, talking and listening. The effect, for both master and would-be apprentice, is seldom if ever repressive. Great artistry tends to liberate. Vining, 55, who becomes an Adelaide resident this week for personal reasons, has been one of Australia's most respected and inspirational band leaders since he first led a home-grown television jazz group, The TV Trio, in Melbourne 25 years ago...