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.

CHRIS CODY: A BIT OF A FRANCOPHILE

Interview by Peter Jordan

January 9, 2012

My mother taught French, and I studied French at school and later at university, and became a bit of a Francophile after reading Camus and Sartre at school and discovering French cinema. Watching films by Renoir, Truffaut, Godard and Melville stirred up my romantic fantasies about the place and its people. I started imagining playing piano on “the Left Bank” from about fifteen…

BOBBY GEBERT: SCULPTING A CAREER

by John Shand

Australian Jazz & Blues, Volume 1, No 5, 1994

Life paths and career moves have a funny habit of happening as much by accident as design. Take Bobby Gebert. One of the country's leading pianists for many years, Bobby has become typecast as Sydney's accompanist par excellence. This may have led to much work backing many fine artists, but the lack of opportunities for his trio to strut its stuff has Gebert concerned that the typecasting might be assuming the mantle of a straightjacket. Add to this the fact that Bobby also feels he has been falsely branded strictly a bebop player, and it is no wonder he was keen to use our talk to set the record straight about a thing or two…

MARK SIMMONDS: NO SLAVES

by John Shand

Australian Jazz & Blues, Volume 1, No 5, 1994

It barely seems credible that the first ever album from Mark Simmonds' Freeboppers is only now being released - after the band has spent 13  years in the vanguard of Australian jazz. Better late than never... Birdland should get some sort of medal for recognising that Simmonds is one of our most significant players and composers, whose art has cried out for recording. The other labels should be putting on dark glasses and blushing. Then again, they're probably saying Mark who?...