Australian Jazz - Jazz in The 1970s

Jazz in The 1970s

A very significant development in 1973 was the inception of the jazz studies course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the first jazz course to be offered by an Australian tertiary institution. The then Director of the Sydney Conservatorium, Rex Hobcroft, was approached by jazz musician Don Burrows about the idea of putting together a jazz studies course.

Ultimately US saxophonist and music educator Howie Smith was brought to Sydney on a grant from the Fulbright Program to set up the course. The grant was originally for 9 months but Howie Smith ended up staying for three years, and as well as his involvement with the Conservatorium he also became very active in the Sydney jazz scene, mostly with the group Jazz Co/op which also included local musicians Roger Frampton (piano), Jack Thorncraft (bass)and Phil Treloar (drums).

When The Basement opened its doors it became Sydney's major jazz club during the seventies, and its success encouraged many other venue owners to hire jazz groups. Jazz producer Horst Liepolt, who was booking bands for The Basement, became very active at that time and he set in motion a number of jazz venues and events, including The Manly Jazz Festival, Jazz at the Sydney Festival and his own series of jazz concerts titled "Music is an Open Sky". Horst Liepolt also set up the 44 record label (a subsidiary of Phonogram records) which recorded over 30 albums of local jazz. He also organised numerous successful concerts at many of Sydney's high profile entertainment venues including the Sydney Opera House and the Regent Theatre.

This major resurgence of Australian jazz took place mostly in Sydney, but it had some flow-on effects in the jazz scene throughout Australia. Many jazz musicians came to Sydney from other areas of Australia during this decade, either to perform at special concerts or in some cases to live permanently and pursue a career in music. There was also a more than usual interest for jazz in Melbourne during the 1970s. Jazz performances were included in the Moomba Festival and Melbourne jazz musicians such as Tony Gould, Brian Brown, Bob Sedergreen and Ted Vining benefited from the resurgence of interest in the music at that time.

A lot of top American jazz musicians performed in Sydney during the seventies, and major players such as Dave Liebman, John Scofield and Miroslav Vitous gave master classes and workshops while they were here.

Bob Barnard has become an icon of Australian jazz and has probably made more of an impression internationally than any other Australian jazz musician. In the year of 1974 the Bob Barnard Jazz Band was formed.

Jazz fusion, as typified by groups like Return to Forever, largely passed Australia by, although the group Crossfire was probably the best and best-known Australian act to work in this area.

Some of the many working jazz groups in Sydney during the seventies were the Jazz Co/op, John Pochee's The Last Straw, The Don Burrows Quartet, the Galapagos Duck, The Judy Bailey Quartet, Kerrie Biddell and Compared to What, the Bob Barnard Jazz Band, Paul Furniss' Eclipse Alley Five, Col Nolan and the Soul Syndicate, the Peter Boothman / Sid Edwards quartet, Serge Ermoll and Free Kata, and Craig Benjamin's Out To Lunch.

The jazz scene in Sydney slowed down a little towards the start of the 1980s when The Basement pursued a more commercial music policy after extending their premises by adding a large upstairs area. Around that same time Horst Liepolt left Australia, going on to a successful career in jazz production in New York, and this left a major gap in the area of jazz promotion in Sydney. However traditional and mainstream bands continued to do well in the pub scene and contemporary jazz could still be found in venues such as The Paradise at Kings Cross, Jenny's in the inner city and Morgan's Feedwell at Glebe.