After the end of World War II Australian jazz began to diverge into two major strands:
dixieland or 'traditional jazz' (early jazz) and modern styles like progressive
swing,
boogie-woogie and
bop as exemplified by the music of
Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie Graeme Bell was an important contributor to
Melbourne's 1940s traditional jazz boom and in 1947 his band, with the support of
Harry Stein, was a great success when they played at the World Youth Festival in
Prague,
Czechoslovakia, going on to tour Europe and finally basing themselves in England where they are said to have exerted a strong influence on the European traditional jazz revival of that era. On returning to Australia Graeme Bell's Jazz Band worked successfully on the local club circuit, as well as recording and touring extensively. The
Australian Jazz Quartet/Quintet was a contemporary Australian jazz group that did very well in the US at that time. In the early 1950s pianist
Bryce Rohde along with
Errol Buddle (reeds) and
Jack Brokensha (vibes and drums) moved from Australia to Windsor in Canada. An agent heard them play locally and asked if they would come across the border to back female vocalist
Chris Connor at a nightclub in
Detroit. This started the ball rolling, and in 1953, along with American saxophonist and bassist Dick Healey, they formed the Australian Jazz Quartet. This very successful unit recorded ten albums and worked at most major US jazz venues. Sometimes a bass player and drummer would be hired to complement the group during recording sessions, and when they ultimately added a permanent bass player they renamed themselves the Australian Jazz Quintet (AJQ). American bassist
Ed Gaston joined the AJQ while they were touring the US in 1958 and he later married and settled down in Australia, becoming an important contributor to the local jazz scene in the ensuing years. Drummer
Colin Bailey played with the AJQ from 1958–60. The AJQ was highly rated in polls run by US jazz magazines such as
Down Beat. They worked on the same bill as names like
Miles Davis,
Count Basie,
Gerry Mulligan,
Dave Brubeck and the
Modern Jazz Quartet; backed singers
Billie Holiday and
Carmen McRae; and played at top venues such as
Carnegie Hall and
Birdland. Another Australian jazz musician, bassist
Bruce Cale, was an early collaborator with Bryce Rohde in Sydney, and subsequently moved to London where he worked with the famous Tubby Hayes Quartet and other jazz groups before relocating to the US in 1966. He went on to play in bands led by John Handy, Ernie Watts, John Klemmer and Jack Walrath, to name just a few. Based in the US for several years, Cale also worked with Zoot Sims, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Mose Allison, James Zitro, ContraBand, Phil Woods, Alan Dawson ... Back in Australia in the late 1970s he worked with most of Australia's leading musicians and in particular his own quartet with Dale Barlow, Roger Frampton and Phil Treloar. In the 1980s he concentrated on composition, working on specially commissioned pieces and also studied with George Russell. In the intervening years he has performed with many of his favourite jazz musicians in Australia including Julian Lee, Kevin Hunt, Mike Nock, Bob Bertles, John Sangster, Sandy Evans and many more. His bass sound has been heard by anyone who ever listened to Jim McLeods JazzTrack on ABC Radio as the memorable signature music for many years was Windows of Arquez which he recorded with Bryce Rhode. The El Rocco became a legend in Australian jazz history and in the 1980s a documentary movie
Beyond The El Rocco was made about the club. Many of Sydney's top musicians worked there early in their careers including
John Sangster,
John Pochee,
Don Burrows,
George Golla,
Alan Turnbull and
Judy Bailey.
The Three Out trio with
Mike Nock (Piano),
Freddy Logan (Bass), and
Chris Karan (Drums) attracted some of the largest crowds at Sydney's El Rocco, a small cellar club situated in
Kings Cross. Originally from New Zealand, Mike Nock came to Sydney in the late 1950s and almost immediately scored a regular spot at the El Rocco. Bassist Freddy Logan hailed from the Netherlands and had already been very active in the Sydney jazz scene both as a player and a promoter of jazz, and in later years drummer Chris Karan would gain international recognition as a member of the
Dudley Moore Trio. The members of the Three Out Trio first got together as part of a group that Sydney alto saxophonist
Frank Smith put together as the house band at "The Embers", a very successful jazz club in Melbourne that also featured top international jazz artists such as the
Oscar Peterson Trio and
Benny Carter. Before he left for Melbourne Frank Smith had made a big impression in Sydney, he worked with most of the top professional bands and could often be found playing at the El Rocco in its earlier years. A handful of Sydney jazz musicians including
John Pochee, Barry Woods, Dave MacRae, Andy Brown and
Bernie McGann also travelled south around that time, finding work in venues such as "The Fat Black Pussycat", another Melbourne jazz club that provided an outlet for those intent on playing uncompromising forms of jazz. The most successful group to appear at Sydney's Mocambo Restaurant in King St Newtown was the Mocambo Four, with Sid Edwards (Vibraphone), Tony Esterman (Piano), Winston Sterling (Bass) and Laurie Kennedy (Drums). The piano chair was also filled by Tony Curby or Bob Dunn over the band's stint of around 4 years during the early 1960s. This venue was very well attended, with people often lined up in the street waiting to get in. In 1957, jazz producer
Horst Liepolt set up a new venue in Melbourne, "Jazz Centre 44". For four to five nights a week, and Sunday afternoons, up to 200 people would gather in the upstairs room to hear
Brian Brown,
Stewie Speer,
Alan Lee, Graeme Morgan, Keith Hounslow, the Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band and many other local jazz musicians, and Jazz Centre 44 remained a major venue for jazz in Melbourne for almost a decade.
Impact of television Television was an important source of work for jazz musicians in the early-mid-1960s; the
GTV-9 house band, which provided music for programs like
Graham Kennedy's
In Melbourne Tonight employed many of best players on the Melbourne jazz/
session scene and showcased younger entrants into the scene, such as
The Red Onion Jazz Band. Melbourne musicians like
Brian Brown,
Bruce Clarke and
Frank Smith also worked extensively on soundtracks and advertising music, and Clarke's Jingle Workshop studio in St Kilda, which produced much important music in these genres, was a significant focus, not merely for its commercial work, but also because it was the venue for regular Sunday jam sessions, many of which Clarke recorded.
Rock 'n' roll rapidly gained popularity in the youth music scene from the mid-1950s and pop and rock continued to dominate in the Sixties and beyond. Many leading jazz performers like
Graeme Lyall,
Stewie Speer and
John Sangster and Tony Buchanan worked with rock groups and absorbed important stylistic influences from the
Motown,
soul music and
funk genres. From the late 1960s, there was a revival to the '
big band' format, partly fuelled by the popularity of big band rock ensembles like
Blood Sweat & Tears and
Chicago. The most notable local modern big band was the acclaimed but short-lived
Daly-Wilson Big Band, which enjoyed considerable popularity and which was the first Australian musical act to tour the
Soviet Union. Another very popular band is
Galapagos Duck, who exerted a huge influence on the Sydney jazz scene as part-owners of and regular performers at Sydney's longest-running jazz venue, The Basement, which opened in 1973.
Serge Ermoll's Free Kata, the first free jazz ensemble to record and internationally release a series of albums including
The New Language of Music on
EMI and the
Philips Records title
Spontaneous Improvisations. An early example of jazz on Australian television was
Sweet and Low, a 1959 ABC series which aired for a six-episode season. Another series was ''
Look Who's Dropped In, a four-episode ABC series that aired 1957–1958, and 1959 ABC series Australian All Star Jazz Band''.
Women in jazz Women had played in jazz bands of their own since the early 1920s, with bands led by
Thelma Ready,
Eve Rees,
Alice Dolphin, and
Grace Funston, among others. The groups were often considered a novelty by the press, but received employment at venues such as Melbourne's
Palais Pictures. The groups gained further popularity during World War II, but many found themselves unemployed following the war, with Grace Funston complaining that when the male musicians had returned the women lost their jobs. Singer
Barbara James was considered one of Australia's most famous big band vocalists during the 1930s. She performed with Jim Davidson and Frank Coughlan, among others. At the Palais, an all female band continued to perform until 1949 when the big band sound began to lose favour with the public. ==Jazz in the 1970s==