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5Ripper John Sangster Jazz Music Series: Volume 5 Ripper John JAZZ Sangster MUSIC SERIES 5Ripper John Sangster Jazz music series: volume 5 Ripper 1 What was that? 3’58” 2 Ripper 3’10” 3 Ponder this 3’36” 4 Darkly 7’13” 5 The engine room 3’03” 6 Lovely 3’46” 7 The right time the right place 3’18” 8 Near the lake 9’59” 9 That’s it 4’55” This is the fifth of The music was recorded in 1980 and remastered from the original mixed tapes by five volumes of Move Records in 2018. “suites” written by John Sangster for this lively little orchestra. P 1980 / 2018 Move Records move.com.au Here is the the fifth and final in a series of 1 What was that? 3’58” suites written for this lively little orchestra, a Well, all I did was … gathering that includes some of Australia’s foremost jazz musicians: 2 Ripper 3’10” Starting down the Spencer Street end Bob Barnard: Cornet Ron Falson: Trumpet 3 Ponder this 3’36” Tony Gould: Piano Let’s remember Charles Ives Chris Qua (“Smedley”): Tree-bass Len (“Sluggsy”) Barnard: Drums 4 Darkly 7’13” Paul Furniss: Alto Saxophone and Clarinet A lighter side of dark Errol Buddle: Tenor Saxophone and Clarinet Roy Ainsworth: Baritone Saxophone 5 The engine room 3’03” and Bass-Clarinet What the … ? Tom Sparkes: Clarinet and Cor-Anglais John (“Darky”) McCarthy: Clarinet 6 Lovely 3’46” Herb Cannon or John Costelloe: Trombone Salute to the old South John Sangster: Vibraphone Ian Bloxsom: Percussions 7 The right time the right place 3’18” You just never know And the featured soloists: Graeme Lyall, Tenor Saxophone, and Keith Hounslow, 8 Near the lake 9’59” Pocket-Cornet (with the little mute and the Sounds of rain and water plunger) and Flugelhorn 9 That’s it 4’55” You’re all mad, half of you The music was recorded and mixed August/September 1980 in the Sydney studios of EMI by Martin Benge and John Sangster, who also produced the album. The pieces are copyright JSM. JOHN SANGSTER 1928-1995 a slow boogie-woogie piece, diffidently mid-winter 1960. and reflectively but somehow The bassist on those records was John Sangster was one of the most individualistically. the powerful – musically and physically talented of all Australian jazz It was at the third convention – Lou Silbereisen, who had spread the musicians, a technician and creator who (Prahran Town Hall, 1948) that he made good word about Sangster so that he embraced and understood more styles the first of several indelible marks on became the drummer for the second of the music than any other. He was an the Australian jazz scene, playing hot British and European tour of Graeme expert drummer and vibraphone player, and exiting cornet in a style like that Bell’s band. a soulful trumpeter and, in arranging of New Orleans veteran Thomas ‘Papa Sangster was now up and away and composing, he always took into Mutt’ Carey and he won an award from on the international drum scene, account the personality of the exponent. Graeme Bell as ‘the most promising recording on drums with black blues Australian reeds virtuoso Don player’. He first recorded 30 December, singer Big Bill Broonzy in Germany, Burrows wrote in his opening to the and participated in the traditional and recording on trumpet and drums forward of Sangster’s autobiography, jazz scene, including through the in the Abbey Road studios in London Seeing the Rafters: “The man is unique”. community centred on the house of with a combination of the bands of Bell Unique he was, this drummer, Alan Watson in Rockley Road, South and English trumpet master Humphrey trumpeter, vibraphonist and composer Yarra. Lyttleton. who died in 1995 after a four-year fight At the fourth convention, In August 1978 Sango was on with a liver complaint. Sangster (or Sango, as he liked to be the television program This is Your In 1992, Sangster was saying with called) stood one morning with a band Life, in an episode that paid tribute to pride that the doctors could hardly in Greville Street, Prahran, playing Graeme Bell. Sango is thanking him discern his liver in their X-rays. In chorus after chorus of Mahogany Hall for allotting him a trumpet solo on the Seeing the Rafters, a quote accompanying Stomp. One afternoon, in a Town Hall Bell-Lyttleton recording sessions. We a 1950 photo of the Graeme Bell band backroom, he produced two pieces of also see Lyttleton that day, waiting to (in which Sangster was drummer) wood (whatever they were, they weren’t surprise Bell on This is Your Life, saying reads: “Happy days – may we live long drumsticks) and beat out a crackling, of Sangster, after seeing him for the and die roaring”. Sangster, bon viveur, stimulating rhythm on the back and first time in twenty-six years: “He’s lived it up through happy days, nights, seat of a wooden chair. c h a n g e d”. months and years. Next thing we knew, he had Sangster had changed into Sangster came on to the bought the drum set of Russ Murphy, the most complete Australian jazz Melbourne jazz scene in 1946, the year Graeme Bell’s first drummer, and on musician, a change that first became of the first Australian Jazz Convention, that kit he recorded on drums for apparent after he returned from Japan but it was at the second convention that the first time, on a classic revivalist and Korea with Bell (Sangster’s second I first set eye and ear on him as he sat at survivalist jazz session led by Roger overseas tour with him) and came to the piano during a lunch break, playing Bell (youngers brother of Graeme) in live in Sydney. He expanded physically and musically. He had never been The ever busy Sangster managed then cornet, learning from recordings one of the totalitarian, crushingly to continue to still play with Bell from with friend Sid Bridle, with whom he restrictive traditionalists, and it was time to time, but he also worked with formed a band. in Sydney that he composed his Hobbit the Ray Price Quartet on trumpet and Isabella’s hostility towards John Suite and The Lord of the Rings trilogy played drums with the Port Jackson and his jazz activities came to a head on – the latter of which has, 25 years Jazz Band. He later played vibes and 21 September 1946, when she withdrew later, been re-released on Move. In the drums at El Rocco, Brougham Street, permission for him to attend a jazz musical styles and compositions of Kings Cross, the headquarters of event; in the ensuing confrontation he these extraordinary works (musical modern jazz in Sydney, with such killed her with an axe but was acquitted ‘plays’, Sangster used to call them) one pianists as Col Nolan and Judy of both murder and manslaughter. catches glimpses not only of the best old Bailey. He also played drums for a He married Shirley Drew 18 Australian jazz tradition of Bell’s early long time with Don Burrows, one of November 1949. In 1950 recorded revivalist bands, but also of Thelonious his most ardent admirers, who – to (drums) with Roger, then Graeme Bell, Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, and of Nat thunderous applause – played the and was invited to join Graeme’s band and Cannonball Adderley. Sangster composition, Rivera Mountain on drums for their second international At the same time, Sangster the at Carnegie Hall, New York City, in July tour (26 October 1950 to 15 April 1952). listener was becoming more involved 1972. During this tour Sangster recorded with such avant-garde players as It was with Burrows that Sangster his first composition, and encountered Sun Ra, Archie Shepp and Ornette went to Expo 67 in Montreal. We saw Kenny Graham’s Afro-Cubists and Coleman, and also with Japanese him off at Sydney Airport. He wept Johnny Dankworth, which broadened traditional music, Sangster even taking when I gave him a bulky large type his stylistic interests. up the shakuhachi, if only briefly. He edition of Gracie Field’s Sing as We Go ... With Graeme he toured Korea also toyed with the idea of scoring for not because of the gift or the girl he was and Japan, 1954 to 1955, then the two film – a winner, both artistically and leaving behind, but because of the cat worked in Brisbane, where Sangster financially – and his original scores he was leaving in his flat above the old began playing the vibraphone. Shirley found their way into the film Fluteman El Rocco. filed for divorce in 1957 (the decree (available on Move) the two well-known n absolute granted 17 September 1959). Australian television series Peach’s John Grant Sangster, musician/ Bell and Sangster relocated to Sydney Australia and Harry Butler in the Wild, as composer, was born 17 November from 3 February 1957 for a residency at well as several animated features and 1928 in Melbourne, only child of John the Hotel Bennelong. Playing little jazz, a series of environmental films for the Sangster and Isabella (née Davidson, the band recorded current skiffle hits Australian Museum. It is not merely then Pringle by first marriage). He (Sangster on washboard), one of which, coincidence that Sangster’s concern for attended Sandringham (1933), then Rock Island Line, made the top ten, the environment would later result in Vermont Primary Schools, and Box Hill leading to radio/television exposure, his recording label, Rain-forest Records. High School. Self-taught on trombone and playing support for Johnny Ray’s 1957 Australian tour.
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