John Sangster MUSIC SERIES

1Don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that DOO-WUP DOO-WUP DOO-WUP DOO-WUP Jazz music series: volume 1 (Don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that DOO-WUP DOO-WUP DOO-WUP DOO-WUP)

1 All ya gotta do 4’40” 2 Makes no differents 5’53” 3 Three moons (two UP, one down) 3’54” 4 Eyebrows up doo-wup 6’40” 5 Doo-wup to others 2’50” 6 Doo-Wup before leaving 3’27” 7 Everything you’ve got 5’44” 8 A little swamp music (with doo-wups) 5’50” This is the first of five 9 Doo wup doo-wup t’wuthers 4’40” volumes of “suites” written by John Sangster The music was recorded in 1980 and remastered from the original mixed tapes by for this lively little Move Records in 2018. orchestra.

P 1980 / 2018 Move Records move.com.au Here is the first in a series of suites written 2 Makes no differents 5’53” OK too. This one has Graeme’s tenor again. for this lively little orchestra, a gathering that The first theme, and the first improvisation, Throughout. It was the last piece he played includes some of ’s foremost jazz are played by Cozzie again, this time with with us before going back to musicians: his jam-tin mute. The big cornet solo is, of (thereby carefully adjusting his address). course, Bob Barnard. The whole thing’s a bit Bob Barnard: Cornet on the spooky side, but, like the man said, 7 Everything you’ve got 5’44 Ron Falson: Trumpet makes no differents… Solo piano introduction to the saxes’ theme, John Costelloe: Trombone then Graeme, then Keith Hounslow using Tony Gould: Piano 3 Three moons (two up, one down) 3’54” one of the mutes from the bag that Rex Chris Qua (“Smedley”): Tree-bass A warm summer’s night; the cor-anglais Stewart taught him. Sluggsy’s drum solo into Len (“Sluggsy”) Barnard: Drums has the first theme, with Len’s hand-drums another solo-piano bit; a duet for Graeme Paul Furniss: Alto Saxophone and Clarinet and Ian’s percussions. Then the saxes take and Smedley, Graeme with the band, and a Errol Buddle: Tenor Saxophone and Clarinet over the development of the theme, and final drum solo to finish. Roy Ainsworth: Baritone Saxophone Graeme Lyall makes his entry on the tenor and Bass-Clarinet saxophone. Very big on langourosity, this 8 A little swamp music Tom Sparkes: Clarinet and Cor-Anglais piece. (with doo-wups) 5’50” John (“Darky”) McCarthy: Clarinet Firstly the orchestral swampy part, then Ian Bloxsom: Percussions 4 Eyebrows up doo-wup 6’40” some more mysterioso from Tony, Smedley Piano solo to begin, with the Eyebrows and Slugs. The two clarinets enter, Darky on And the featured soloists: Graeme Lyall, Riff added, then the main theme begins. the right-hand and Paul on the left-hand Tenor Saxophone, and Keith Hounslow, The soloists go: Bob (in cup mute), Errol channel. And the doo-wuppery begins. Pocket-Cornet (with the little mute and Buddle, and Paul’s alto. Lozza Thompson the plunger). On one of the tracks Laurie adds the extra twiddley bits on the cymbals. 9 Doo wup doo-wup t’wuthers 4’40” Thompson plays a second drum-kit; when Parenthetically p’doody. This one for my friend Catman, who, though this happens Len Barnard’s drums are on the he has his ‘druthers, like to swing. Keith left-hand side and Laurie’s on the right-hand 5 Doo-wup to others 2’50” Hounslow with his plunger mute; Graeme side of the stereo. A feature for Graeme Lyall’s tenor saxophone. has the middle part, with Cozzie, and Keith Cozzie, with the IXL mute, does the middle joins him for the last bit. Again, like the man 1 All ya gotta do 4’40” tune. said, it don’t mean a thing … Smedley’s bass introduction to the theme, 6 The music was recorded and mixed August/September 1980 in the then Cozzie has the trombone improvisation. Doo-wup before leaving 3’27” studios of EMI by Martin Benge and John Sangster, who also A four-bar drum solo leads into the final Two drummers this time. Not quiet together. produced the album. The pieces are copyright JSM. chorus, of which Smedley has the middle Just right. In the next five albums in this part, and out. Lightly and politely. series of six, which were all recorded during a most magic fortnight last August, there’s more of this two-drummers business, and then they really get it together. And that’s 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 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 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 , 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 , 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. His film music ranged from music. Bell’s band was seminal in the Freelancing from 1959, he also the experimental (Albie Thoms’ 1969 formation of an ‘Australian’ jazz sound. joined Ray Price, Don Burrows and Marinetti) to children’s animation Sangster was also at the forefront and became active in music (Hanna-Barbera’s The Funky Phantom in of progressive jazz movements in for film and TV. By 1962 he lived in an 1971). His fascination with the musical Australia: experimental, free-form, apartment with his partner, nicknamed representation of Australian landscape electronic and fusions. He had the Bo Diddley (real name, Janice Patricia emerged in his music for the ABC broadest palette of any Australian Byrnes. Her death at of 43 in TV series In The Wild (1976-1981). In performer/composer, with influences 1980 inspired Sangster’s the second 1971, moving to Narrabeen, he began ranging from the ‘classic’ jazz corpus to album in this jazz series Requiem composing suites based on Tolkien’s jazz/pop avant-gardists and art music for a Loved One) above the El Rocco, The Lord of the Rings. Between 1973 and composers, notably Maurice Ravel. The where Sangster became central to jazz 1978 he produced over eight hours result has been referred to as ‘cosmic experimentation developments. Visiting of recorded music, spanning ragtime d i x ie l a nd’. US pianist Bob James introduced to avant-garde. The instrumentation His life and music disclose a him to avant-gardists Albert Ayler, expanded from the standard traditional far more complex sensibility than the Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, expanding jazz lineup to include woodwinds, ocker/hobbit persona that he cultivated Sangster’s music to a degree unequalled brass, strings, electric guitars, vocals, on stage and in his memoir Seeing in Australian music. On a 1966 ABC synthesiser, and studio-produced The Rafters. He was ‘possibly the most broadcast his trio freely improvised effects. talented of all the musicians who over pre-recorded percussion; he was In 1988 he was entered on the inhabit the jazz world of Australia ... ‘one of only a few composers who used Montsalvat Jazz Festival Roll of Honour. one of the most intuitive musicians electronic sounds before the 1970s in He moved to Brisbane in 1992 where Australia has produced in any idiom’. Au s t r a l i a’. he met Berlin-born musician Petra His participation in Donald Schnese and the two took up residency Compiled from material written by Bruce Westlake’s 1966 Best of Both Worlds as partners. In spite of ill-health he Johnson, Dick Hughes, Eric Myers, and Mike , combining Don Burrows’ continued performing, including at Williams Quartet with the New Sydney Wangaratta Jazz and Blues Festival, Woodwind Quartet, included his own 1994. His final gig was at Noosa Jazz compositions. The interest in fusions Party, September 1995. He died of liver which informed his experiments with cancer on 26 October with Petra at his non-Western forms extended to the side. In his honour, and that of both her psychedelic counter-culture, playing parents, she later changed her name to in the pit band for Hair from 1969s Petra Schnese-Kleist-Sangster. and at Australia’s first rock festival, at Sangster was central in several Ourimbah NSW, 1970. major developments in Australian