Music broadcasting in Australia and overveiw of Australian Jazz

Music broadcasting has played an significant role in providing classical music and jazz to the Australian public prior to the introduction of FM into the country, the ABC produced classical music programs which were broadcast through their local stations Professor A.E Floyd’s program music Lover’s Hour was heard for over 25 years, beginning first on the local Melbourne ABC station in 1944 before being broadcast nationally.

The national FM music network ABC classic FM was created in 1976 to broadcast classical music, jazz, operas, recitals and live concerts from Australia and overseas, music analysis progams and news about the music activities.

The history of jazz and related genre in Australia spread back into the 19^th century. During the gold rush locally formed blackface with white actor musicians in blackface minstrel troupes began to tour Australian, touring not only the capital cities but also many of the booming regional towns like Ballarat and Bendigo Minstrel orchestra music featurics polyrhythms in the pre classic banjo playing and clever percussion breaks. A more jazz like form of minstrelsy reached Australia in the late 1890’s in the form improvisatory and syncopated coon song and cake wall music two early forms of ragtime.

In the mid 1920’s phonograph machines, which increased contact with popular music and visiting white America dance musicians had firmly created jazz and it implies that jazz inflected modern dance and stage music in Australia. The first jazz in Australia is Mastertouch piano rolls recorded in Sydney from around 1922 while jazz began to be recorded on disc by 1925, first in Melbourne and later to Sydney.

After, the end of the world war 11, jazz separated into two strands in Australia; one was based on the earlier collectively unpremeditated called Dixieland or traditional jazz.

The 1970’s brought tertiary jazz education course and continuing innovation together diversification in jazz which by the late 1980’s included world music fusion and contemporary classical and jazz crossovers. The problem towards electric style fusion has continued with ensembles like the Catholics, Australian Art orchestra, Tongue and groove, australysis, Wanderlust, the Necks and many others. However, the normal modern jazz and Dixieland still have the strongest following and patron still flock to hear celebrity mainstream artists who have been around for decades, such as the one night stand players Duugland Shaw and Blair Jordan, stalk players Don Burrows and trumpeter James Morrison and sometimes, and the celebrity pioneer of traditional jazz in Australia, Graeme Bell. A non-academic genre of jazz has also evolved with a harder street edge style. The Conglomerate, the Bamboos, Damage, Cookin on three burners, John Mcalls Black Money are examples of such, also Andrew Bisset, Black Roots White Flowers, Golden press, in 1978 Bruce Johnson.