You can always rely on Serge Ermoll's music for one element— it will never be dull. He may play it pretty or wild or straight ahead or free but it will always be an involving experience.
This is a straight ahead session with a most interesting personnel— including a couple of other heroes of Australian jazz. While Serge seems equally at home in many different areas of jazz, his real importance is as one of those very necessary experimenters. His experience is extensive and has seen him at the forefront of jazz in Australia for the past thirty years. Serge also spent two highly successful periods in Britain.
Probably the greater significance is in having what is, I believe, the last recording of drummer Stewie Speers. The word 'legend' is horribly overused these days but it surely applies to Stewie. One of the most respected of musicians, especially among musicians themselves, it's a crime that Stewie wasn't recorded more often. The rarity of his performances makes this a doubly valuable release. Stewie came from Melbourne and hit the jazz world in the late 1940's. He worked at the Downbeat Jazz Club and was a founder member of the Brian Brown Quartet, a very important modern group in Melbourne. In Sydney in the 1960's, Stewie worked at Chequers night club and at the most important jazz club in Australia's history, El Rocco, with John Sangster, Judy Bailey, Errol Buddle, and many others. From the late '60s to 1980, he was with Max Merritt and the Meteors, mainly in Britain. From the '80s on, Speers was in Sydney and appeared with many of the top players. He is widely regarded as the greatest Australian jazz drummer.
Barry Duggan (The Bat) is a superb jazz saxophonist who has never had anything like the attention his talent deserves. As a teenager Barry was coached by the great Frank Smith. Later, Barry too spent some time with Max Merritt and the Meteors. Over the years he has been somewhat peripatetic. In Sydney, Duggan was prominent with the foremost, adventurous bands—- Serge Ermoll's Free Kata and he replaced American Howie Smith in the Jazz Co-op with Roger Frampton. In the early 1980s he taught at the jazz studies course in Adelaide. Currently Barry is active in his hometown, Melbourne, where he is playing among the finest once again.
Nothing really needs to be said about the two international 'stars' of jazz who appear on this release, Ray Brown and Herb Ellis. They are the cream of the jazz world and two of the biggest names. Each can always be depended upon to boost the energy level in any company. I'd only add that they seem to be having a great time in this group.
It's the other members of this group which I'm really pleased to find together and to have on CD.
You can catch some history while enjoying these fine performances.
Jim McLeod,
Jazz Presenter, ABC-FM
