me playing jazz, his peers rate him alongside the world's best.It usually takes only one note. One dry, crackling note on that alto saxophone confirms it's Bernie McGann, the most distinctive jazz musician Australia has produced. Given that jazz individuality in the post-modern era too often amounts to just gathering together the nail-clippings of this idiom and that, McGann, who turns 75 today, is the real thing.
''With all the great jazz musicians,'' says Paul Grabowsky, McGann's pianist for the birthday-celebration concerts, ''whether you're talking Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Coltrane, Thelonious Monk or Bill Evans, the thing that first and foremost makes them stand apart is the sound they make. And Bernie is in that league because nobody makes that sound except him …
BY John Shand
June 22, 2012
Image by Joanne Kee at SIMA performance at the Sound Lounge
If you want to catch Bernie live he is touring regional New South Wales later this year and may also be in Victoria towards the end of the year. Check the SIMA touring pages on their website www.sima.org.au after the 1st July.
