For just over 24 years I have been a freelance writer, publishing in that time a wide variety of genres: news items, live concert reviews, travel articles, features, personality profiles, and CD and book reviews. I have written for various in-flight magazines, The Adelaide Review, The Republican, The Bulletin, The Australian, The Advertiser, The Melbourne Herald Sun and several regional newspapers. In 1994 I won a national travel-writing prize sponsored by The Australian newspaper, which led to my writing regularly for that paper. Since 2003 I have been jazz critic for The Advertiser and The Australian newspapers, on average contributing weekly to each paper. In 2005 I won a national Jazz Writing Competition sponsored by the Wangaratta Jazz Festival.
In 1985 my then partner and I underwent a total sea change, moving to India to try and implement a business plan involving the acquisition and establishing of a small scale pensione, a scheme which ultimately failed to materialise, due to insurmountable problems with the Indian bureaucracy. At the same time our relationship deteriorated, and eventually in 1990 I returned alone to Australia. These major events in my life form the basis of my book What Westerners Have For Breakfast published in late 2013 by Transit Lounge Publishing.
I spent four years until 1993 managing Community Radio Station 4CCR.FM, Cairns, and then four more years managing another community station 8CCC.FM, Alice Springs where I met my present wife. In 1994 while at 8CCC.FM I was elected to the community radio peak national body, the Community Broadcasting Assn of Australia (CBAA). I had worked in commercial radio previously in the 1960s: announcing, copywriting, programming and scriptwriting for stations 2LT Lithgow, 2NM Muswellbrook and 2NX Newcastle.
Throughout the period from 1990 until 1997 I had numerous freelance articles published by The Cairns Post, Barfly Magazine and The Alice Springs News.
In 1997 we moved to my wife’s home town, Adelaide where we’ve happily lived ever since, and in 2003 I began writing for The Advertiser as a freelance music critic, and continue in that role. I was made Jazz Critic for The Australian in late 2003, a position I presently hold, and in addition I had been writing travel pieces, profiles and book reviews for The Australian since 1995.
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Aaron Benson is fastly getting major recognition in the U.S, Europe and Japan for his C.D After The Rush distributed through http://www.newmarketmusic.com The C.D has received glowing reviews and acclaim for Aaron’s original tunes and very carefully selected covers. Very much a stylist with many influences including Jazz, Soul, Latin, R’n’B, Blues and Acid Jazz his playing sparkles with a pristine not overly effected guitar sound which is full of tantalizing melodies and expressive grooves. A complete bio and reviews can be found along with soundbites at the official website http://www.aaron-benson.com
Burrows was born in Sydney in 1937, a visiting flute virtuoso and teacher, Victor McMahon, played and inspired Burrows to take up the flute. By 1942 Burrows had taken up clarinet. He became well known in Sydney jazz circles and was playing in dance halls, nightclubs and radio bands.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Burrows was one of the best-known jazz musician in Australia and had many engagements in Australia and the United States.
In 1973 Burrows received the first gold record for an Australian jazz musician for his record Just the Beginning, started the first jazz studies program in the southern hemisphere, at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music (under the direction of Rex Hobcroft) and was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In 1979 he was appointed Chair of Jazz Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium.
Burrows hosted the nationally televised show The Don Burrows Collection for six years. He has an extensive recording career in his own right with his groups and has performed on many more albums with other artists.
In the 1980s, Burrows was associated closely with the then young James Morrison.
Awards
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), 1973
Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), 1987[8]
Life member of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, 1988
Inducted into the ARIA Music Awards Hall of Fame, 1991
Named one of the Australian Living Treasures, 1989, 1999
Sir Bernard Heinze Award, for his service to Australia, 2000
Honorary Doctorate in Music, Sydney University, 2000
Honorary Doctorate in Music, Edith Cowan University, Perth, 2001
Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music, Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Awards of 2004
Honorary Doctorate in Education, Central Queensland University, 2004
Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal (1977)
Inducted into the Australian jazz Bell Awards Hall of Fame, 2007
