Welcome to Jazz Australia’s second series of interviews with finalists in the National Jazz Awards, which will be announced at the 2006 TAC Wangaratta Festival of Jazz. This year the National Jazz Awards feature piano, for the first time since 1999. At the finals, to be held in Wangaratta in the first weekend of November, the finalists will play with bassist Brendan Clarke (winner of the National Jazz Awards in 2001) and drummer James Hauptmann.
Gerard Masters is from Sydney
Jazz Australia: When did you start playing piano and why? For example, was there a ‘moment’ when it came to you as a calling or vocation?
Gerard Masters: I started playing when I was 7 years old, My dad plays piano, and he thought it was the right time for me to start too
JA: Which musicians (jazz or otherwise) have been your greatest influences? What about them stood or stands out for you?
GM: In the jazz world, Mike Nock, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, because they play the piano so beautifully.
Other people and groups that inspire because of the truth and soul they have in their music are Jimi Hendrix, Neil Finn, Wesley Carr, Ray Charles, The Beatles
JA: When composing or arranging, where do you get your inspiration? For example, do you ever find that other art forms (painting, writing etc.) feed into your own creative process?
GM: I am very lucky to work as a sideman in some really hip bands, so what I’m getting up to with these groups often influences my own writing. Some people I have been playing with recently are Jonathan Zwartz,James Morrison, Guy Sebastian, Wesley Carr, the Falls, Virna Sanzone, Cameron Undy
I am also influenced by some of the great groups coming out of the Jazzgroove scene, for instance, the Matt Keegan Trio, Carl Dewhurst Quartet, Baz, James Muller, Sean Wayland. But definitely nothing from Melbourne ’cause that is all pretty lame
JA: What does the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz represent for you?
GM: A chance to carve all those other piano players and leave them in a pile of drool screaming for mercy
JA: What are you listening to now?
GM: The sweet sound of silence after coming home from two long gigs!
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Read interviews with other finalists:
Marc Hannaford
Andrea Keller
Hugh Barrett
Gerard Masters
Darrin Archer
Ben Winkleman
Jackson Harrison
For more information about the TAC wangaratta FEstival of Jazz and the National Jazz Awards, see the website:”http://www.wangaratta-jazz.org.au”
Miriam Zolin is a Melbourne writer who loves jazz and goes to Wangaratta for the festival every year. Read more about her atwww.miriamzolin.com: “http://www.miriamzolin.com”
