Graham Reid | | 1 min read
The words have written themselves into the history of great New Zealand phrases alongside All Black Peter Jones' comment broadcast live after a 1956 Springbok test (“I'm absolutely buggered”), or prime minister Jim Bolger's dismissive words after the 1993 general election: “Bugger the pollsters.”
For those there on the night of August 7, 1950, Peter Young's first words through the microphone in the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber rang with off-the-cuff resonance.
Young -- as compere of what is regarded as Auckland’s first jazz concert (as opposed to dancehall music -- stepped onto the small stage that night and immediately observed: “Those bloody lights are on.”
In a metaphorical way, he was also right: Jazz as a serious listening experience was under the spotlight.
Jazz, a music much derided for its freedom from constraint and slightly seedy image, had come uptown from the nightclubs and dancehalls. Among its practitioners on this night were saxophonist Julian Lee, pianist Crombie Murdoch, trumpeter Murray Tanner, singer Mavis Rivers and others who would become mainstays of the music in this country and overseas.
It would take a long memory or diligent research to get a complete picture of what it must have been like that August night, but with the rediscovery of the original tapes in the early 1990s -- recorded direct to acetate by Noel Peach from a Post Office landline down Queen St to the IYA (radio) studios in Shortland St – the music of that period came back fresh and . . .
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This is a much expanded version of this article at Elsewhere, rewritten for AudioCulture. You can read the full AudioCulture article here.
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Audioculture is the self-described Noisy Library of New Zealand Music and is an ever-expanding archive of stories, scenes, artists, clips and music. Elsewhere is proud to have some small association with it. Check it out here.
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