Judy Bailey, pioneering woman of Australian jazz, dies at 89

The Age

5 days ago

As a youngster, Judy Bailey usually heard classical or pop music coming from the cream-coloured Bakelite radio on the Formica kitchen bench of her family's home in Whangarei, New Zealand. But on this particular afternoon, her 13-year-old ears heard something new. She recognised the song, East of the Sun, yet after the melody the band seemed to be making up the music as they went. In her three years studying classical piano with the local nuns, they'd never mentioned improvising.
Bailey, who died on August 8 aged 89, was instantly enthralled, and when what turned out to be the George Shearing Quintet had finished, she dashed to the piano, and worked out that the made-up music was happening over the song's chords. A week later, the Stan Kenton Orchestra gave her an even bigger thrill, the thought of which still gave her tingles decades later. It was to set the course for the rest of her life.
Bailey was born in Auckland on October 3, 1935, forsaking ballet for classical piano at the age of 10. A pioneer of women's participation in Australian jazz, she was a lyrical, imaginative and swinging jazz pianist, a composer and arranger of note, and an educator with a profound influence on three generations of Sydney Conservatorium students.
At 14, she began regularly accompanying a singer on Radio Northland, through which she met twins Peter and Paul Newbury. When they weren't helping out at the family undertakers business, they ran an acrobatic troupe – yes, really – for which Bailey, 10 years their junior, became musical director.
At 18, she began studying classical piano more seriously in Auckland. Once, when her teacher asked to hear her homework, and could tell she hadn't really practised, he stopped her and said, 'No. Play me the stuff you've been working on. Not the stuff I gave you.' So Bailey came clean with her jazz, only to find the teacher intrigued and supportive.
Her parents, who'd assumed her future as a classical pianist was a given (after she'd pursued it with sufficient commitment to gain her Associate of Trinity College London diploma remotely) were less thrilled, but Bailey was not to be swayed. Her jazz activities included arrangements for the 16-piece Auckland Radio Band, before she sought to expand her horizons. In 1960, she left Auckland for Sydney, originally intending a six-month stopover on her way to London. She stayed for the rest of her life.
In Sydney, she was waylaid by a welcoming jazz scene (recording The Wind album with reeds player Errol Buddle in 1962) and by constant work as a pianist/arranger in the TV studios, firstly for Tommy Tycho's resident orchestra at the Seven Network, and then at Nine and 10.
Her jazz work centred on Kings Cross's El Rocco, the impossibly small crucible in which Sydney's hip, modernist, 1960s jazz was forged, with the likes of artist John Olsen and writer/broadcaster Clive James listening on. You & the Night & the Music, her debut album that was recorded there (with bassist Lyn Christie and drummer John Sangster) sizzles with the energy of youth and adventure, while also being sensuous, playful, heartfelt, effortless and lithe. Her own Deep Night signalled the start of an august parallel career as a composer, and such LPs became collectors' treasures in Japan, reportedly fetching four-figure sums.