Shannon Barnett (born 1982) is an Australian trombonist and composer who was named Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2007 Australian Jazz Bell Awards. [1]
Barnett was born in Traralgon. Since completing studies at the Victorian College of the Arts, she has performed in ensembles including Vada, The Bamboos, The Black Arm Band, The Vampires, the Bennetts Lane Big Band and as a guest with the Andrea Keller Quartet, on the 2004 ABC Jazz release Angels and Rascals.
Barnett has also appeared with the Australian Art Orchestra, Barney McAll’s Mother of Dreams and Secrets feat. Kurt Rosenwinkel, Charlie Haden, Flap! and the Paul Grabowsky Sextet.
From 2009 to 2010, Barnett worked as a multi-instrumentalist and composer with the contemporary circus group Circus Oz, as part of the Barely Contained season [2]
In 2011, Barnett relocated to New York City, to pursue a Master of Music degree.
In January 2014, Barnett became a member of the WDR Big Band in Cologne, Germany, and performed with guest artists including Christian McBride, Paquito D'Rivera, Ron Carter, Maria Schneider, Joshua Redman, Michel Camilo, Richard Bona and Jimmy Heath, but left in 2018 to pursue her own projects.
In 2015, Barnett formed her own quartet with Cologne-based musicians Stefan Karl Schmid (tenor saxophone), David Helm (double-bass) and Fabian Arends (drums). They released their debut album Hype in 2017.
In 2018. she composed and presented the cross-disciplinary work 'Dead Weight' for musicians and fitness studio. Her new project 'Wolves and Mirrors' will release their first album in early 2021.
In April 2019. she began as Professor for Jazz Trombone at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, Germany. In 2020, she received the WDR Jazzpreis for Improvisation and in 2022, the German Jazz Prize in the brass instrument category.
In 2010, Barnett released her debut album as a leader, entitled Country on the Which Way Music label. The recording also features Christopher Hale (acoustic bass guitar), Nashua Lee (electric guitar) and Ben Hendry (drums), and was nominated for Best Jazz Album in the 2010 AIR Awards and Best Jazz Recording in the 2011 ABC Limelight Awards [3]
2017: Hype - Shannon Barnett Quartet (Challenge/Double Moon) 2022: Bad Lover - Shannon Barnett Quartet (Toy Piano Records) 2023: Alive at Loft - Shannon Barnett Quartet (Klang Records)
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."
Machine Gun Fellatio were an Australian alternative rock band, formed in 1997. They were well known for their provocative on-stage antics and humorous lyrics, as well as the musical merit of their songs. Their outrage-provoking name gives some idea of the attitude that pervades the band's work. They released three studio albums, three EPs and three singles before breaking up in 2005.
Colosseum are an English jazz rock band, mixing blues, rock and jazz-based improvisation. Colin Larkin wrote that "the commercial acceptance of jazz rock in the UK" was mainly due to the band. Between 1975 and 1978 a separate band Colosseum II existed playing progressive rock.
Amanda Gabrielle Brown is an Australian composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. She was the violinist of Australian indie rock band The Go-Betweens (1986–1989): recorded on their studio albums, Tallulah (1987) and 16 Lovers Lane (1988). Brown has also worked as a session musician and, since 2000, as a screen music composer. She won the AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score in 2020 for Babyteeth (2019) and also Best Original Music Score in a Documentary for Brazen Hussies (2020). At the APRA-AGSC Screen Music Awards of 2009 she won Best Music for a Documentary for Sidney Nolan: Mask and Memory (2008) and Best Music for a Television Series or Serial for The Secrets She Keeps at the 2020 ceremony.
Karma County are an Australian country, pop music trio which formed in 1995. They comprise Stuart Eadie on drums, percussion and backing vocals; Michael Galeazzi on bass guitar, double bass and backing vocals; and Brendan Gallagher on lead guitar, lead vocals, keyboards, bouzouki, percussion, drums and bass guitar. They have released five studio albums, Last Stop Heavenly Heights (1996), Olana, Into the Land of Promise, Happy Birthday Dear Customer and Pacifico. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2000, Into the Land of Promise won the ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album.
Elana Stone is an Australian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader. Her debut solo album, In the Garden of Wild Things, was released in 2005 on the Jazzgroove label. Its follow-up, Your Anniversary, was released in 2009, and her third Kintsugi was released independently in 2015. She is also a member of the ARIA award–winning folk quartet All Our Exes Live in Texas, in which she provides vocals and accordion.
The Audreys are an Australian blues and roots band which formed in Adelaide, in 2004 by founding mainstay, Taasha Coates on lead vocals, melodica, harmonica and ukulele. They have released four studio albums, Between Last Night and Us, When the Flood Comes, Sometimes the Stars and 'Til My Tears Roll Away. Founding guitarist, Tristan Goodall, died on 2 July 2022, aged 48, of an unspecified illness.
Sylvie Courvoisier is a composer, pianist, improviser and bandleader. She was born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has been a resident of New York City since 1998. She won Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022 and was named Pianist of the Year for 2023 in the international critics poll of Spanish jazz publication El Intruso. NPR’s Kevin Whitehead has encapsulated the distinctive character of Courvoisier’s art this way: “Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground.”
Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz. He taught at the Jazz Studies course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and also became Head of Jazz Studies during the late 1970s.
Margret RoadKnight is an Australian singer-guitarist. In a career spanning more than five decades, she has sung in a wide variety of styles including blues, jazz, gospel, comedy, cabaret, and folk. In January 1976 she released a cover version of Bob Hudson's album track, "Girls in Our Town", as a single, which reached the Kent Music Report Singles Chart Top 40.
Thomas Vincent is an Australian jazz pianist, composer, arranger and band leader.
Sarah Elizabeth Blaskow, known professionally as Sarah Blasko, is an Australian singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. From April 2002, Blasko developed her solo career after fronting Sydney-based band, Acquiesce, between the mid-1990s and 2001. She had performed under her then married name, Sarah Semmens, and, after leaving Acquiesce, as Sorija in a briefly existing duo of that name. As a solo artist Blasko has released six studio albums, The Overture & the Underscore, What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have – which peaked at No. 7 on the ARIA Albums Chart, As Day Follows Night – which reached No. 5, I Awake – which made No. 9, Eternal Return, and Depth of Field.
Jacqueline Anne Cooper is an Australian jazz singer, known for her full and harmonious vocals. She has released five independent studio albums and one live album. Cooper won Best Jazz Vocal in the 2010 Musicoz Awards. Cooper travels Australia with her husband, drummer and big band leader John Morrison, teaching workshops at schools and music camps, and appearing at festivals and jazz clubs. Her song "Don't Die Wond'rin'" was a finalist at the UK Songwriting Contest, Jazz/Blues section, in 2013.
Florian Weber is a German pianist and composer of modern jazz.
Peter Knight is an Australian musician, composer and producer. He was the Artistic Director and co-CEO of the Australian Art Orchestra from 2013 to 2023 and founding member of Melbourne group Way Out West., 5+2 Brass Ensemble, and Hand to Earth
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Jonathan Peter Zwartz is a New Zealand-born Australian jazz musician. In the 2018 ARIA Music Awards, he won the Best Jazz Album category for his third album, Animarum, released in 2018.
Wizards of Oz were a briefly existing Australian jazz quartet from the late 1980s. The members were Dale Barlow on tenor saxophone, Paul Grabowsky on piano and the Necks' band mates Lloyd Swanton on bass and Tony Buck on drums. They released one album, Soundtrack (1988), which won the 1989 ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album. In 2017 Mal Stanley of Jazztrack on ABC Jazz described it as "a standout album in the Australian Jazz pantheon, and it inspired many young local players at the time of its release."
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WDR Big Band is the big band of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne, Germany.