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John Morrison is an Australian jazz drummer, band leader, educator, and commercial pilot. While he is not as famous as his younger brother, trumpeter James Morrison, he is a significant musician in his own right. Voted as one of Australia's best big band drummers, his band Swing City was selected to open the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Throughout his career Morrison and his groups have headlined every major event and festival in Australia.
As the eldest of the family, Morrison spent much of his musical life playing and recording with his younger brother, James. At age 8, he began playing cornet in the school brass band. By the age of 10, he had built his first drum set from pots and pans.
Morrison has played with Bob Barnard, Bobby Gebert, Christian McBride, Don Burrows, Eartha Kitt, Garry Dial, George Golla, James Moody, Jimmy Witherspoon, John Clayton, Jeff Clayton, Richie Cole, and Scott Hamilton.
Morrison leads the big band Swing City, who together with his brother James Morrison played the prerecorded fanfare at the opening of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and more than twelve years later remains a top act. In addition to two successful albums, Morrison and his wife, singer Jacki Cooper, and have toured China, where they performed and recorded with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Morrison produced the albums Elly Holyt and Mothership. Both won Australian Jazz Bell Awards.
Morrison has acted as mentor for youth bands and orchestras. For over 38 years he has been musical director for the Sydney Jazz Camps. Morrison and his wife spend time each year touring disadvantaged schools throughout the Northern Territory, inspiring kids to get involved in music. He has seeded bands in the remotest parts of the Cape York Peninsula for the Queensland Music Festival, giving young indigenous Australians the opportunity to try jazz.
In 2013 Morrison launched the Big Band Blast Festival in Port Macquarie (NSW Australia). The festival invites musicians of all ages to celebrate the sound of the big band in a non-competitive environment. Morrison is an outspoken opponent of competitive playing and believes music should be a collaborative, not competitive.
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era, when people were dancing the Lindy Hop. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Bunny Berigan, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, and Django Reinhardt.
James Charles Heard was an American swing, bop, and blues drummer.
Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high-profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz arena.
Rai Thistlethwayte is an Australian rock, pop and jazz musician and songwriter. Thistlethwayte is an accomplished pianist, guitarist, and vocalist. He is the lead singer and primary songwriter in the Australian pop rock band Thirsty Merc. From 2004, Thirsty Merc released a string of hits in the Australian charts including "In the Summertime", "Someday, Someday", "20 Good Reasons", "Emancipate Myself", "My Completeness", "When the Weather Is Fine" and "Mousetrap Heart". He is currently based in Los Angeles. As a solo artist, Thistlethwayte performs under the name 'Sun Rai'.
Donald Vernon Burrows was an Australian jazz and swing musician who played clarinet, saxophone and flute.
Wilbur Dorsey "Buck" Clayton was an American jazz trumpeter who was a member of Count Basie's orchestra. His principal influence was Louis Armstrong, first hearing the record "Confessin' That I Love You" as he passed by a shop window.
George Edward Heath was a British musician and big band leader.
James Lloyd Morrison AM is an Australian jazz musician. Although his main instrument is trumpet, he has also performed on trombone, tuba, euphonium, flugelhorn, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, guitar, and piano. He is a composer, writing jazz charts for ensembles of various sizes and proficiency levels.
Doug Lawrence is an American jazz tenor saxophonist from Lake Charles, Louisiana.
John Lee Clayton Jr. is an American jazz musician, classical double bassist, arranger, and composer.
Joe Temperley was a Scottish jazz saxophonist. He performed with various instruments, but was most associated with the baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone, and bass clarinet.
Peter Beets is a Dutch jazz pianist. He has shared the stage with Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, George Coleman, Johnny Griffin, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel and John Clayton. He recorded with Jeff Hamilton and Curtis Fuller and in 2001 he released his New York Trio, which was the start of his international career.
John McAll is an Australian pianist, composer, arranger and producer, with experience ranging from jazz, pop, blues, rock contemporary classical, afrobeat and theatre.
Frank James Coughlan was an Australian jazz musician and band leader. He is described in the Australian Dictionary of Biography as "One of the most influential musicians in the development of jazz in Australia."
William Edward Motzing Jr. was an American composer, conductor, arranger and trombonist best known for the award-winning film and television scores and gold and platinum pop album arrangements he wrote in Australia. He was a jazz lecturer and the Director of Jazz Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music over a period of 40 years.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
Liam Burrows is an Australian musician and singer. He first came to prominence in 2011 when he reached the Grand Final of the fifth season of Australia's Got Talent in which he was awarded the fifth place in the overall competition in which 19,000 participants had originally entered. His independently released debut album, All of Me, came out in 2011.
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.
David Jones is an Australian jazz drummer and composer. He has also created guided meditation CDs. From 1991 until 2000, he was founder and leader of the jazz ensemble AtmaSphere. He also teaches music.
Rodger Denis Fox was a New Zealand trombonist, jazz educator, recording artist and leader of the Rodger Fox Big Band. He founded his jazz band in 1973 and toured extensively in New Zealand and overseas, playing at international jazz festivals including Montreux and Monterey. He was a jazz educator and taught at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University of Wellington.