For no reason other than the happenstance of free-time and some consequent semi-random bouncing around the internet, I am re-acquainting myself with the legendary, New Zealand-born-and-raised, Australian Jazz pianist and composer, Judy Bailey.
Unfortunately, too many of her albums are entirely unavailable.
But Jazz legends: Judy Bailey (a four-disc survey of her work as a bandleader across the decades, released by ABC Records) is available for
Also still available are
Colours; a post-bop jazz fusion album released in 1976; and
Another Journey; her last album, of longer pieces for Symphony and Jazz Orchestras, released in 2018.
An almost accidental Australian, she arrived in Sydney in 1960, intending to travel on to London, but never left.
And it’s impossible to over-state her significance in the development of Australian Jazz. Her work as a pianist and composer entirely aside, she was one of the founding faculty members for the jazz program at the prestigious Sydney Conservatorium of Music and taught multiple generations of Australian musicians.
Also, if you or your kids listened to any ABC Radio children’s programming during the past forty years, chances are you’ve heard some of her compositions: she wrote a lot of music for ABC Radio’s various children’s programs.
Bailey was still active and creatively engaged with her craft and her art in her 80s.
Nonetheless, as Charlie Lewis noted in his obituary, ‘Judy Bailey and a lost century of Australian culture’ (she died, aged 89, on 2025-08-08):
her passing is particularly melancholy because she was one of the last links to that world we had left — a world where brilliant musicians could earn a living in television orchestras and then spend their nights experimenting and developing for little pay at a place like the El Rocco, surrounded by artists and writers. A world where jazz was considered inherently seditious enough to attract police attention, even in a decidedly straight, booze-free joint like the El Rocco.