Part three: Interview with Judy Bailey (1979) Judy: All those forms contain their own architecture (softly) don’t they?
Jan: my first memory of you Judy is playing in sessions; you were with Tommy Tycho right? What were those years like for you? Were they predominantly you playing, doing a lot of session work and doing your own gigs as well?
Judy: I spent something like eight years pretty well non-stop in the Television Studios and the amount of actual night time playing say jazz work I used to have average 1 2 nights a week. That was all though. Most of my work, was studio work and I didn’t go near a club until I was expecting my daughter and I had my first foray into the clubs with Barry Crocker. (Interruption of sexy voice French waiter and friend of Judy’s on tape)
Jan: So those years were really like you were into that studio thing.
Judy: Great learning, great learning years, because I'd never ever done anything like that, that was the first time in my life and then when I was expecting Lisette.
I was playing and went with Barry Crocker, I was his MD musical director around the clubs for practically a year and then two weeks before Lisette was born I quit and after I went back to the club’s briefly then went back into the club’s 2 or 3 years
When the marriage finished I had to earn a living and that was my quickest way to earn a living.
Jan: Also being a woman musician around that time the only woman jazz musician, beside yourself I remember, was bassist Valda Hammick.
Did you play much with Valda?
Judy Valda worked with me at the Belrose Bowling Club for maybe a year or maybe a bit longer, eighteen months and then she went to the States and that’s when Ron Philpott came to the club and Ron and I have worked together ever since.
It’s been lovely because we’re friends in the social sense and we’re musical friends too and that’s lovely. Gosh that is an association started in '83 I think, the beginning of '83 I think or the end of '82? What am I saying '72!
What happened was Valda booked Ron to replace her. I’d never seen or heard of him before and the moment I heard him play I thought 'hello here we go, he’s all right'... just exactly the same feeling I had first time I heard James Morrison in his first year in the Jazz program. He was in my ensemble and this guy with the trombone began to play and I thought 'hello...here's another one'. I mean they’re about as scarce as hen's teeth for me.
Jan: Also the fact that you’ve been involved with so many singers, like Margret RoadKnight, Judy Small, Kerrie Biddell, Bernadine Morgan, Denise Keane.
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Photo: Judy Bailey Bennelong Singers, with Judy Bailey Janet Sidel, Barbara Colhoun (Canham) , Sandie White, John Nicole, Barry Leef with John Aue bass, John Pochee drums. Photo: Jane March
Judy:... and singers from overseas, Terry Thornton, Sammy Davis Junior, Helen Humes,
Jan: There’s a really distinct difference isn’t there in playing as an accompanist.
Judy: Yep
Jan: What are your thoughts about that?
Judy: I love accompanying. I love...that's to do with architecture, to try and make the music compliment what the singer is doing so that you're looking at a whole performance. Not singer...with band, so that there's a totality about it.
Jan: Do you get an opportunity to work with young piano players in that context i.e. accompanist to singers?
Judy: I haven’t really discussed that much with other piano players.
Jan: A lot of musicians seem to see it as the singer out front and they sometimes have the attitudes of singer can’t cut it as well as the rest of them.
Judy: Oh yes.
Jan: I know there have been tremendous changes in the awareness of singers. I know since I’ve been studying both composition and basic musicianship I have a better appreciation of the incredible things that musicians do and that’s an area where again someone like yourself can enlighten us a lot more.
Judy: Just before we leave that subject one of the things that I think has been rather sad has been the way that, I don’t think singers have been helped, complemented.
I mean complemented musically as much as they might have been.
There’s been a funny sort of attitude that so many musicians have had towards singers for so many years that you know, we could get out there and sing a song just as good if not better and they’re getting paid more than us and it’s not right.
A lot of its stems I think from clubs where the musicians have felt jealous of the fact that the club acts are offered as much as five times what the musicians might get for the night and they’re only there a fifth of the time. I think there’s been a fair amount of that.
Jan: Do you think that's changing as you probably witness a lot more of the younger singer's coming through that have a different attitude.
I find with teaching people these days from actors through to people want to know more about jazz.
Judy: Yeah I think that the attitude is changing you know in a lot of ways.
Jan: Judy you have a teenage son and daughter. What’s it like combining being a parent and a jazz musician, also how do they see you as a musician?
Judy: I don’t ask them.
Jan: Do they play a lot of the music they like around the house?
Judy: Yeah but not in my hearing if I can help it (laughter)
Jan: Okay I’m gonna continue another day but this is good this is good
https://www.jamesmorrison.com/about
https://www.boulevardmusic.com/private-instruction-teacher-bios/bass-guitarupright-bass/
https://openacademy.sydney.edu.au/tutor/7
Photos: Margret RoadKnight. Kerrie Biddell. Courtesy of Jane March
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