Errol Buddle (NSW)

  • Sat 4:00 pm St Andrews By the Sea Uniting Church (Recording)
  • Sun 1:20 pm Bartercard Stage

Errol Buddle - Clarinet/saxophone

Appearing with South Australian musicians

Laurie Kennedy - Drums
Bruce Hancock - Piano
John Aue - Bass

Credited by a New York Jazz critic in his "Encyclopedia of Jazz" Errol is credited as "the first musician in the world to use the bassoon extensively as a medium for ad-libbing".

He began playing the saxophone at age of eight, and then clarinet and bassoon at Adelaide and Sydney Conservatoriums. He appeared on many jazz concerts around Australia and made numerous recordings before going to North America.

He played first bassoon with the Windsor Symphony in Canada and then moved to Detroit, USA and overnight achieved undreamed of success by leading his own group at Klein’s, a top Detroit Jazz Club. This group played together for six nights a week for six months in Detroit. This was really a turning point in Errol’s career. He was the first Australian jazz musician to work continuously with top American jazz players.

Owing to the name he had built up in Detroit, Errol was contacted to form a group to play at the Rouge Lounge, another jazz club in Detroit, This was the beginning of the Australian Jazz Quintet. In its initial stages the group backed Billie Holliday and Carmen McRae many times, then branched out on its own, touring the US for four years in all major cities at the foremost jazz clubs including Birdland, New York.

During this time they made several record albums, and also gave dozens of concerts at Universities (Harvard, Yale etc.) as well as at Carnegie Hall and other concert halls.. This was the first Australian Group to ever play at Carnegie Hall. There were also annual concert tours every November, when the group played a different city every night, for thirty nights, with such names as Count Basie, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie etc.

The Australian Jazz Quintet eventually became one of the top five most popular jazz groups in the US, preceded only by Louis Armstrong, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck and Gerry Milligan in that order. Errol was also placed three years running in the prestigious Down Beat Poll in the Tenor Sax section and Miscellaneous Instruments (bassoon in his case).

The A.J.Q. then decided to return to Australia for an A.B.C. concert tour, and Errol settled in Sydney to become one of the most sought after studio and recording musicians, playing on many movie sound tracks, recordings and thousands of TV shows and commercials over the years on his saxes and woodwind instruments.

James Galway mentions in his autobiography that Errol is a rare example of very proficient doubling (playing a variety of instruments), and has been a featured player with Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Tommy Tycho, Daly-Wilson Band (Tour of Russia and U.S.) and has backed Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and many others. He recently returned from Los Angeles where he played lead alto sax with various big bands for two years.