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95 Testimony, The Ties that Bind Miriam Zolin One story you hear around these parts is that in the 1950s a teenage John Pochée used to ask his mother for bus money so he could visit the late Joe ‘Bebop’ Lane and listen to Lane’s copy of a Charlie Parker record—one of a rare few that had made their way across the world to this faraway island continent of Australia. Ten years younger than Lane, Pochée later became co-founder of super-band Ten Part Invention, and has been a longtime collaborator with alto saxophonist Bernie McGann—one of the key voices Sandy Evans chose to feature in Testimony. John Clare in Bodgie Dada and the Cult of Cool relates stories from the same era in Sydney, backyard gatherings of enthusiastic young players and even the adoption of a hip “jazz talk” among a group for whom this music represented liberation, “something we couldn’t even talk about” (quoting David Tolley). Joe Lane became a legend of his own, embodying an Australian link to the bebop phenomenon. He was, Clare recounts, “in the habit of coming through the windows of musicians’ rooms in the early hours with Charlie Parker records under his arm.” Musicians who played and listened with Lane were caught up in the energy and the excitement of what Charlie Parker was doing. Seemingly a universe away from the context and the milieu in which this music was created, young musicians with a tendency to the new were fascinated and enthralled by its possibilities, and it was Joe Lane who was often responsible for opening the conceptual window as well as the occasional suburban one.1 These teenagers and young musicians are now an older generation. Their music, still strong, has become embedded in our own Australian section of the broader jazz landscape and they in turn are deeply important figures, innovators in their own time and context. Joe (sometimes ‘Killer’) Lane was only two years younger than Charlie Parker and his link with that music was not just in his rare copies 96 of Parker’s recordings. Lane really understood it and was famous among musicians for his bebop phrasing. Describing him in a book about Bernie McGann in 1997, Geoff Page says that Lane was “an important connection between what younger players heard on records and what they actually played in the dance halls and other venues in Sydney and Melbourne.”2 Sandy Evans says that when she was invited to write the music that would sit beside and under Yusef Komunyakaa’s 14 sonnets, she had Lane’s voice clearly in mind as one she wanted to write for. Knowing the links to Charlie Parker’s music in the local scene made him an obvious choice. Obvious to Sandy, and obvious to those “in the know,” but perhaps it’s an inside story, little known outside the context of our own jazz history. Others from that generation of musicians are Alan Turnbull (drums) and Chuck Yates (piano). Although compared to other local musicians, little has been written about them, these two are legends in the local scene, among the musicians they taught or worked with. They have been two of our busiest musicians, both touring extensively with big names from here and the United States. They both worked long stints at jazz clubs in Sydney and Melbourne, such as El Rocco, The Fat Black Pussy Cat and The Embers, which have since fallen away into legend, . Both Yates and Turnbull are low key about Testimony and about Bird’s influence. Speaking to them separately, their tone is similar, a kind of “yes, of course, why do you need to ask?” “Charlie Parker had a huge influence,” says Yates. “On all of us, and still does.” It’s obvious to him: no question. Turnbull reminisces: he first heard Charlie Parker over the airwaves, via Voice of America in the 50s, along with other greats. It was a source of inspiration at the time, starting him on a journey that he’s been on ever since. Asked about Testimony, he is full of admiration for what Evans achieved, particularly with her approach of having specific people in mind for particular parts of the suite. It’s a response that turns out to be shared by many. Both Yates and Turnbull have a level of experience that’s almost impossible to achieve in today’s Sydney or Melbourne . . . for one thing there simply isn...

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