The Australian Jazz Archive
& National Register of Australian Jazz Interviews

Search Tips

Scope: This is a combined list of recorded interviews with jazz musicians held in Australia. They include Oral Histories, Radio interviews, and interviews conducted for research. Most of the interviewees were Australian jazz musicians; others were visiting artists or people closely associated with jazz in Australia.
The following fields are used for each entry:

Interviewee: The name of the person being interviewed, or the interview subject. For personal names the Surname is first followed by the First name. e.g. Bell, Graeme

Interviewer: The name of the person conducting the interview. As for the interviewee field, personal names are ordered with Surname followed by first name.

Date: The date the interview was recorded (if known).

Place: The place the interview was recorded (if known).

Purpose: The reason why the interview was conducted, i.e. whether it is an oral history, a radio interview, or an interview conducted for research. This helps to identify the likely extent of the interview.

Location: Where the interview recording is located.

Contact for access: Where/who to contact if access is sought.

Notes: Miscellaneous additional information. May include year the interview was recorded if an exact date is not known.

Interviews in this register are located with the following institutions and individuals:

  • National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra ACT 2601
  • National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT 2600
  • State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000
  • ArtSound (Community Radio station), Curtin, ACT, 2605
  • Mr Tom Wanliss
  • Dr Bruce Johnson
  • Ms Paula Langlands

Search TipsThe interviews are listed alphabetically according to interviewee and can be browsed by scrolling through the list. The open view displays the interviewee, interviewer, date of interview and notes. Click on the name of the interviewee to see the full record. Full text searches are possible to narrow the list to, say, just the Oral Histories, or all the interviews connected to Adelaide in some way for instance. Click on the "Full Text Search" button and the search screen appears. Enter relevant words in the search box. There is no need to use quotation marks for a string of words, however usual Boolean operators apply in the usual way such as 'and', 'or', 'and not', 'near'.

  • 'and'

Use 'and' to string terms together in order to narrow your search. e.g. Bell and Oral History, which will retrieve all items with both 'Bell' and 'Oral History' somewhere in each record.

  • 'or'

Use 'or' to string terms together in order to broaden your search. e.g. Johnson or Langlands, which will retrieve all items with either Johnson or Langlands somewhere in each record.

  • 'near'

Use 'near' to string terms together that are located close to each other in the text. It can be used in much the same way as 'and', because 'near' refers to any word within each record.

  • 'and not'

Use 'and not' to eliminate some items from your search. e.g. 'Johnson and not Sydney' would retrieve the items relating to 'Johnson' but do not have the word 'Sydney' in the record.