John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings, Vols. 1-3
A study of John Sangster's jazz suite The Lord of the Rings contextualized with biographical and cultural studies of the composer in the 1970s.

In three volumes and more than six LP recordings, The Lord of the Rings suite, produced during the 1970s, based on the Tolkien books, is the most ambitious, stylistically and emotionally wide-ranging compositional oeuvre ever undertaken in Australian jazz. Its composer (and one of its performers) John Sangster embraced the historical spectrum of jazz styles, from traditional to the avant-garde, through performance, recording and film/TV music. Sangster, whose career spanned from the late 1940s until his death in 1995, was one of the most complex figures in Australian music. In both temperament and musical style, he ranged from light to darkness, idolized by his colleagues, yet susceptible to (literally) homicidal rage. Nothing in the recording history of Australian jazz, and perhaps Australian music in general, matches the monumental stature of these volumes, which he called his musical autobiography.

1145929474
John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings, Vols. 1-3
A study of John Sangster's jazz suite The Lord of the Rings contextualized with biographical and cultural studies of the composer in the 1970s.

In three volumes and more than six LP recordings, The Lord of the Rings suite, produced during the 1970s, based on the Tolkien books, is the most ambitious, stylistically and emotionally wide-ranging compositional oeuvre ever undertaken in Australian jazz. Its composer (and one of its performers) John Sangster embraced the historical spectrum of jazz styles, from traditional to the avant-garde, through performance, recording and film/TV music. Sangster, whose career spanned from the late 1940s until his death in 1995, was one of the most complex figures in Australian music. In both temperament and musical style, he ranged from light to darkness, idolized by his colleagues, yet susceptible to (literally) homicidal rage. Nothing in the recording history of Australian jazz, and perhaps Australian music in general, matches the monumental stature of these volumes, which he called his musical autobiography.

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John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings, Vols. 1-3

John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings, Vols. 1-3

John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings, Vols. 1-3

John Sangster's The Lord of the Rings, Vols. 1-3

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Overview

A study of John Sangster's jazz suite The Lord of the Rings contextualized with biographical and cultural studies of the composer in the 1970s.

In three volumes and more than six LP recordings, The Lord of the Rings suite, produced during the 1970s, based on the Tolkien books, is the most ambitious, stylistically and emotionally wide-ranging compositional oeuvre ever undertaken in Australian jazz. Its composer (and one of its performers) John Sangster embraced the historical spectrum of jazz styles, from traditional to the avant-garde, through performance, recording and film/TV music. Sangster, whose career spanned from the late 1940s until his death in 1995, was one of the most complex figures in Australian music. In both temperament and musical style, he ranged from light to darkness, idolized by his colleagues, yet susceptible to (literally) homicidal rage. Nothing in the recording history of Australian jazz, and perhaps Australian music in general, matches the monumental stature of these volumes, which he called his musical autobiography.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798765121122
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 01/09/2025
Series: 33 1/3 Oceania
Pages: 144
Product dimensions: 5.05(w) x 7.65(h) x 0.35(d)

About the Author

Bruce Johnson is honorary professor in a range of disciplines including Music, Cultural History and Communications at University of Technology Sydney, Australia; University of Turku, Finland; University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He is co-founder of the Australian Jazz Archives, government advisor on arts policy, author/editor of over a dozen books, mainly on jazz, and is an active jazz musician.

Jon Stratton is Adjunct Professor in UniSA Creative at the University of South Australia and a member of the university's Creative People, Products and Places Research Centre. Jon has worked at universities in the UK and Australia and held a Rockefeller Fellowship at the University of Iowa in 1998. His areas of interest include Popular Music, Cultural Studies, Australian Studies, Jewish Cultural Studies and Media Studies. He is the sole author of 12 books and has co-edited four. In 2002 he published Australian Rock: Essays on Popular Music. His most recent books include Black Popular Music in Britain since 1945 (edited with Nabeel Zuberi, 2014), When Music Migrates: Crossing British and European Racial Faultlines 1945-2010 (2014) and An Anthology of Australian Albums: Critical Engagements (edited with Jon Dale and Tony Mitchell, 2020).

Jon Dale is a writer and researcher based in Melbourne, Australia. He teaches across a number of fields (popular music, experimental writing, media studies, criminology, sociology, screen studies) at a number of institutions. He also writes for the English music magazine Uncut, and contributes liner notes and essays to a number of record labels and other publications. He is currently working on several books about DIY and post-punk music, and texts on experimental film and diary film making. He also runs the record labels Tristes Tropiques and Rose Hobart.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Section 1
1. Sangster: the Times
2. Sangster: the Life
Section 2
3. Sangster: the Sensibility
4. Sangster: the Aesthetics, The Lord of the Rings
References
Notes
Index

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