Errol Buddle, Adelaide's brilliant bassoonist and on many instruments, leads Australian Jazz Quartet success in USA
The Australian Jazz Quartet in New York: Errol Buddle (saxophone, bassoon) with Bryce Rohde (piano), Jack Brokensha (vibraphone, drums), also from Adelaide, and American Dick Healey (bass and flute). Bottom right: The group as a quintet, with Jack Lander (bass) added.
Errol Buddle, who mastered 14 reed instruments, formed the Australian Jazz Quartet, including other South Australians Jack Brokensha and Bryce Rohde, that had major success in the United States of America from the 1950s. Buddle has been called Australia’s most successful jazz export.
Born and raised in Adelaide from 1928, Buddle first learned the banjo and mandolin at Adelaide College of Music. He began playing alto saxophone professionally in dance bands during his teens, and took up jazz after listening to a local Bobby Limb performance in 1944. In 1946, Buddle bought a tenor sax, the centrepiece of an arsenal of his instruments that ranging across clarinets, flutes, bassoon, oboe and cor anglais.
Buddle attended Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium of Music and later Sydney conservatorium. Influenced by the sound of the bassoon in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and The Firebird, Buddle began playing that instrument. He moved to Melbourne in 1946 and performed on its radio circuit. Shifting to Sydney by 1951, he performed weekly at Chequers' nightclub.
Buddle and Don Varella moved to Windsor in Ontario, Canada, in 1952, where Buddle joined its symphony orchestra. At this time, he also was sitting in with Yusef Lateef’s quintet at Klein’s Jazz Club in Detroit (just across the border from Windsor). He was asked to take over another group that included Tommy Flanagan (piano) Alvin Jackson (bass) and Frank Gant (drums) for three months, working six nights a week, five hours a night. Buddle then worked with a different lineup including the outstanding Elvin Jones on drums along with Barry Harris (piano), Major Holley (bass) and Pepper Adams (baritone sax). Buddle continued at the club in Kenny Burrell’s group with Elvin Jones, Barry Harris and Billy Burrell.
Buddle formed the Australian Jazz Quartet with Adelaide musicians Jack Brokensha and Bryce Rohde, who were also living in Detroit, and American Dick Healey. This group eventually grew to a quintet. They signed up with the world’s top jazz agent, Joe Glaser in New York, on a five-year contract and were booked into all the top USA jazz clubs from coast to coast including Birdland, Basin Street and Blue Note in New York city. They worked 48 weeks a year touring.
In the clubs they played opposite Count Basie (Birdland), Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Gerry Mulligan and Billie Holliday who they backed for two weeks in Miami. Every November they played on 30-night concert tours at all the main concert halls in America including Carnegie Hall in New York where they played six concerts.
On concerts spanning the whole country in all the major cities, the Australian Jazz Quartet appeared with Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong, Carmen McRae and Coleman Hawkins. The group developed a large following in clubs, concerts and on national radio and became the fifth most popular group in America. They recorded seven jazz albums and were placed three years running in the prestigious Downbeat Magazine poll in the tenor sax section and miscellaneous section on bassoon.
After six years travelling, Buddle returned to Sydney and worked in the studio bands of all the televsion stations (Bandstand, Don Lane, the Midday Show) doing about 3,000 TV shows with studio orchestras. He also worked extensively as a session musician for documentaries, films and commercials over the next 30 years.
