Graeme Lyall
Graeme Lyall is widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz saxophone players and arrangers Australia has produced. He performs, writes, arranges and teaches, and is Artistic Director of the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra and musical director of its Composers Ensemble.
Graeme began his professional career at seventeen at the Palais Ballroom and The Embers night club in Melbourne. At nineteen he moved to Sydney, and by twenty-two he was a musician and arranger with the TCN 9 Orchestra.
He returned to Melbourne in 1971 as composer, arranger and record producer at Armstrong Studios, spent three years with the ABC Melbourne Showband, and in 1977 became Director of Music at GTV-9 Melbourne. In those years he won Best Arrangement at the Yamaha International Song Festival four times and the Australian Writers and Art Directors Guild Award for Best Music for a Television Commercial (Hallmark Greeting Cards).
In the mid-’80s he left full-time television to teach, returning for AFL and NRL Grand Finals, Carols by Candlelight and the Logie Awards, then full-time in 1991 as Musical Director of Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
Since 1992 he has taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Victorian College of the Arts and the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He has been Artistic Director of the West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra and musical director of the 50-strong WAYJO Composers Ensemble, and since 2008 a resident at Tenison Woods College in Mount Gambier, South Australia, teaching Jazz Performance at the Generations in Jazz Academy.
Press quotes
Lyall displays a pure tone and an ability to play intricate lines with impeccable control … strikingly attractive music.
Graeme Lyall is featured on the following titles
The Art of Melody
Jazz legends Tony Gould (piano) and Graeme Lyall (saxophone) offer superb readings of well-known standards, joined by Ben Robertson on double bass and Joe Batrouney on drums.
Seasons of Love
A jazz trio, string orchestra and guest soloists join vocalists Gian Slater and Eddie Perfect. Graeme Lyall’s rich arrangements refresh Great American Songbook standards and other stage and screen favourites.
Arranger
The Last Will and Testament of John Sangster
Tony Gould, Len Barnard, Graeme Lyall and friends honour one of Australia's unsung jazz heroes. These final Sangster scores, played by leading colleagues, form a warm and fitting tribute.
Performing as Tony Gould Quartet
Featuring Tony Gould, Graeme Lyall, Ben Robertson and George Polyhronakis. More about Tony Gould Quartet
The Tony Gould Quartet: Live in Concert
Captured live in concert, this album of well-known and much-loved jazz pieces features the acclaimed pianist Tony Gould and Graeme Lyall, one of Australia’s greatest saxophonists.
Graeme Lyall also appears on
Jazz Music Series, Vol. 5: Ripper
The fifth and final volume in John Sangster’s jazz series of suites, written for a lively little orchestra that gathers some of Australia’s finest jazz musicians around his vibraphone writing.
Jazz Music Series, Vol. 4: Take That
Volume four of John Sangster’s Jazz Music Series finds his “lively little orchestra” of leading Australian jazz players in a ten-movement suite of wit, swing and colour.
Jazz Music Series, Vol. 3: Steady Lads
Third in John Sangster’s series of suites for a lively little orchestra of some of Australia’s finest jazz musicians: ten pieces of small big-band writing with Sangster on vibraphone.
Jazz Music Series, Vol. 2: Requiem (for a loved one)
Volume 2 of five suites by John Sangster, played by his fine small orchestra of leading Australian jazz musicians. A 1980 requiem for Janice Patricia Byrnes, nicknamed Bo Diddley.
Jazz Music Series, Vol. 1: Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Doo-wup
As John Sangster put it, "Here is the first in a series of Suites written for this lively little orchestra, a gathering that includes some of Australia's finest jazz musicians."
Tony Gould on the Art of Creative Music
This is a tribute to revered Australian pianist, praised educator and musical thinker Dr Tony Gould, Australia’s first professor of jazz. It comprises an audio CD and bonus one-hour video DVD documentary.
Uttered Nonsense (The Owl and the Pussycat)
Uttered Nonsense (The Owl and the Pussycat) sets eight Edward Lear poems, spoken with grave poise by Ivan Smith, among fourteen instrumental jazz pieces drawn from the Nonsense Books. Sangster’s large Australian ensemble answers the verse with playful colour.
Landscapes of Middle Earth
The fourth and final volume in Move’s restored reissue of John Sangster’s jazz-inspired Tolkien cycle. First a late-1970s double LP, Landscapes of Middle Earth reached CD in 2006.
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 3
The third volume of John Sangster's classic jazz epic after J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. First issued by EMI as a double LP more than twenty-five years earlier, this ambitious Australian trilogy reaches CD for the first time here.
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2
The second volume of John Sangster's classic jazz epic on The Lord of the Rings. First issued by EMI as a double LP more than twenty-five years earlier, this music reaches CD for the first time in this Move reissue.
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1
Not Howard Shore's film score, but Australian jazz and film composer John Sangster's ambitious 1970s musical portrait of Tolkien's characters and events, restored here on a double CD more than twenty-five years after the original EMI LPs.
Chronicle: Orchestral Music of Tony Gould
The definition of the word “chronicle” — put briefly “a record of events” — aptly fits this recording. Chronicle forms an inspiring record of musical events in the life of Tony Gould, one of Australia’s most creative musicians and composers.
Gould Plays Gould
Some of Australia's finest players of spontaneous, improvised music show their talents on this disc, compiled from two earlier LPs. Original pieces by Tony Gould, directed and conducted by John Sangster.
Graeme Lyall is a member of
Tony Gould Quartet
Featuring Tony Gould, Graeme Lyall, Ben Robertson and George Polyhronakis.