John Sangster

Who was John Sangster?

John Sangster was an Australian jazz composer, arranger, drummer, cornettist and Vibraphonist born in Melbourne, most well known as a composer though also a gifted multi-instrumentalist. Sangster worked with virtually every big name in Australian jazz during his career, a list of musicians that includes Graeme Bell, Humphrey Lyttelton and Don Burrows, among others.

He played trombone with Graeme Bell and his Australian Jazz Band, later taking up the cornet, and then drums. He toured several times with Bell between 1950 and 1955, playing in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Korea. In the late 1950s he began playing the vibraphone, which he found "combined the percussive qualities of the drums with the melodic capability of the trumpet". He played with Don Burrows in the early '60s. Sangster formed his own quartet and experimented with group improvisatory jazz, after he became interested in the music of such musicians as Sun Ra and Archie Shepp. He rejoined the Don Burrows Group briefly in 1967 when they represented Australia at Expo 1967 in Montreal, Canada.