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Vale Judy Bailey OAM 1935-2025

Judy Bailey passed away peacefully aged 89 on Friday August 8, at Estia Health Willoughby, where she had been resident since early 2021. Her two children, Lisette De Gray and Chris De Gray, were by her side. Chris says “Both Lisette and I were privileged to have been with her and holding her right to her last breath. We are so sad right now but happy that she is free of her suffering”. 

Judy had an extraordinarily full career in Australian music: classical musician; jazz pianist, composer and arranger; television and recording session musician; teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music; jazz educator in the schools; cultural ambassador for Australia on overseas tours; composer of children’s music for ABC Radio; member of the Music Board of the Australia Council. The list goes on and on.

She was born in Auckland, NZ in 1935 but raised in Whangarei, a small country town not far away. She always loved music and began ballet lessons aged seven. At ten she switched to learning piano. Six years later, she achieved her ATCL Diploma, the performer’s diploma of the Trinity College, London.

From a young age she felt the influence of jazz. At 12, she heard recordings by pianist Fats Waller and later heard pianists like George Shearing and Horace Silver. After completing her classical studies at 16, her interest in modern music rapidly developed, and she commenced arranging and composing jazz for the 16-piece Auckland Radio Band and for various small groups.

She arrived in Sydney in 1960, intending to go on to the UK to pursue a musical career. Already an accomplished pianist, she was recommended by another Kiwi pianist, Julian Lee, to Tommy Tycho who led the Channel 7 television orchestra. She became Tycho’s resident pianist, beginning her musical career in Australia virtually at the top, where she remained for the rest of her career. She also worked with John Bamford’s orchestra (Channel 9) and Jack Grimsley’s orchestra (Channel 10).

In 1964, Judy recorded her first LP, You and The Night and The Music, accompanied by Lyn Christie (bass) and John Sangster (drums). It included one of her earliest compositions "Night Dreams". After 1970 she increased her interest in writing original material, and blossomed as a composer.

In 1967 she married American bassist Richard De Gray. Her daughter Lisette was born in 1968, and her son Chris in 1971. She and her husband separated after four years, and by 1972 she was raising two small children on her own.

Judy’s legendary achievements are too numerous to list here, but her appointment in 1999 as musical director of the highly influential Jazz Connection, a training band as part of the Sydney Youth Jazz Ensemble, should be highlighted. It mentored many outstanding musicians playing jazz at the highest level in Sydney over the last 25 years. Prestigious awards included an OAM for services to music and education in 2004; the Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award in 2018; and in 2022 the Don Banks Music Award, for her outstanding and sustained contributions to music in Australia.

One of Judy Bailey’s most endearing qualities perhaps was her fatalism. “My love of music has always been there”, she once said. “I never thought consciously of making a career of it; it’s just something that evolved. Opportunities came up to gain some immensely valuable experience that probably I would not have had access to, had I gone to London. I was so fortunate; it seemed as one job finished, another started.”

And so, on Friday August 8, 2025, Judy quietly departed for her next gig.

Eric Myers

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