Settle down

No sooner had I eased the corporate chariot into one and a half spaces, parking not being my strong suit, than I was greeted by the sight of young Nadira strolling somewhat purposefully towards the battered green door of the Gold Street Bebop Stop and Tea Roomes.

The Hobart chanteuse, possibly one of the better known singers in Lenah Valley, was urged on by a beaming Captain Chaos, who may have sat back and listened to a selection of swing tunes finely crafted, but not to the extent that he forgot to plan some disruptive fours for later on. Marion appeared a little lost on some of the rowdier numbers, and a little found on some of the others – another fine contribution.

Friday Night Live starts with a bang…

The Royal Standard, 333 William Street, North Melbourne

Friday 27th January 7.00pm to 9.30pm

Port Fairy Jazz Festival

February 10th – 12th

This is coming up very soon – and promises to be a huge event. Amongst the regular jammers who can’t get a proper gig that weekend, will be…

The Ade Ish Trio/IshAllen Project

Anne Craig Duo

Anne Hayres with John Curtis

Annie Smith and the Bossa Boys

Breakout (Col not in a suit)

Christine Manetta with Black Pearl

David Ruiz Prado trio

G and T Jazz

Port Phillip Showband (Col in a suit..)

And Doug Kuhn in almost everything …Annie & the Bossa Boys, G&T Jazz, Not Quite Right

All the rest (around a hundred bands) are absolute rubbish, or not as the case may be. Should be a fantastic weekend.

http://www.portfairyjazz.com.au/

Castlemaine Jazz Festival 2017 – have you registered your band?

Castlemaine Jazz Festival 2017

June 9th – June 12th 2017

Bands registrations are starting to come in – somewhere between a trickle and a flood. Check out the new improved website …

http://2017.castlemainejazzfestival.com.au/

Jam session as usual, for a change…

The first jam session of the year, and you would expect that we would know by now to expect the unexpected. We didn’t, and there was a hefty turn out – even Captain Sensible declared himself well stuffed by the end of it.

The usual crew turned up, played the usual tunes, with the usual level of musical competence. Colonel T deftly demonstrated that his chart reading ability remains at the same unusual standard despite the depredations of a Christmas dinner and, judging by the suntan, a few days scaring off the wild life in the upper reaches of nowhere in particular.

The Royal Standard Friday sessions start next week

Rang Frank to see if he had changed his mind, but possibly due to memory lapse or something, he still wants us back. We are going to start on January 27th with Sevil Sabah, and then Joys Njambi, followed by Katerina Myskova. I put the late Miss Smith on the poster in the hope that she might ring me up and demand a date…

 

 

Port Fairy Jazz Festival

February 10th – 12th

So many jammers are playing at this one, I haven’t got time to count. This is the first PFJF, and it is going to be huge. Kuhn, Garrett, Hayres, Smith, Manetta, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, will be lowering the tone, but there is a huge list of good bands – check it out!

http://www.portfairyjazz.com.au/

Castlemaine Jazz Festival 2017

June 9th – June 12th 2017

Captain Sensible got all excited and has sent out the registration forms. We don’t have a lot of information on this one at the moment, but if everyone could register a band right now, we could all sit back and watch the Organising Committee go into full panic mode early.

http://2017.castlemainejazzfestival.com.au/

Melbourne Jazz Co-Op Editorial

Sadly, today, 20th January, is both a designated Day of Action (and Mourning) because it marks the last day that ABC Radio National will air ‘The Daily Planet’, ‘The Inside Sleeve’ ‘The Live Set’, ‘The Rhythm Divine’, ‘Soundproof’ and ‘Jazztrack’. While “Jazztrack” will continue in digital format, the other shows have been “decommissioned” (an ABC and naval term for ‘terminated’, or sent for scrapping).

As the MJC has explained to our Minister for the Arts, this represents the greatest case of (post-indigenous) cultural vandalism in our history, and will cause irreparable damage to independent Australian music.

The First Jam Session for 2017

Yup, this Sunday 15th January, those of us with short-term memory loss will be darkening the doors of the Gold Street Gossip Shoppe for some mild ballad mangling.

I can confidently say this will be the worst Jam session of the year so far, several otherwise respectable toons will be trashed beyond recognition, and Colonel T of the Fourth Light Punjab Horse (retd), one time conductor of the 237 to Hounslow, will play the riff from Smoke on the Water. Again.

Actually, he might not, because no one knows where he is, and he might be somewhere else at the time. So I can only say that fairly confidently. Or maybe probably. Or possibly, possibly. Or perhaps not at all.

Do drop in if you are at a loose end, as Hortense once said.

Melbourne Jazz Jammers

The Leinster Arms, Gold Street Collingwood,
Sunday 15th January 2017,
from 4.00pm

Captain Chaos goes bush

Ben the Bouncer in full swing – Michael Findlay and Peter Ryan
are hiding in this photo, but they were still guilty…

And some of us fall for it… so there we were, at Captain Sensible’s bidding, dragging the dusty out of a motley collection of shooting brakes, charabancs and pickup trucks, taking over a muddy old corner under the trees at the Stables. Which is, as you would expect, an open air pizzeria in Malmsbury, set back from the old Calder, these days little more than a Boulevarde of broken drains…

From Henry Manetta

Dear Tripsters….

HENRY MANETTA AND THE ADAM RUDEGEAIR TRIO
FRIDAY JANUARY 13TH
PARIS CAT JAZZ CLUB
6 GOLDIE PLACE, MELBOURNE, CITY
9:30PM
BOOKINGS: www.pariscat.com.au
Searing blues/jazz vocalist Henry Manetta returns to The Paris Cat, with the Adam Rudegeair Trio.
Back To The Cat featuring a slew of original compositions and some special gems written by Wendy Saddington, Gil Scott-Heron, Laura Nyro and Leonard Cohen. Special featurette a remake of Patrick O’Grady’s ‘Harum Scarum’ from the album ‘Shiver.’
“They came in tall ships, sails like ballerinas on heat, there was once no street so to speak, blueberries of love to become strange fruit in another space.” (Monkesque Part One}
Genre – Jazz/Blues/Soul
Performance Room – Basement