Canberra Jazz blog

I was a little unprepared for Steve Reich.  Not that I don't love his minimalist repetition (I do) or that I didn't recognise Different trains when it was played, but that variation on a the...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/rolling-rhythms.html

Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are the 3Bs but this concert concentrated on the last two, sandwiching the C19th and the developments of modern statehood and universal democracy.  (I wonder how t...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/3bs-1.html

The percussion section is so often little considered although they are not just like jazz drums, playing rhythm as important as that is, but they also play pitch with keyboard substitutes on vibe...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/keys-for-all.html

It's a little different with mates.  I was recording so nabbed the front of house spot to turn on and off the recorder and get some good pics so I was right under the eyes of the Dudok Quart...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/some-visiting-delights-of-amsterdam.html

This was guitar of a magical beauty.  I did see John Williams once but in a massive hall; being close is something different.  Clear, crisp, deeply felt playing, complex fingered chords...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/crisp-probabilistics.html

These were the gardens of Spain, as interpreted by Saralouise Owens and Natalia Tkachenko at Wesley.  The program had that title and interestingly, flowers and pines and various growing gree...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/lush-gardens.html

It's with considerable awe that I've come away from a few concerts recently.  The latest was the first concert of CIMF2024 at Verity Lane, a solo voice and electrics/electronics outing by Lo...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/05/something-new-borrowed.html

I was chatting with trumpet Tom after the gig and I commented on how complex and difficult was this music and he suggested it had taken them 3 years to master it.  That floored me.  The...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/for-faint-of-heart-not.html

I have great respect for woodwinds.  They don't play so often, unlike the consistent, unrelenting playing of the strings, but when they do, the lines are essential statements of melody or at...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/winds-of-romance.html

It was with sadness but also a great deal of musical admiration and fond memories that we farewelled Niels Rosenhdahl.   There were many people present, musicians, friends and family, a...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/vale-niels.html

  This was M17 ArtSpace for an exhibition by a photographer friend, Brian Jones.  The title was Life in the Old Dog, Yet and the theme was seniors in facial portraits and in activity to...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/small-world.html

I've got into recording over the years and most recently into multitrack mixing and mastering, mainly of gigs at Smiths.  I find it fascinating and even, in some ways, better or more reveali...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/live-or-listened.html

Prayers and lamentations was the title of the concert by Oriana Chorale with a range of Biblical and other quotes.  The obvious one and ever popular was Thomas Tallis lamentations of Jeremia...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/tallis-to-today.html

Australian Haydn Ensemble called the concert Heavenly Sopranos and sure enough most of the program featured a soprano and mezzo pairing.  AHE doesn't often perform with singers (3/28 posts o...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/crux.html

I've just been listening to a recent find, the LA drum/vocals duo Knower, and in some way I wonder if Robert Schmidli's concert is somewhat of the same stunning effect for another era.  Admi...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/knowing-past.html

It's amusing that this was the second gig with Chris Latham as MD where we sat in darkness.  The darkness was for the projected images of modern art that we were accompanying.  OK as lo...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/darkness-and-light.html

It may not be the favourite outing but it is a favourite outing.  That's the RMC Band when it puts on a gig, in concert band format or other.  Today it was the Woodwind group and it was...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-fave-outing.html

It's odd but there's not one but two major exhibitions of Egyptiana in Australia this year: one from the mecca, the Cairo Museum, on display in Sydney; the other, from the Rijksmuseum van Oudhede...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/04/egypt-ii.html

I was just sitting outside a pub with a beer and I noticed someone with a tiny synth. Fascinating. Identified later as a Roland SC-1. Tiny, with headphones. And a Guinness. Within a few seconds w...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/nug.html

Whenever I mentioned Stravinsky or Firebird suite to someone they were awed. I was certainly challenged by Firebird, but nothing like its accompaniment, Prokofiev Violin concerto no.2. That was a...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/awe.html

I joked that the last game I played was Asteroids and it's not far from the truth, but we had a string of PSns in the house over time and probably some X-boxes that my kids played and I even disc...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/gaming.html

  Sean gave me a rundown on the workshop that afternoon by Number Junky on jazz rhythms and odd meters.  It fitted perfectly with the band's title, Number Junky, and even with some of t...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/ecstatic.html

It was a first performance of a piano trio made up of local mates that I know through Wesley and MdCC  and NCO.  It's a small local musical world and a small group but very satisfying.&...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/premiere.html

It's not the first disappointing demo I've attended  but it was a significant disappointment.   It was held as the local Canberra event, the No to AUKUS Rally for the National acti...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/disappointments.html

It's coming close to Canberra Bach Ensemble attending the Leipzig Bach Festival mid-year.  But this is Easter so a Bach passion was in store, this time St John.  But the program referen...

http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/calm-and-storm.html