Treading a faint path between modern jazz, world music and pop song, instrumentalists My Goodness, McGuiness! strip back all genres back to celebrate melody and emotion as king. Jazz trained musicians been dancing around songwriting and pop music influences, then finally approaching it head on. gently.

lineup:
Sarah Belkner : voice
Lucian McGuiness : trombophone
Dan Junor : saxomaphone
Paul Cutlan : clarinets and things
Aaron Flower : leccy guitar
Jonothan Zwartz : contra-bass
James Hauptmann : drums
Fabian Hevia : other hitting things
Strings led by Rachel Pogson

Lucian McGuiness is a composer, arranger and musical director in jazz, circus-theatre and contemporary pop arenas. My Goodness McGuiness mixes some of Sydney's finest improvisors and groove masters with skilful arranging and writing.

“There is pure quality to the McGuiness tone, coupled with a less-is-more approach.”
— Limelight Magazine

"Bithe as a bee in spring"
– Sydney Morning Herald

Also talented arranger, musical director and songwriter, vocalist Sarah Belkner has a signature sound that ferries catchy, emotional lyrical depth and vocal ear candy for days to a rich beautifully strange world of complex, subtle and layered arrangements.

Eddie Bronson - the sax player from Monsieur Camembert, and almost every russian band you've ever seen in Sydney.  Schmaltzy standards and love-sick original songs with Eddie on soprano and tenor sax, accordion and voice, with

Daniel Pliner : piano
Jonathan Zwartz : bass
Hamish Stuart : drums

Eddie was born in Moscow, moved to Israel, then New York, and eventually Sydney where his distinctive style has infected the sound of a generation of sydney musicians.

Watch Eddie on one of those great days at Qirkz nearly ten years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjEsMwFer6E

This quartet features the awesome talents of Jonathan Zwartz on Bass and Hamish Stuart on drums plus Carl Morgan on guitar- winner of the national jazz award 2014
While attending Germany’s largest music academy in Cologne for 4 years, Louis absorbed a wide variety of influences - workshopping with the likes of John Taylor, Aaron Parks, Alan Broadbent and studying under Hubert Nuss and Florian Ross.

These influences come together in this new quartet which values tradition and familiar forms but you’ll also hear modern harmony and abstract colours. The compositions span an array of styles including swing, ballad, blues and groove while some tunes lend themselves to spontaneous improvisation and open playing.

No matter what your tastes are there’ll be something for you at Colbourne Avenue June 16. It's a great cruisy venue where you can bring your own food and drinks with comfy lounges and ambient lighting. So come on down and treat yourself!!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/870810176364012/

Piano, violin, double bass.  George is calling it "intimate".

Featuring the most entertaining man in jazz, George Washingmachine, with Sydney's great swing player Peter Locke, and the endlessly creative bass legend, Jonathan Zwartz.  Great jazz, great entertainment, it's going to be all-around great.

The Wires Project is centred around live musical improvised performances directly influenced by projected video and photography. This project is a collaboration between four Sydney based musicians, a Sydney based videographer/visual designer and a Singapore based Photographer.
The overarching motif of the project is to explore the complex interaction between the Australian and Asian world-views and perspectives. Wires seeks to unravel this interaction through an exposition of the conflicts and congruities inherent when visual art and music are combined.
In practical terms the workflow of the project operates like this:
  1. Singaporean photographer Chia Ming Chien has a number or photographic series capturing the life and architecture of South East Asia. These still images are sent to:
  2. Aymeric De Meautis, our Sydney based VFX artist who renders the stills into video sequences utilising various cutting edge imaging techniques.
  3. Musicians Briana Cowlishaw (Vocals), Gavin Ahearn (Piano), Jonathan Zwartz (Bass) and Nic Cecire (Drums) will interpret the video sequences in a live performance.

John Harkins, the Chicago-born piano player who inhabits the time when Jazz and the Blues weren't different yet.  Jazz and Bebop compositions, mixed with Standards from the Great American Songbook.

 

with Jonathan Zwartz on bass (who has been playing some great gigs lately on the back of his excellent new album)

and Andrew Gander on drums

I asked Gavin about the music.  He said it'll be more Jackson Pollock than Ken Done.

these guys are heavy.

 

Last week, as i rode my pushie home through the glistening streets, i was thinking about this thing that we create together every thursday night.

A generous community, a warm aesthetic, a space which invites an active engagement with a [ free/sophisticated/intuitive/embodied ] music. A vibe which perfectly marries a beautiful space, an energised audience, and excellent musicians.

Barney and Andrew (that's me) do this without material reward, because Cafe Church allows us to use their space without strings attached, and to attach our own strings might break the magic.  It's a lot of work, choosing next week's musicians from the hundreds of great players we know, and letting all of you know about them.  But every Thursday night it's worth it.

And as i thought these things, riding up the Annandale rise, i realised that i hadn't written anything for Gavin next week, and that he (like George last week, and Dave MacC who photographed this band the last time they played) is a perfect example of everything we have tried to do.  So without further ado, ladies and gentlement, Gavin Ahearn and his incredible trio.

I asked Gavin about the music.
he sent me two awesome Bruce Dawe poems.
i love bruce dawe almost as much as i love Gavin Ahearn.  Gavin is a beautifully creative improvisor whose depth of humanity is amplified through the keys.

With Nic Cecire on drums and Jonathan Zwartz on double bass, I expect an emotionally and musically powerful night of Sydney style jazz.