Steve and Hannah live in the same community in Tasmania as Spike Mason.  They travel the country working with all sorts of communities, inspiring people to engage with their creativity.

For us, they will perform some of their song and dance numbers :

Once a week, in the cafe at the arts community in Tasmania where Spike lives, he and Lea play a jazz duet.  They've been doing it for years.

Spike is one of Australia's great jazz saxophone players.  So it's a bit of a surprise that he's been playing piano.  But this will be his first trio gig.

- he has chosen some beautiful musicians to help him

 steve elphick : double bass

cameron reid : drums

Spike Mason : piano

Lea Mason : vocals

An album launch for a four-piece band living on three different continents plus Tasmania.

You can support the production of the album here : https://pozible.com/project/a-moment-in-time-jazz-album 

 STOP PRESS : This is actually the album launch of the new "Jeremy Sawkins Organ Quartet" JazzTrack recording.  The band has changed their name to "The Jeremy Sawkins Organ Quartet", but I had already created this event and i couldn't bring myself to change the great name to a boring name just because they switched drummers.  I don't even think they did switch drummers.

The last time the Jazz Organism played, someone asked me "who plays jazz on an organ or for that matter listens to organ music other than in church?....this Thursday not for me?"  and i said "you're thinking of the wrong kind of organ.think of Deep Purple... Pink Floyd... Procol Harum... Booker T...  Darren's groove comes from the middle 60's jazz players who influenced the psychedelic movement of the 70's.  i can listen to him all day long, and i'm not one for church organs."

That's what the organism is.

At Colbourne Ave, we have a half-arsed kind of tradition where on the anniversary of the first gig we ever put on (it was Bill Risby) we have a jazz tribute night to a pop band. Kind of like Frisell plays Lennon. Or Eckleberg plays Jackson.

It’s Thursday the 25^th of Feb, and we’re doing Joni Mitchell (almost a year since the aneurysm from which she's still recovering). Three songs per musician, no song twice, more interpretations than covers. There will be moments of genius from :

Spike Mason (and Barney Wakeford)
Leonie Cohen
Bonnie Stewart
Jonny Maddox
Bill Risby
Joseph Zarb

and they'll be playing, in chronological order of publication :

And we leave the last work to Chaka Khan, who in an interview a couple of months ago said :

See, Joni Mitchell, she's actually funky, she just doesn't know it, and I'm bringing that forward. The jazz is in there. You get her, but I've slowed a lot of the stuff down because a lot of the lyrics - she's a very fast singer, so sometimes it's hard to catch her words - but I think she's so relevant

Spike Mason will be once again visiting the North Island to play the saxophone.

At this Colbourne Ave gig you will have the chance to hear him create new melodies with the amazing New York based double bass legend - Mark Lau, who will be visiting Aus for a few brief weeks. Spike and Mark have been musical compadres for over 20 yrs so there will be great music and many stories too. Joining them both will be the always inventive and rhythmically satisfying James Waples on Drums. This will prove to be an exciting nite of new music, old music, and never heard of before or since music...

*actual band may not match photo.

Mark has an extremely minimalist website, even for a jazz musician : marklau.org

It's an album launch, of an album recorded at Colbourne Ave over two nights in the heat of January 2013.  

It was great then, it'll be great now.

see the songs as recorded on YouTube

Henri and Spike have been playing music together for almost 20 years. They play in each other's bands, record on each other's albums, and both really like Arvo Part (but Henri is Estonian so that's a no brainer).  This musical meeting will give these two friends the opportunity to play some of their own original music in an intimate and personal setting.
And their other friend Jeremy Sawkins has just agreed to play.  so it will be a trio.  probably in the round.  with the new lounges.  certainly great sydney jazz.

it might be a tiny bit like this : youtube.com/watch?v=mqYicL-Miw0 or this youtube.com/watch?v=F_TlvE-ouLw

A conversation without words...