Colbourne Ave started after musician Spike Mason was travelling around Europe in 1996. He went to some beautiful jazz concerts that were acoustic, and more like concerts than he was used to in the Sydney jazz scene. One of these was in the round, and it was so moving and intimate that he decided to try and recreate the experience in his own scene back home. After much searching, he found that the church in Glebe he was working for had perfect acoustics for listening. From 2000 to 2009 the venue was called "eight oclock sharp", the name of the first ever series - a season of the play Waiting For Godot with five jazz piano concerts. There was a very strict 'no talking during the music' rule, and the promise that the music would start exactly on time - eight oclock sharp!

Over the years, and with help from Andrew, Barney, and the CafeChurch community, the concert series grew from half a dozen performances a year - almost always acoustic, often in the round with great musicians and respectful audiences - until in 2008 they organized their third 'Jazz Piano Master Series' with sixteen solo pianists over four weeks. It was so good they decided they had to do it every week!  Over the next couple of years we managed to organise a consistent series of concerts, and changed our name to Colbourne Ave.

  • 22 Dec 2016
    Virna Sanzone

    Our last concert for the year.  It'll be a celebration, i can tell you that.  and Virna has the voice to bring it.

    This will be a duet (my favourite!) with Phil Stack, an amazing force of musical energy.  They've been playing together for years, exploring and improvising, pushing standards into unusual shapes, stripping pop songs back to the simplest nuance.  Drawing from Virna's deep knowledge of vocal traditions and Phil's atmospheric heights of jazz and rock, they'll build something completely different from scratch.  It'll be very exciting.

    Just a couple of days before christmas, a chance to lose yourself in great art before it all turns to holidays.

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