Casey Moir – Voice (AUS/SWE)
Reuben Lewis – Trumpet (AUS)
Luke Sweeting – Piano (AUS)
Johan Moir – Double Bass (SWE)
Aidan Lowe – Drums (AUS)

From north to south the members of this band have gathered to form this collaboration of five Swedish & Australian musicians. Together they fuse the spontaneous with the unconventional, composition with open interpretation and allow their intuitive joint expression to intricately weave it all together in some form of coherent chaos.

While on tour in Sweden, Germany and Poland, SVELIA surprised their audiences as they “frame the liberating madness of free expression within the form of song”. In Krakow, Poland it was quoted that “Svelia's music happens on fringes of a variety of styles - radical improvisation is countered by tricky and disciplined compositions, bursting energy by heartbreaking lyricism, hard-edged harmonies by melodies that will haunt your mind in sleep”

LIsten here: www.soundcloud.com/svelia

Back for their fourth Colbourne Ave performance, Chris Abrahams, James Waples, and Mike Markovski might be the most creative improvising trio in Sydney.  totally UN-composed, completely free jazz by three of sydney's free-est improvisors.  Despire their differences in age and history, they clearly understand each other well enough to climb around each others sounds.  ROIL mesmerise you with the way they surge together then careen apart, ramming textures and harmonics against each other in ways that would be totally destructive in less competent hands.

I like what you get when you search flickr for ROIL

Featuring Carl Dewhurst and Simon Barker, Showa 44 utilise tuned metallic resonances, rhythmic densities and spontaneous invention via electric guitar and percussion to manifest compelling and evocative soundscapes.

Anne-Marie says:

“Think metallic discordant strident confrontational free form jazz and thats the soft version that takes the cerebral and permeating rythyms to that next level
It gets under your skin and resonates with every fibrous essence of your  body . I drive around playing this in the car and people look at me quizzically they then stop for a second take and then beat haphazardly in time to the timbre of the sound you will also at colbourne ave.”

Other people say:

“Showa 44, comprising Carl Dewhurst on guitar and Simon Barker on drums, delivered a sonic tour de force in the Playhouse Theatre. This was jazz in extremis, melding the experiments of English stalwarts AMM with the force-field energy of a Sonic Youth.” Des Cowley – Rhythms Magazine

“Drifting, humming guitar reminiscent of the swirls of Fripp & Eno open and recur on this beautiful second album of improvisations from guitarist Carl Dewhurst and drummer Simon Barker.” SMH

“Showa 44 display imaginations the size of continents” – Limelight

The trio Great Waitress features Monika Brooks on Accordion from Sydney, Magda Mayas on piano from Berlin, and Laura Altman on clarinet. Magda is an exceptional pianist and is visiting Australia for a short while this year. Great Waitress played a number of successful shows in Sydney, Berlin and Austria in 2011 including the NOWnow festival and Konfrontationen festival in Nickelsdorf, and released their debut album 'Lucid' on the record label Splitrec. www.splitrec.com

You can listen to them here : soundcloud.com/great-waitress
If you want to know what they look like when they sound like that, here is an excellent gallery from their performance in Oslo : downtownmusic.net/laura-altman/great-waitress-01-10-2014
And if you like them, you can "Like" them : facebook.com/greatwaitress

It's new music, post-jazz, improvised and intricate.  The reviews are really easy to find, and great to read:

„Die Musikerinnen von GREAT WAITRESS denken die Konzepte von Melodik und Harmonik neu. Im Prozess der kollektiven Erforschung klanglicher und struktureller Möglichkeiten findet eine Vermischung der instrumentellen Identitäten statt. Alle drei Instrumente sind vollkommen verfremdet, insbesondere das Akkordeon klingt fast wie eine elektronische Klangquelle. Dies ist Musik – ich würde es eher Sound-Art nennen –, die aus sorgfältiger und minutiöser Aufmerksamkeit für die Entstehung des einzelnen Klanges resultiert und diese Aufmerksamkeit auch von den Zuhörern verlangt."

"...Great Waitress rethink the concepts of melody and harmony. There’s a blurring of instrumental identities in a collective exploration of timbral and textural possibilities. All three instruments are totally defamiliarised – accordion in particular sounds almost like an electronic sound source. This is music – or rather, I’d argue, sound-art – that results from careful, minute attention to production of individual sounds, and demands the same attentionfrom listeners...”
- Jazz and Improv Column October 2011, A.J.Hamilton

If spiders have musical dreams while spinning webs, they might sound like the fragile wisps of sound created by Great Waitress....Sometimes the individual instruments become blurred in a sonic mystery that is both enthralling and disorienting. Almost invariably, the sounds are tiny and delicate - just the faintest engraving upon silence - and as intricately connected as that spider's web - SMH one, by John Shand ,december 2011

Multiplicity emerges in Great Waitress through virtuosic collective listening, and creates a unique lucidity. This is intricate, complex music – but … they can also converge to make the monumental. - Rafa Segura, Modisti

In contrast to Mayas, Brooks and Altman are far more restrained and not as prominent. Whatever music the combination of clarinet and accordion conjures up in the imagination, it is highly unlikely it will match that produced here. When it is identifiable amid the range of sounds, the clarinet is rarely to the fore, tending to favor sustained notes that contribute to the overall ambience. The accordion is identifiable less often, producing wheezy rasping sounds rather than any that are characteristic of the instrument; again, the intention seems to be a contribution to the ensemble sound. But the piano repeatedly attracts attention, as Mayas pushes at its boundaries. The contrast between the duo's restraint and the more garrulous piano playing creates a dynamic tension which drives the music. - John Eyles, All About Jazz

Tim Winton writes There's no sweeter feeling than falling.

Hear a trio breathing as one, free falling & soaring, led by unique pianist & composer Barney Wakeford, & later with special guest saxophonist Spike Mason from south of the border sitting in.

The first in our April 2014 Jazz Piano Master Series - featuring entrants, finalists, and the winner of the Wangaratta jazz award.

This week, Harry Sutherland and Barney Wakeford.  Two excellent piano players, and very fine human beings.

Barney Wakeford is an endlessly inventive improvisor, a free, intuitive player whose open approach was born from decades of intense study.  In full flight, his playing is mesmerising.  He had some beautiful new compositions at his last trio gig, I'm looking forward to the solo versions.

Harry is a very versatile player.  You can see him playing trad jazz at the RSL, new music at the Foundry, hip hop grooves at festivals.  You can hear him around town almost every week in a trio, a large ensemble, or a big band - and this week, solo.  He won the James Morrison scholarship in 2010 - come and decide whether he should have won the Wangaratta prize.

Steve Barry came second in the Wangaratta Jazz Award last year.  Francesca didn't make the final.  They are both great local players, delicate and pure and simple, abounding with skill but never playing for show.

Bonnie Stewart has always been drawn to the innovative style of angular melodies, unusual forms and jagged rhythms of Thelonious Monk's music. In her project, "Criss Cross", Bonnie uses these aspects to inspire original compositions as well as new arrangements of Thelonious Monk's tunes. Bonnie infuses Monk’s quirky bebop compositions with her own melodic and rock influenced free-improvisation style, creating a new contemporary dimension to Monk's music.

Since completing her BA(Hons) in Jazz Performance in Ireland, composer and drummer Bonnie Stewart furthered her studies at the School of Improvised Music in New York.
Originally formed in her home town of Dublin, Bonnie is excited to bring “Criss Cross” to life in Sydney with a fantastic local line up.

Simon Ferenci - Trumpet
Peter Farrar – Alto Sax
Luke Sweeting – Piano
Thomas Botting – Double Bass
Bonnie Stewart – Drums


To listen, here are some clips from a live performance at Bohemian Grove!

https://soundcloud.com/bonniedrums/promo-crisscross

Mike and Laurenz are working towards a new recording this year.  They're going to give us a first look at some of the new tunes before they go to Melbourne Jazz Festival next month.

Back from an extended hiatus, the latest incarnation of the Marty Wieczorek Quartet features Marty’s beautiful compositions, drawing on an eclectic range of influences from Radiohead to Charlie Parker to Mahler and Tomasz Stanko. For a taster, go to: www.martywieczorek.com

The Marty Wieczorek Quartet features:

Marty Wieczorek on Sax
David Devries on Guitar
James Waples on Drums
Thomas Botting on bass

Marty Wieczorek has performed with some of Sydney's most beautiful jazz musicians including Aaron Flower, Evan Mannell, James Waples, and Abel Cross, appearing at some of Australia's great jazz venues and has toured his music nationally. He is now practicing as a provisional psychologist, so this is a rare opportunity to hear this exceptionally lyrical and unique musical voice.

I have only seen Prince play once and that was in Budapest.  I have only seen Elvis Costello play once and he was supporting Bob Dylan. I looked forward to both shows immensely. TJ holds a place for me somewhere between Prince and Mr Costello.
 
One of our first performers ever, back in 2002 when he had only recorded two or three albums... TJ has lived in Sydney, Berlin, and Yokohama; worked as a musician, theatre director, and teacher; writes, records, produces, and performs some of the most complex and beautiful songs I know.  
he'll be playing solo.  TJ Eckleberg, one guitar, a few pedals, and lots of songs.

http://tjeckleberg.com/

Nagaram arranges tunes by great artists such as Jimmy schmit, Sew Montgomery, Eddie Rarish, Smile Davis, John O'Central - classic American standards like How Deep Is The Canoe and I've Got You Under My Sink, as well as their original snogs.  It's jazz but with a refreshing twist of melon.

Barney Wakeford on the big piano
Tim Rollinson on the string guitar
Jamie Cameron hitting skins with sticks

Munkle is a creation of that musical genius and jazz community stalwart Julian Kerwin.  The project has been emerging from the depths of his mind regularly over the last decade, but not much lately because Martin Kay (clarinet) has been overseas for the past year.  But Martin is in sydney for one thursday, and to mark the occasion they will be airing a bunch of new tunes, as well as making a recording for posterity. 

Unusual compositions, complex harmonies,  quirky melodies, amusing introductions.  It's quite fantastic and a little bit terriffic

Martin Kay - clarinets
Julian Curwin - guitar, banjo
Sam Golding - tuba, trumpet
Danny Heifetz - drums 

thefantasticterrificmunkle.wordpress.com 

Three brand new musicians for your listening pleasure:

Matt Boden was one of the ten finalists in the Wangaratta jazz competition this year.  We tried to get him for the solo piano month, but he couldn't get to sydney.  You might know him from the New Sheiks (their album won a Bell award), but you might not know him because he's lived for most of the last decade in Berlin and Paris.

bassist Leigh Barker is the band leader of The New Sheiks.  i know he's from melbourne and everything but it's really surprising he's never played here.

French drummer Lionel Bocarra has worked with Matt for many years, and will be in Australia after his Japan tour.

read more and have a listen at mattboden.com

Free music quartet Forenzics take you on a dark, noir-ish journey of sound and vision, their sonic instincts and improvisation styles transforming post-rock, noise, jazz and electronic influences into an absolutely unique and engaging live experience. All enhanced by RedCell Disorder’s intense yet atmospheric large scale live projections.

The line-up features Matthew Syres on guitar, Dirk Kruithof on bass/guitar, both using various effects, tunings and preparation, Joe Cummins on trumpet and effects, and Evan McGregor on drums.

Forenzics have released three albums, H3O (2009), Static and Silence (2010), and Build Ruins (2011), this last in collaboration with Japanese electronic artist Ryota Yamamura. Forenzics are currently working on their fourth studio album Malign, to be released late in 2014.

Live, Forenzics are a force to be reckoned with, taking their audiences on a journey that is sometimes wild and tumultuous, sometimes hypnotic and fragile, yet always transporting. Especially when combined, as at this show, with RedCell Disorder’s live visuals projected large scale behind the band. Performance highlights have included playing a packed out Sound Series gig at Hardware Gallery, a live simulcast on Fbi Radio’s New Weird Australia, The International Noise Conference, and Wollongong’s 1/4 inch.

forenzics.net

Expect the unexpected as these “virtuosos of the bizarre” create a live stage experience that must be seen and heard to be believed. Jug band blues, political satire and lunatic on-stage antics combine as a new-vaudevillian comedy cabaret. Audiences know Mic Conway’s tongue-in-cheek style from “Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band” and “Circus Oz”. From Byron Bay BluesFest to Port Fairy and Woodford Folk Festivals to Adelaide Cabaret Festival and The Famous Spiegeltent … the National Junk Band have become festival favourites for their unique collision of illusion, passion, irreverent satire, fire, magic, singing saws, flying chooks, musical mayhem and some very funny songs. Wielding National guitars, ukuleles, sousaphone, phono-fiddle, garbage cans and even the kitchen sink, there really is nothing like them in Australia today.

It's a trombone shout band.  Seven trombone players.  Maybe even more.  And they all sing.  But not while they're playing their trombones.

It's a trombone shout band.  A rare and beautiful genre specific to a group of pentecostal churches in the American south, developed sometime in the 1940s, but not recorded until the 60s so we don't really know how it went until then. it may have started with other instruments but it ended up with trombones.   gospel harmonies with new orleans groove.

https://www.facebook.com/events/536338516498532/

Beautifully expressive jazz lines in a modern, groove oriented sound.

Benny Lackner - Piano and effects
Matthieu Chazarenc - drums
Paul Kleber - bass and effects.

About Benny : bennylackner.com

Born in Berlin, lived half of his life in New York
Studied under Charlie Haden and Brad Mehldau
Played at North Sea Jazz, Montreaux, and Monterey
He's launching his 5th trio album, Sisikiyou
The album was recorded at Jazzanova in Berlin, released by Unit Records, Switzerland
The below-the-equator album launch is 17 dates in Malaysia, Indonesia, NZ, and Australia.  Only one in Sydney.

Benny Lackner has a distinctive compositional voice that sounds lucid and fresh. He's found a cool way to write for this trio.
-Brad Mehldau

Lackner may be the first established pianist to come from the Mehldau school. With a  contemporary approach, he helps give the piano trio a much-needed facelift.
-John Kelman, AllAboutJazz.com 

Lackner also uses Fender Rhodes and a variety of other keyboards to texturize his work
Lackner also shares a penchant for simple melodies that, while singable, are sometimes a little oddly askew also, something he no doubt learned from his time studying with Brad Mehldau.
-John Kelman, All About Jazz

Robbie Long is a multi-instrumentalist who has covered miles of styles in his weird & wonderful career. He has been a working man's musician since leaving school, walking the boards with countless acts on stages and in studios over the past thirty years in Australia, New Zealand, Europe.  Although he has jazz/rock foundations, he has gathered tools from a spectrum of musical genres through his musical journeys, adding spice and depth to his playing. During the early 2000's Robbie became involved with several well known figures in the Australian bluegrass scene, including Fiddler Andrew Clermont and Banjo virtuoso Dave Hellens. This led towards competing in the National Bluegrass Championships at Tamworth, where he won National Flatpick Guitar champion 2008 & 2010.

Robbie Long and the Cardiff Spares
Robbie’s current project showcases a selection of original material composed over the last three years or so, possibly best described as world-jazz. In the live set this is blended with a selection of pieces by artists that have had a significant influence on Robbie’s playing and writing style. This includes guitarists Jeff Beck and Larry Carlton, and mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile. The music will thus visit far flung corners of jazz and cross over into neighbouring genres - from trad, jazz rock, fusion, to bluegrass, gypsy swing and Western swing.
Joining Robbie on stage are a selection of Newcastle’s finest young players, all distinguished in their own right.  Special guest Sue Carson will join the group, adding some soulful vocals & fiddle.

Robbie Long on stringed things
Jacob Neale on piano
Jarrod Gibson on bass
Brad Reinberger on drums

The return of Chuck Yates, the legendary pianist who held down one of the longest residencies in recent memory - the thursday late-night jam at the Bald Faced Stag.  It nurtured some of Sydney's finest jazz talent and injected life, passion and love into the performance of bebop and the great American songbook.