It’s been a while……

After a bit of a website malfunction, finally I can get back to what is important. Music news!

Lots has been happening, gigs back, major events happening, students making great progress, jazz festivals back on and loads more. Look out for more exciting news in the next weeks.

2022 – Finally some things to be excited about!

So happy that things for musicians can get back to some sort of normal after COVID 19 impacted our world.
There were some gigs and musical activity during 2021 but 2022 has seen more gigs, the return to face to face teaching and some special large events. And there is the promise of more to come.
My website is going through an upgrade, so check back for upcoming gigs and posts from events since 2020.
Thank you to all the people who have continued to support me and for those who have purchased CD’s during these very challenging times.
Please also check out www.jazznotes.net.au
And there’s facebook which always has some current info.

Jazz Notes – finally a CD!

It’s been years of playing and people asking us “do you have a CD?”, and us responding “oh, actually no!”, we record everything but it’s never quite acceptable to release those recordings. So during 2019 Kevin and I put our heads together and really decided what we wanted to record as a Duo. January seemed the perfect time to get these tracks recorded. Quite a few of them were “one-take-wonders”, some needed some work, but in the end we came away from our recording sessions with 18 Duo tracks. We invited our funky/latin-fusion band Caught in the Act to our last recording session and recorded one of our favorite tunes “Building Bridges” So on our cd is a bonus track from Caught in the Act!.

The experience was fabulous. We had a great audio technician recording the tracks and we sent them to Niko at Pughouse Studios to mix and master them – I knew him from a previous recording I had done with Standing Tall.

We had hoped to have the CD by Port Fairy, but came across a few small problems but NOW it’s all done – the CD is now ready for sale.

For your own copy – see the jazznotes website

2020 – It’s going to be a great year!

Correction! It WAS going to be a great year!!!!!

2020 – So much to look forward to:

Recording our first CD
Port Fairy Jazz Festival
Inverloch Jazz Festival
Open Mic event at the Ringwood RSL – with the DR Big Band!
Newport Jazz Festival
Castlemaine Jazz Festival
and some new festivals we hope to attend.

Also some very special events with Pippa Wilson and Rick Correnza.

The launch of Jazz Notes (Duo) first CD
Plenty of weekly entertainment sessions for Retirement Villages and Nursing homes

and so much more……

Can’t wait to get into this fabulous year.

Check out Jazz Notes website or MusicAnn on facebook for the most up-to-date information.

Jazz Notes with Risa in “The Backyard”

Urbanlife Community in conjunction with the Maroondah City Council is currently conducting Sunday afternoon Open Sessions during March in a ‘secret’ artspace called ‘The Backyard’.

Risa Kodani fronted Jazz Notes for our session on a lovely autumn afternoon.

Risa Kodani (vocals)
Ann Craig (flute)
Kevin Blazé (guitar)
Doug Kuhn (bass)

Photos by Marion Blazé 200315

See the jazznotes.net.au website for more photos

A Fundraiser for the wildlife

Our friend Carol McCarthy asked us to back her for a wonderful event. A fundraiser to support our wildlife.

We met Carol at our monthly Open Mic events and she has become a regular favorite.

This event was held on Saturday 14th March at the Montmorency RSL.

A wonderful audience, sang and danced the night way with Carol and Jazz Notes.

Jazz Notes band on the night: Ann, Kevin, John, Stan & Simon.

Thanks to everyone who supported the event – Carol was able to make a sizeable donation ($1105)to the Healesville Sanctuary Bushfire Emergency Fund.

Inverloch Jazz Festival – 2020

Another fine year at Inverloch.

A well organized, friendly and fun festival.

I really enjoy the relaxed nature of this festival, you can actually talk to people. So many people stop me and give wonderful feedback. I know, its obvious how much I love to play – they all tell me so!

Pippa Wilson with Jazz notes played two fantastic sets in The Hub.
Jazz Notes with Rick Correnza played two fantastic sets in The Hub.

Ladies be Good! – we had a blast in the RSL with two sets over the weekend. Jan was in top form.

We missed our trumpet player Emily as she had to stay home (she was ill).

Next year we will be back with more fun than you could imagine.

And a special extra gig – we were offered a 1 hour set in the outside tent between the Hub and Warrawee. Of course we took that up, but we set up our funky, latin-fusion band Caught in the Act!. Its a big sound, lots of energy and the audience loved it.

Thanks everyone for sharing your musical talents.

See you in Inverloch next year – although it won’t be in March – it’s moving to later in the year!

Jazz Notes – a naming ceremony?

We regularly work at Nellie Melba and Weary Dunlop entertaining the residents during happy hour, and we love it. We reunited with one of the managers who used to work somewhere else, she contacted Kevin and asked if we could provide background entertainment for the naming ceremony for the new Ryman Village in Burwood.

We were very happy to make this happen at short notice. The venue was the Acre Farm and Eatery in Burwood. It was a great ceremony and the Village will be known as the John Flynn Village.
Jazz Notes Trio:Ann, Kevin and Doug.

Thanks to Genell for making all the arrangements,

VJC – Pippa with the Jazz Notes Showband

We were absolutely thrilled to be invited back to the VJC for a very special gig with Pippa.

The Showband on the evening included the fantastic Craig Schneider on piano, Leon Heal on bass, Simon Atkinson on drums, Ann & Kevin & the wonderful Pippa Wilson. For this event we asked Vincent Bradley to join us on trumpet (he was fantastic)!

Great audience, lovely venue. Thanks to the organizers and the sound techs to getting us to sound so good.

Hoping to be back again in 2021.

Port Fairy Jazz Festival – February 7-9, 2020

What a wonderful festival. Friendly people, great weather and really inspirational music. Jazz musicians everywhere – just superb.

This year our bands were:

Ann Craig Duo
Jazz Notes with Rick Correnza
Pippa Wilson with Jazz Notes
The House Cats.

Fantastic audiences, well organized program and great friends to share a house with and make memories.