2017 – What a busy year!

The year started with some fun on New Years Day at Eira Cafe.  You might have thought we were “crazy”, after a huge night New Years Eve at the Altona Sports Club with The Swingmasters, but it was great.  We played a few gigs at the very interesting wine – food bar in Fitzroy “The Alchemist”  Unfortunately they closed down mid year.

There was a few lovely Duo gigs where Kevin and I played at the Manningham Center.  This event supported by the Friends and Families at Manningham Cassia House.  We also played for The Doncaster Legacy Group.  Kevin caught up with an old friend of he and Marion, it was lovely to see them reconnect.  We approached Rosebank in North Ringwood and were able to play a few Sundays there.  Its a very classy restaurant-bar.  Hopefully we can do more of that in 2018.

We played many times with Pippa during January & February for the “Stocklands Summer Series”.  Met some great people along the way.

Also played a few corporate gigs with the Arcadia group.

Port Fairy Jazz Festival – this was the first festival at Port Fairy and it was an excellent festival – so very well organized.

Played with Pippa and Jazz Notes, The Ann Craig Duo, Caught in the Act and the Bluetone Jazz Band.  Only problem was the injury that occurred to Kevin (when he fell down some not very well lit steps at the back of a venue) he recovered – after almost 6 months, although he still worries about dark back stage areas!

We had our regular Monthly event at Eira Cafe and featured during the Eltham Jazz Festival.

We play every month (1st Friday) the House Band (known as he House Cats) are so generous with their time and support new artists who turn up for open mic.  Each month we have an invited artist – great performances happen each month.

The Basin Music Festival with Jazz Notes Duo – this is always a fun, local festival.

Inverloch Jazz Festival.  Pippa Wilson with Jazz Notes.  A great festival, so much fun and we felt very honored to be invited to back Pippa.

A very special Fundraiser for the Royal Children’s Hospital at Yarra Glen.  Risa and Doug joined Jazz Notes – the organizers were very happy with the fundraising effort and we were thrilled to be invited to play (Thanks to our friends Audrey and Harry for recommending us)  We were also very happy to be included in a Fundraising event with Pippa in October – this was held at the Hungarian Club – a Celebration of Sri Lankan music.

Bob Sedergreen, one of our favorite jazz legends was generous to accept Kevin and my invitation top play with us at Eira Cafe in Eltham (actually, we were lucky he had a free Sunday).  This was not his usual thing, a noisy cafe with lots of people, probably not the best spot to see one of Australia’s best pianists and world class improvisers in action, but he joined us with is every happy smile and we had a blast, I reckon we taught him a thing or two!

Castlemaine Jazz Festival was also in the mix.  I really like this festival – it holds lovely memories for me.

Caught in the Act (without Ashley – as she was in New York) I had to step up and play some sax (don’t think this was an epic fail – actually, it was pretty good).

We were thrilled to have Pippa with Jazz Notes at her first Castlemaine Jazz Festival (it was her first year away from Merrimbula).

Jazz Notes with Risa – a couple of beautiful sets here, Daniel joined us – it was great to see his beautiful baby girl Georgia, at her first Jazz Festival (Congratulations Daniel and Naomi).

We had a few major events with Pippa at the Ringwood RSL.  These were well attended and Pippa was perfect, as usual.  We asked her to learn some new songs that all went down really well.

We even had a TV performance Chanel 31.  It was very interesting.

Pippa invited us to play with her at the Burgher Club in Clayton.  It was a fun night and we got to meet and play with new people, Annette and Craig – it was a lot of fun for me.

There were a couple of fun performances at the AJM – Australian Jazz Museum.

We really enjoy supporting the museum with their group tours and they do so much great work preserving Australian Jazz History.  If you haven’t been to the museum, you should make the time to visit.

We also started working with Rick Correnza in 2017.

He is such a lovely person and has a classy voice that just melts your heart.

Rick’s official debut performance with Jazz Notes was at the Hysteria Lounge in Lilydale.  Super night, awesome feed back.  Thanks to Jan Blake for inviting us.

Rick performed many times at the Soiree events in Brunswick and Eltham as the invited artist, we even did a few dance band gigs with our other band “Stepping Out Dance Band”

There were some corporate functions and the Jazz Notes “augmented – party band” got to play.  The addition of Tony on keys, and Ashley on sax sax gives us a different sound.  Some great fun was had by all.

We also played at New Leaf Cafe and some private parties.

We were booked to play at Prosciutto Bros in Eltham and Wade joined us for these gigs.  This is a lovely venue selling craft beers and pizza.  Very cool and funky, indeed.

Halls Gap Jazz Festival was moved to October in 2016.  We didn’t attend in 2017, instead we made some of our own fun in Phillip Island.

We, (Pippa, Caroline, Ashley, Jeremy, Marion and Kevin & Me) headed to the Cheeky Goose for a gig and then a weekend of recording and socializing.  It was so much fun.  Didn’t miss Halls Gap that much.  We ended up with a couple of lovely recordings which we played on Radio with Peter O’Brien, in the following weeks.

We played with Risa again in December at the Royal Standard Hotel – it was a really fun night.

Australian Jazz Convention at the end of 2017 was terrific.

We invited Rick along for his first ever convention – the Audiences loved him – Played at the Craig’s Royal Hotel (felt just like home).  The Ann Craig Duo performed and we invited Tonia to play with us.  It was a highlight for both Kevin and me.  The House Cats also performed – it was very memorable.

So you can see 2017 was pretty busy, musically fulfilling.

Thanks to everyone who supports our gigs.

Thanks to Marion Blazé for taking the photos.