“There’s a lot of freedom working alone, and although the same can be said for working with others, the amount of freedom hinges on whether it’s improvised alone or with a group, or if the goal is for it to be through-composed or not, and if that composition is written by myself or collaboratively”
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.
Also a father, a husband, a writer, an editor, a coffee addict, a type 1 diabetic and an expat. Born and raised in Athens. Based in Melbourne. Jazz is my country.
“The nonet is the ideal mix of the intimacy of small group jazz with the compositional scope afforded by a big band or larger ensemble. It’s hard swinging small group jazz with the force that you get from six horn players.”
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“Living in America is what drew my personality out completely. In the United States, they really celebrate the individual. It was an environment where I found myself unafraid to try things and really develop the music I was hearing in my head.”
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“The key difference between my radio program and my work on stage is that my radio show is a jazz program and my live show repertoire is soul and disco influenced”.
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“I think the hardest was getting over my insecurity that I was a bit of a fraud, that I was a pop singer masquerading as a jazz singer. Quite some time ago, I just gave up on the labels and decided I was a story teller… I found that quite liberating, it meant I didn’t have to conform to any preconceived notion of what a jazz singer should be.”
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Adam Rudegeair: “I was more worried about what the ‘jazz police’ would think of the record than what the Bowie fans would think. Fortunately I’ve had a great response from both camps.”
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Uptown Jazz Cafe celebrates its 7th birthday today, with an appropriately festive gig. Joining in the celebrations we thought of seven reasons that make this club one of the best in Melbourne. It wasn’t hard. Bopstretch Wednesdays. A fiery, swinging, hard-bopping outfit that keeps the straight jazz flame burning. Their residency, every Wednesday, is one …
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Jamie Oehlers: “Everything we do is enveloped in the arts, from the music we hear on the radio, the television shows we watch, the community events that draw people together, the phone we put in our hand. Art is all around us and inspires new thought and communication. This is how we create an identity as a national – not through digging up coal.”
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jazz i write in public (with others) our tangled arcs threaded on grammar, are screeching chalks or a sea of question marks (“conjuror”, extempore 2012)
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Paris Combo is a delight of a band, blending the best of the french chanson with a bubbly version of swing in an uplifting, joyous, jazzy way. Led by the Australian trumpeter and pianist David Lewis and the perky singer and accordeonist Belle DuBerry, the quintet features the fiery guitarist Potzi, drummer François Jeannin and bassist …
