– Which song reminds you of your favourite journey?
– ‘Detour Ahead’ – the Vince Jones version.That song is incredible and I think Vince sings one of the best renditions of it. It reminds me of my favourite journey, because my favourite kind of journey is the one where you end up in a place you weren’t intending.
“Sometimes I will sit down at the piano and just begin to sing, and the melody and lyrics will magically appear and the flow will keep going until the song is finished all in the one evening. Other times, I will hear a little riff that gets stuck in my head, and I will write something off the base of that, but won’t finish the song for months – or years ! “
We play big, honking sets and we wanted to recreate that as much as possible in the studio.
“Choro is a conversation. Think of chamber music in a jazz style. It is often fast, heavily rhythmic and spontaneous. Melodies will weave in and out.”
“What I noticed most about the London jazz scene is just how large it is. But it is a city home to just over eight million people, so that is to be expected. This obviously leads to more competition, and unfortunately, musicians undercutting fees. It made me realise that we have a very unique and wonderful jazz scene in Perth – and Australia in general. Everyone is very supportive of each other in Perth, and musicians here know the base rate expected for performances/functions.”
– Which song reminds you of your favourite journey?
– My favourite journey is life – bit heavy, I know – and I reckon ‘The Best Things In Life Are Free’ is a massive favourite….
“Jazz is the way I have to express what I feel, and the way I get to know more about myself.”
“I set out with the goal to make a standard jazz trumpet quartet album, but my intention from the beginning was to fail, and in that we succeeded far better than I hoped. The result is something pretty special and I feel proud to call it my own music!”
“Lately I’ve taken a liking to the term ‘Prog Jazz’. I like it because I like Prog Rock, and what I like about Prog Rock is that theres a story to it; it creatively moves between various interesting sections of music, and listening to it is like an adventure. My music is like that. “
“For many many years I worked long hours and studied and did not participate in any of the creative activities I often heard the call to begin. Call of the Wild is about the call that never leaves you, a constant gentle reminder of better ways to spend your time.
Many of the songs from this album were written in the car on the way to my day job; one was written while I was folding the washing, another while I was cleaning the house. The melodies came to me when I was stuck in domestics or the inescapable necessities of daily life.”
