Melbourne International Jazz Festival

Melbourne...what a great place to be living! It's a never ending festival! There's never a shortage for something to see and do, to get inspired and to see some good live music. From May 1st the Melbourne International Jazz Festival starts, going for a full week. Being a flute player myself, I'm always on the look out for jazz saxophonists who also play flute. They are always an inspiration to see, with their amazing improvisatory skills and awesome technique. One concert I was particularly interested in seeing was 'Sangam' with Eric Harland, Charles Lloyd and Zakir Hussain. As you may have already read, I have a particular fascination with Indian music and Zakir Hussain is someone I have been wanting to see in concert for a long time. He is one of the most famous tabla players in the world, playing with a whole variety of musicians. Charles Lloyd is a multi-instrumentalist, and a great flute player.

Here is the Charles Lloyd Quartet with Charles on flute in 1972, unfortunately there is no video footage for this one but the music is great.




If your interested in the Sangam trio check this out. It's a bit of a doco on how the trio came about and includes some beautiful performances.

Jarrah Thompson Band at Sunbury.

Last weekend Jarrah Thompson Band was invited to perform at the Sunbury Backroad Music Festival, just on the outskirts of Melbourne. Back in the day this was an iconic festival attracting an average of 45,000 people each year. Sunbury was Australia's Woodstock. Bands included Chain, Madder lake, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Max Merritt, Skyhooks, Spectrum, Deep Purple and Sherbet. This year the festival had tried to be re-created with the return of legendary Australian bands Madder Lake, Spectrum and Chain plus some newer acts. Unfortunately the scene this year was not anywhere near the 45,000 mark, nevertheless we had a great time on stage. This was our first live performance of a whole pile of new songs and after being in a rehearsal room for months it was a welcome change. We finally had a chance to let all that energy out, it felt great.

Here's some videos from the night: