Spike and Lea Mason don't get to play music at Colbourne Ave very often any more. That's because they live 956kms from the front door in a beautifully remote town named Poatina in Tasmania. Every Saturday night they perform a duo jazz gig at the towns Chalet. Spike plays the piano and Lea sings, and they improvise their way through their favorite jazz standards. Tonight is a rare chance to hear them create their soulful and melodic magic in Sydney."

Spike's Farewell Gig
This will be Spike's last Sydney gig before he moves with his family to Tasmania.
Spike will be joined by long time musical friends Barney Wakeford on piano, Aris Kartsonas on guitar, and Gabe Hons on percussion.
They will be playing their favourite jazz standards, a few original tunes, and completely improvised pieces.
Come along and hang with Spike as he does what he does best, and listen to some great music and a few stories too.
If you're a muso, bring an instrument and sit in with the band. If you're not a muso, I'm sure we'll be able to find a tambourine for you if you like...

A Friday night gig

http://www.hughwilson.com/

More sculptural than musical,
more conceptual than actual.

It's the Rolling Stones and Stormy Monday,
it's Hot Gossip and the Bad Seeds,
It's Blue Note and the Yellow House, the Blau Reiter and Black Sabbath.
It's Cold Chisel and the Stone Roses, Pink Floyd, the White Stripes, Bad Religion and the Dirty Three.

It's Adjective Noun, the free improvising quartet born from a decade of the event known as Free For All.  So free that the quartet may have two or four or six members, and may even include the audience.  So free that the only rule is that there must not be any rules.  A performance directed by an open ritual, developed over years of rehearsals in collaboration with hundreds of musicians and onlookers, refined to create a jazz music unrestricted by the rules of jazz...

Spike Mason on sax, Matt McMahon on piano.  Two great musicians with a long history of playing together and a deep love of improvised music.  Matt and Spike can both draw from a huge catalogue of standards and each has a long list of original compositions.  It is an important day for me, and I know it will be a perfect night of music.

This new quartet will be playing a collection of original music, jazz standards, and reworked classical tunes arranged especially for this ensemble - featuring henri peipman on piano, spike mason on saxophones, matt gruebner on double bass and tim firth on drums

Mark Lau will be back from New York for a couple of weeks - and for this one night he has brought together three old friends, three of sydney's best free improvisers.

Old Standards ==> New Measures

Four improvisers who are dedicated to moving thru familiar jazz standard tunes in a fresh and unique way...

The long-awaited launch of Clea Crimson’s debut album “Home Is Where The Art Is”.

The album is a collection of jazz/folk infused songs written by Clea and recorded live over two days at Aphek Studio with some of Sydney’s best jazz musicians (Bill Risby, Ben Ackland, Steve Elphick, Toby Hall and Spike Mason).

“I enjoy the process of recording live songs with the band – rather than tracking everything separately and then putting it all together.” says Clea. “It is an intense focus, to sing every time knowing it might be the one that goes on the album. We were exhausted at the end of the two days but I think we came away with a great result.”

Luke Pittman will open the night.  Growing up on a steady musical diet of Metal, Punk Rock and eventually Neil Young, one might be expecting a musical outcome sounding something like a very cranky bloke singing folk music.  The result is in fact laid back tunes ruminating on Love, God, Love, Satisfaction, Love, Dissatisfaction and the ocean, all presented in a voice sounding some what more like Tim Buckley than Jeff Buckley.  After a few years off, he returns to the stage in 2011 with a newfound relaxed stage presence that only comes from re-assessing life's bigger questions and coming up with very few answers.

the exploration of sonic soundscapes
the flow of cascading rhythms
the pathway into unknown territories

David de Vries - Guitar
James Waples - Drums
Brendan Berlach - Saxophone
Spike Mason - Saxophone