Decennial

CJBlog is at 1443 posts. That's one post every 2.5 days. Nutty, but it all becomes a habit over time. 1443 posts must be over 1200 gig reports and various other outings, to theatre, museums, public lectures and the like. Initially the gigs were jazz, but recently we've seen the demise of any significant jazz activity in Canberra and even of a reliable, regular jazz listening venue. (Amusingly, the first gigs I reported were of the Wayne Kelly Trio - with Mark Sutton and Ben O'Loghlin - and they have started up again weekly following Ben's return to Canberra). Musical interests change and mine have broadened towards the classical and I've found the time for outings with Megan to classical, theatre and more. Public lectures have appeared as Australia's politics have become increasingly distressing and my political leanings have become more evident. The politics I used to record on AginSpin has migrated to CJ. There have been travels and I've amused myself by reporting from jazz clubs around the world. And the changes at the ANU School of Music is the biggest story with the most far-reaching implications. And so on it goes, as long as it goes on.

Thanks to Patrick Subotkiewiez from BAZIEGE, FRANCE for the pic from Wikicommons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Birthday#/media/File:Bon_anniversaire_346.jpg
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28781447@N04/8355725866/

Busy

Excuse me if CJ suffers a little over coming weeks. I've been and I am busy. For the next few weeks, it's rehearsals and then time in the pits for the Sound of Music (along with Wangaratta Jazz Festival and whatever else I can manage). This is my first musical and it's exciting. I am sharing the bass seat for Sound of Music at TheQ for the Queanbeyan Players under musical director Jennifer Groom. I'm having a great time and the songs are ever in my head (they are infectious). More news to come, and if you can get to SoM, it's looking good.

CJGroup on Facebook

CJ now has a group on Facebook. This is a place for the Canberra Jazz community to gather, share ideas, news and the rest. Find fellow players or followers of jazz. Keep in touch with those names you used to know. Find new friends with similar interests.

Follow the link to "Group (Facebook)" in the menu on the CJ home page, or otherwise search for the group "Canberra Jazz" in Facebook.

You have to be a Facebook member, so you may need to join. But do take part ... the community's growing strongly with 85 members as I write this, including outposts in Finland and London. Join up now.

Big year 2008

Despite the sad demise of White Eagle last year, 2008 is shaping up as a big year for jazz in Canberra. Hippo remains active on Wednesdays with plenty of overseas and interstate visitors. Geoff Page’s Jazz at the Gods series has 9 monthly concerts spread over the year. The Mace Francis Big Band from Perth is visiting in July and Ben Marston is running a series of big band concerts at the Street Theatre. The Street Theatre is also featuring the renowned NY sax/clarinetist Don Byron in May and has recently hosted the Necks. The Jazz School has three more concerts in the first semester, featuring Steve Magnussen from Melbourne, and the US sax player John Gordon. There will be more large ensembles at those concerts. The Moruya Festival (the Canberra jazz family get-together) is in October. For some, there are other festivals: Wangaratta, Merimbula, Wagga, Thredbo. There are several bars and clubs featuring jazz, so there’s something to listen to on most nights. The Julep Lounge in Manuka Seems to be following in the tracks of Hippo with the best local players on Thursday nights. The Belgian Beer Cellar, the Kurrajong, the Casino, Trinity and others have regular jazz. And I fully expect to hear of more events during the year.

I keep CJCalendar up-to-date with everything I hear about, so keep an eye on it. And if you know of any gigs that are missing from the calendar, please advise by email.

If you are a budding music journalist or photographer, I’d be happy to hear from you and I’d welcome your input. It’s looking a busy year for me too, and I can’t get to it all.

BTW, this is CJBlog’s 200th post.

Eric (ed.)

Names index for CJ Blog

CJ Blog now has an index of musicians' and band names. Look in the right hand column of the CJ Blog under "Labels".

I've listed each musician who appears in a blog post, and also each band except where the band's name is just "Jo Bloggs Trio" or similar. In standard library practice, I've ignored articles at the start of names, eg, The, A, An. There's a limit to the length of Blogger's labels field, so I've had to ignore many names in posts for jazz festivals. For these, I've added the label "Taglimit". I've also included a label for "White Eagle".

If you're a local modern jazz muso and you're not listed here, invite me to a gig for a review.

Blog entries skew whiff

It's a long story, but I had to reinput images on most of my blog posts. The result is that old posts are now displaying first on the CJ home page. I'll try to fix this, but if I'm not successful, just look at the Blog directly (follow the link on CJ's left hand column) to see recent posts. It'll all come back into synch over the next ten posts even if I can't fix it immediately. Apologies to Daniel who's my most recent review. I'll do my best, but sometimes it's a battle with the technology.

Stange happenings with CJ feeds

It seems all posts on the CJ home page were redated to 11 Nov when I upgraded to the new Blogger software (betaBlogger). It's obviously some interface issue with Blogger/Feedigest, but it should be OK for any future posts. In the meantime, visit the CJNews page for recent News announcements.

Welcome to Canberra Jazz

We hope to provide updates on gigs, events, etc in the Jazz life of Canberra. Good luck to us. If you are interested in publishing to this blog (we welcome multiple posters) just contact Eric.