Back to blues

I used to attend blues jam regularly but it faded, but I've been looking forward to a return for some time. Finally, notification of a Blues Club jam at Hellenic and a free Sunday afternoon. Great! Pack my most appropriate instrument (stock standard sunburst fretted JB MIM with DiMarzio pups) and off. The host band was Northside City Slickers with John Van Buuren, Tim Spellman and Fred Pilcher and Bridget Croft sitting in for a few songs. Then the jammers list. I was lucky enough to play with a great band led by Chris Harland with Peter Kirkup, Mitch Preston and Chris Tominich on harp. Three 12-bar blues: Medium temp C, some walking; 12/8 in A; driving blues in G. That's the blues for ya. Great fun, fabulous amp (Mesa-Boogie, thanks Bucky), hot and tight. Then a series of other bands and various mates: Steve, Don, Ken, Ross, Dan, even Wayne Kelly made and appearance. A big hall with a decent crowd, some dancers, German beer away from the rain outside. Great!

Canberra Blues Society jam sessions are held 2-5.30pm, third Sunday each month, at the Harmonie German Club.

Canberra Blues Society monthly jam

Curtailed in Curtin

It's the Christmas-NY period and Canberra is like a country town again ... like when I arrived 30years back. Lovely, if temporary. The down side is a lack of events happening. The audience is at the coast or visiting rellies and the remains, in town, are bereft and otherwise sleeping. We had visitors and I found some music at Beyond Q Bookshop, that strange, little venue that presumably gets free performers. No way they could pay. Whatever, John Black was there and he was a great pleasure, stride, easy feels, thoughtful improvs and clear melodies, even with a piano that's slightly suss. The adults are always the pleasures in this game, and John is just that; well experienced and mellow and every chord and every theme nicely voiced. A pleasure. Ellington, Basie, Django, Booker T, NOLA feels. Very nice. And before was renditions of the folk/singer-songwriter repertoire that we know so well from the '60s and '70s, mostly. Fred Pilcher played 12-string guitar, with vocals, with finger picking and capo, with talk of kazoo but I didn't hear one (did I?). Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn ("at least as depressing") and a string of lighter tunes, not least a folk-humour take on Teddy Bears picnic. Nicely done and lots of memories but not so much my scene, this being being CJ after all. They may not have been paid too well, but this was a pleasant arvo in that singular basement that is Beyond Q.

John Black (piano) and Fred Pilcher (guitar, vocals) performed solo acts at the Beyond Q Bookstore.