Live traditional, danceable Jazz in Sydney....!! Club Ashfield is the venue and with its long residency, The Bridge City Jazz Band is the band....a nominal 4 piece we have three special guests each Friday taking the band up to a 7 piece swinging trad.jazz band...this coming Friday however is the one day of the year when the Club is closed...Good Friday and the Easter weekend....so NO JAZZ...but all normal on the following weeks Friday, 5th April...

Club Ashfield is always closed on Good Friday due to the celebration of Easter and that means there is no Jazz for Friday 29th March 2013.....Sorry patrons....
The band will be back, with the Club open on the following Friday, 5th April....I'll review the guests for that evening following Good Friday....
But you could be interested to hear of the Bridge City Jazz Band combining again with the Black Mountain Jazz Band from Canberra to play a special concert in the Spiegeltent in the garden beside Old Parliament House last Sunday 17th March...Sydney vocalist Carol Ralph sang with the band to a capacity house in the tent....aptly named the Idolize Tent...
What is a Spiegeltent I hear you ask....
The mirror tent....
In the late 1800s,early 1900s in Europe these tents evolved to provide a mobile hall for entertainment in towns that had no facilities..acts such as singers, orchestras, bands, acrobats to name a few utilised them as they traveled across Europe in the summer.
This still happens today and in the European winter they travel to Australia, New Zealand and the West Coast of the USA etc....
Currently there are four Spiegeltents touring Australia...in previous years there have been up to nine.
The tents are elaborately painted with scenes on the outside and inside and have ornate mirror panels around the inside....
Lets look at a few photographs I had taken during the gig...
The Black Mountain and Bridge City Jazz Band was led by trumpeter Tony Thomas, with pianist Ron Cook, both from Canberra, drummer Ian Hill from the lower south coast of NSW...all former Black Mountain members and from the Bridge City JB in Sydney, Colin Beal on reeds, John Bates on trombone, Colin Davies on double bass and myself Dennis Quinlan on banjo....
Carol Ralph, well known through out Australia as a traditional jazz singer joined us for the gig...