Welcome to Sydney's traditional jazz scene...live 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...and this coming Friday the 24th February 2017 we are having a special night...a Farewell from Sydney for well known trombonist John Bates and Brenda Potter...leading the band will be Canberrans Tony Thomas on trumpet and Ron Cook on piano with Paul Furniss on extra reeds and Jim Morrell on drums...

John Bates is known Australia wide for his great traditional jazz trombone playing with many bands in the last 60 years or so...a favourite tuba player in local jazz trios, a nice jazz voice for vocals and a six time winner in the Australian Jazz Convention Original Tunes contest held yearly at the AJC in the city chosen in Australia to host the convention... his partner Brenda Potter is a jazz vocalist and they are a popular couple in the Australian jazz scene....with age, ill health has dogged John and following the recent sale of their house in Summer Hill, they will relocate to Melbourne in the next month to be close to family support....
John has played these last 15 years with the Bridge City Jazz Band as its trombonist/vocalist and with the Sydney based San Francisco Jazz Band from its inception by the late Tom Baker in the 1970's and then with Paul Furniss to late last year....
So we've Tony Thomas on trumpet lead and Ron Cook on Club Ashfield's grand piano..both from Canberra, both have played with the Black Mountain and Bridge City Jazz Band at Club Ashfield and other gigs with the band ...Paul Furniss will be on reeds with Colin Beal and Jim Morrell who was the dummer for the BCJC with John for a long time make up the special guests for the band tonight....BCJB regulars are Colin Beal on reeds, Mike Hallam on trombone/vocals, Colin Davies double bass and myself Dennis Quinlan on banjo....
We've a "Farewell from Sydney" planned for John and Brenda with, we expect many of his friends, both musician and jazz followers alike coming for the night to wish them well and say goodbye.
A special large farewell card with photos for those attending to sign and a special large cake to celebrate with them.
While John won't play on the night due to health issues he and Brenda look forward to meeting up with you all...

 Club Ashfield is at 1-11 Charlotte Street, Ashfield beside the Ashfield Railway station on the northern side and the gig is up on the first floor in the bistro/Charlotte Room function area from 7.30pm to 10.30pm with the restaurant serving nice food until 9pm.....I always eat there on Jazz nights....

  Future special guests with the Bridge City Jazz Band at Club Ashfield and other BCJB future gigs...