Quite exciting given that it’s my first Bell Award nomination.

Fingers crossed now for the awards ceremony on May the 3rd!

Despite the fact that we were playing at 11am on the Sunday morning (after a few quiet soda waters the night before) we actually managed to play a really good set of music.  We were very well received by the audience, sold some albums, and generally had a great time.  Quick pic below.

Even though I was interstate playing with a ‘local’ band, I certainly felt pretty at home, what with my ex-Melbourne mates Cam McAllister and Dan Waples in the horn section, and Craig Simon making the trip up for the gig as well.

The Jazzgroove nights always seem to be well attended and have a good vibe and this one was no exception.  Thanks heaps to the boys (the above-mentioned ex-Melbournites plus Richard Maegraith and Ben Waples) for making it a great gig!  Few photos of the gig below courtesy of Aaron Blakey

The other nominees are: Shannon Barnett (also on Which Way Music), Katie Noonan/Elixir, Allan Browne, Sandy Evans and Mark Isaacs.

Given the quality of the other nominees, it’s fair to say that I’m pretty stoked to be in their company!

Looking forward to the presentation night on October 12!

Having seen him sit in on the New Melbourne Jazz Orchestra with John Riley a fortnight ago, it was great to be able to play some tunes with him in a small group setting, with some of my good Melbourne jazz musician friends Hugh Stuckey (guitar), Phil Noy (alto), Carlo Barbaro (tenor), Remco Keijzer (tenor), Nick Mulder (trombone), Tamara Murphy (double bass) and Hugh Harvey (drums).

I think it’s fair to say that with Garzone + 4 horns (3 of them saxes!) the rhythm section was fearing a comp-a-thon, however it didn’t turn out that way at all (despite the fact that we played the obligatory “Giant Steps”), and everyone got a nice feature on a couple of tunes each.

Certainly a fun night and quite a privilege to share the bandstand with a true master of their instrument.

We played a mix of old classics and some newer material.  It was pretty impressive to see John hit his way through some pretty challenging music totally accurately the first time on rehearsal, and with complete authority second time through on the gig!

But John wasn’t the only highlight – we also had the pleasure and honor of sit-ins from tenor legend George Garzone and piano/arranger master Bill Cunliffe for a couple of tunes too! 

An above average evening of big band music!

We will be performing on 30 October at 11:00am at the “Jazz on Ovens” venue.

For full details go to: http://wangarattajazz.com/

Hope to see you there!

Here’s another review of the Sextet’s new album – this time today’s Weekend Australian.

Here’s two reviews for the Sextet album.

All About Jazz (Edward Blanco):

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=39913

The Age (Leon Gettler):

Just a note that the Sextet album will be featured all week this week on ABC Jazz Digital Radio.

Here’s the link to my feature page: http://abcjazz.net.au/features/daniel-gassin-sextet

And here’s the link to the ABC Jazz Digital Radio front page: http://abcjazz.net.au/

Cheers!