Album Notes

When I moved to Montreal, which has a good reputation for jazz but a lousy scene for making a living, I started playing on the latin circuit, which provided steady and very fun work. I found that my compositions mysteriously started to incorporate latin rhythmic and melodic ideas, and this has remained one of the prominent features in my music.

Clean Start, recorded a few years after I had emigrated to Australia (which really was like a Clean Start), includes about half latin-inspired pieces, ranging from a boogaloo, to a samba to a bolero. The other half are a blues, a jazz waltz, a mad re-make of Green Dolphin St. called Green Tristano....

The arrangements vary - Low Moon is a piano trio, while Ineffable has three horns in the front line. The players include some of my colleagues at the Queensland Conservatorium (Brisbane) where I teach, and others from the thriving jazz community here in the sub-tropics.