NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
It is a big part of The Basement’s shtick to proclaim itself the oldest jazz club in Australia.
The claim is true, of course, but this reality brings with it a critical management challenge. Like the genre itself, the venue must constantly reinvent and redefine itself in order to avoid ossified irrelevance.
Being the oldest jazz club in Australia, after all, is a distinctly mixed blessing if the only people who visit it are the oldest jazz fans in Australia.
It was, thus, a great pleasure indeed on several levels to be able to book for a performance a certain Dutch jazz buff called Martijn Barkhuis. Mr Barkhuis does not honk a horn, still less noodle on a double-bass. He is, in fact, a club deejay – a man who mixes the platters that matter in the groovy halls of Europe, deconstructing classic jazz and packaging it for dancers young and hip.
Under his moniker, DJ Maestro, Barkhuis is the only DJ officially licensed by the prestigious Blue Note jazz label to remix its catalogue. This means he is permitted to muck about with the works of giants such as John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Norah Jones, Al Green – and two recent Basement guests, Jason Moran and Ron Carter.
The Amsterdam-based deejay has produced a series of compilation mash-ups, each under the title Blue Note Trip. The series in Europe has attracted rave reviews and done well on both jazz and dance charts.
DJ Maestro plays The Basement, with special guests, in a late night groove-athon on Friday, August 12. We have four double passes to give away. Ring 9251 2797 during office hours to score one.
Jazz-dance confections, of course, are not simply the province of Hollanders. Young Sydney band Five Coffees deliver a blisteringly good mixture of up-tempo jazz and rap, guaranteed to get the crowd dancing within the first eight bars.
Very definitely a band to watch, Five Coffees headline the venue’s debutante series, The Basement Introduces … , on Tuesday, August 12. We have four double passes to give away. Ring 9251 2797 during office hours to score one.
For details of all shows at The Basement: www.thebasement.com.au
Contact the writer: amasterson@thebasement.net.au
BY ANDREW MASTERTON
