Episode #3 of the Australian Jazz and Groove podcast features the amazing singer and composer Elly Hoyt. We talk to her about growing up in Tasmania, how that has effected her musical journey and how her latest release "The Composer Voice: A Celebration of Australian Women Composers came together. We will also hear tracks from bassist and composer Nick Abby, Brisbane based group The view from Madelines Couch, Jazz Guitarist Michael Anderson and Hand Pan master Lachlan Hawkins.
Episode #3 of the Australian Jazz and Groove podcast features the amazing singer and composer Elly Hoyt. We talk to her about growing up in Tasmania, how that has effected her musical journey and how her latest release "The Composer Voice: A Celebration of Australian Women Composers came together. We will also hear tracks from bassist and composer Nick Abby, Brisbane based group The view from Madelines Couch, Jazz Guitarist Michael Anderson and Hand Pan master Lachlan Hawkins.
Australian Jazz & Groove Podcast - Episode 3 - 5 October 2020
Hello and welcome. We’ve made it to episode number three of the Australian Jazz & Groove podcast. My name’s David Galea and I’m excited to share with you some great music written by some of the fantastic composers we have here in Australia. And as we’ve said in previous episodes its hoped that this podcast can help showcase the great music that’s been made here in this country particularly in the jazz and groove vein and so far the response has been really positive. So if you’d like to subscribe to this podcast then go to your favourite spot whether that be iTunes, Spotify or Buzzsprout or any other podcast forum just google Australian Jazz & Groove podcast and you’ll be sure to find the path to download each episode. And if you’d also like your work featured on this show please reach and email me at australianjazzandgroovepodcast@gmail.com
Well what do we have coming up on this episode? Well we’ll be talking to composer and vocalist Elly Hoyt who now resides in London but was raised in Tasmania. She’ll be talking to us about what it was like to grow up in a large family in Tasmania and how that prepared her for her musical journey around the world. She’ll be also talking to us about her 2019 release “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers” and how she got that project together to make such a stunning recording. So who else do we have on this episode? Well we’ll hear music from absolute legends on the Brisbane jazz scene that is the band “The View From Madeleines Couch”. Also music from guitarist and composer Mike Anderson and finally an original track from Brisbane percussionist and composer Lachlan Hawkins. But to kick us off for today let's listen to a track from Perth based musician composer and bass player Nick Abbey. Now in 2019 Nick released the album “Phantoms” and with his trio made up of Daniel Susnjar and Chris Foster on piano. So this is a track from that album called “Remnant”
Music - Nick Abbey - Phantoms - Remnant
Music - The View From Madeleines Couch - Bossa Nova Sunset Club - Levar
So that was “The View from Madeleines Couch” from their 2019 release Bossa Nova Sunset Club and that was a track called “Levar” and very happy to say that in the next few episodes we will be interviewing them to talk to them about this album and how they made this album and there is some fascinating stories to be told about this music so stay tuned for that. But before that we heard from Perth based musician composer and bass player Nick Abbey and an album of his called “Phantoms” and a track that we heard was called “Remnant”. But now its time to introduce our special guest for episode number 3 of the Australian Jazz and Groove podcast and that is Elly Hoyt who is originally from Tasmania vocalist, composer and musician and now resides in London and to introduce us to her music lets listen to a track from her 2019 release “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers” and this is a track entitled “Hear Me”
Music - Elly Hoyt - “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers”
- Hear Me
Well its now my great pleasure to invite to the Australian Jazz and Groove podcast all the way from London Elly Hoyt.
EH: Thanks for having me mate.
DG: It's my pleasure Elly great to have you on the episode. And we’ll be talking a lot about your latest release “The Composers’ Voice” very soon but first of all we were talking off microphone about you growing up in Tasmania and it made me think well now that you are on the other side of the globe in London have you been able to make any connections of how that upbringing in Tasmania really helped you make the transition overseas both musically and in life?
EH: It's an interesting one. Well my experience was pretty unique I think to some others other peoples experiences. I’m youngest of five kids. My mum is from Victoria my dads American and they met in Victoria, Australia. He came out in his late 20’s. And so they decided they were going to buy land and move to Tasmania and build a house and have a family and what’s really interesting about their story and mine now is also that my mums three sisters also moved out to the same area and basically all bought land and all built houses and all had big families. So we kind of grew up then with you know about 40 acres of medium temperate rainforest some of the families had up to 100 acres we basically I grew up riding horses so I sort of very much a lot of animals around, so we had a hobby farm essentially so we had up to 5horses, 5 dogs, cats, I think 2 cats, cockatiels, chickens everything turkeys at certain points, cows, we had a milking cow. So it was very very country you know. It’s 20 mins to the nearest town and that’s just to paint the picture of how rural it really was growing up you know you didn’t go into town unless you had to get groceries which was kind of once a week or maybe twice a week but you don’t go in every day. To get anywhere you have to get in a car and as a child you just sort of you just live in this beautiful kind of natural environment and what was also beautiful about that was that we also sort of had these cousins so we had families that have 5-6 kids in each family so I had cousins two cousins that were my own age so we all went to school on the bus together and so it was very very you know beautiful community already built in there as a family. So I guess for me then looking at where I am now is really interesting in terms of like looking at that and going “huh I’m not sure if that’s everyone else story” you know like I don’t know if that is and then how has that influenced me? And I think there’s a lot of kind of you know I’m feeling like there’s starting to become a lot more of a kind of a through line in terms of where I’m going and what my story is because from that you get this organic experience. You don’t get influenced by technology as much you don’t get influenced by the outside world you really are in this beautiful bubble and you go outside and you build cubbies and you ride your bikes and you know you go swimming in a dam like we don’t have pools you know and so yeah so I guess you know from that you know I was given you know because my dad was from America he was very much into also the world and being kind of aware of what’s going on and he took us around south east Asia at the age of I was 8 at the time. He took all of us 7 of us 5 kids, around south east Asia for three months when I was 8 and so that I was able to see poverty I was able to see you know other things that wasn’t kind of in our bubble and that really gave a lot of us in the family you know that feeling of wanting to travel. I think that’s where then for me it was like “oh ok the world right” so like at 8 years old I’m in south east Asia this is cool, like “right” so that gave me also the kind of I guess strength to kind of go “oh ok so you can travel and it is safe, wow, ok so my family bubble that’s what you can do” and I think that’s what gave me the oomph to get out because I really wanted to get out to pursue music and I couldn’t do it where I came from and thats what kind of let me into kind of to the now I guess. Yeah but I guess that my background.
David: So do you think that experience of travelling when you were young for those three months in Asia gave you the added confidence to make the move overseas later in your life?
Elly: I think so, I think that’s what my dad especially instilled in us all of us in the family was that the world is a safe place and it is small but its big if that makes sense. It wasn’t like “its scary out there” and same as mum actually you know you can it was very much like “hey, look at this, you know your 8, you know your 8 years old, we’ll take you around south east Asia which culturally is very, very different to how we were brought up and to go “yeah if we can do that as a family you can do that on your own” I think totally that was, that was one of the biggest points in my life that definitely gave me that kind of instilled sense of “cool, alright, this can be totally possible, lets do this” and that’s I reckon from that has definitely given me the yeah the nous or the strength to kind of go “cool lets try this out” lets move to do my undergrad from Tasmania to Queensland with no family no one was in that city I knew no one and I left my family to even just do an undergrad at 18 you know 19.
David: Well I’m glad and I’m sure many people are in Brisbane are glad that you came to Brisbane. I was thinking back earlier to a gig that we did, it was the three Daves, myself, Dave Spicer and Dave Cotgreave and we were playing at a function I think it was a typical jazz standards gig we were playing in the background and then you pulled out this gospel tune “The Reverend Lee” I think it was and I remember vividly hearing you change gears so to speak in your voice. It was not like you went up a gear it was just like a different gear like a different person was on stage singing this track and just killing it and I remember at the time thinking “what has this girl checked out? She owns this gospel sound also”. So what did you check out growing up music wise? Was soul and gospel part of your listening diet so to speak?
Elly: Yeah I listened to a lot of different stuff actually so when I was young I loved listening to gospel singers and soul singers like Aretha Franklin a lot of very varied but I do remember telling my mum that I wanted to be Aretha Franklin when I was 5 years old.
David: Well you can hear it because its definitely there.
Elly: I would be like “I want to be that lady” and my mum was like “well you know you’re not that lady” but I really wanted to be her as a young child I really loved the soul singers I really did and so I always had a love for that voice but admittedly you know its a different you know I have a different voice type I’m sort of more of a soprano, a mezzo soprano, not as thicker folds, vocal folds and whatever but I did listen to a lot of that style always growing up but then I also you know we had Janice Joplin that was a big influence I don’t sound anything like her but she was definitely someone that had that soul that real kind of part to her singing that I always really loved. Then we also had you know the other sort of side of things with singer songwriters like Carol King Tapestry on the record player and Bob Marley as a songwriter and we had and then dad being American he did have like Billie Holiday as well and I love Ella I’ve always love Ella Fitzgerald so for me growing up there was an eclectic mix and then my brother was totally into you know grunge. So I listened to every single grunge record back in the day all of the you know everything. So all of those records are just in my head so its interesting but when you say that I definitely have you know and I loved Eva Cassidy I kind of definitely looked at her technique and kind of copied a fair bit of what she was doing. And she was an interesting one where she sort of crossed over a bit too with that she could sort of sing jazz but she could really have a bit of that sort of soul influence so yeah its an interesting one cause that’s definitely where I came from more of that soul jazz or soul kind of Aretha Franklin area then I did kind of a traditional jazz straight ahead swinger sound. I sort of got into that when I was about 14,15,16.
David: Yeah ok cool because even with your My Nightingale stuff and your folk stuff that you’ve written and then you’ve got your jazz album and then just that experience that I had so you can really its very you know not a lot of singers are into that and that’s totally cool its just often like you said their upbringing or maybe what they’ve been exposed to at a young age so but yeah that’s really cool to hear because you can hear it in a persons voice. You definitely can hear those influences, ike you said you don’t sound like necessarily all of them but they are there.
Elly: Yeah and its interesting you say that because I haven’t really thought about it to be honest that much and when you say it I go “ha yeah because it is kind of there” and I wasn’t you know I don’t think I was really listening to straight ahead jazz singers until I was older so really I think my original original kind of you know through the womb and through my younger years was definitely more in the contemporary I guess soul even folk definitely folk, like my mum also loved Irish traditional music and that sort of thing so for me and Van Morrison man and Tracy Chapman like all those story tellers was definitely there growing up. So I feel like when I kind of got into jazz which was sort of 14 I got into a big band and toured Tasmania and sang at casinos and that was when I was like “what is this jazz thing?” And I then started getting into I feel like that has always been my love but I think originally that’s probably why I think lately all this folk stuffs coming out and all these cross over things are because it just comes out you know.
David: Yeah awesome. Well lets now talk about your latest release “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers” but before we do that we are going to listen to a track off it and that one is “If Death Is Kind” beautiful track and then we’ll come back and have more of a chat about the album. Thanks Elly.
Elly: Sounds good.
Music - Elly Hoyt - “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers” - If Death Is Kind
David: Wow, I just love the way you guys ended that together you and Julien it's just stunning. Well can we just talk about now what was the seed that caused this project “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers”. What was it that kicked it off in your mind?
Elly: Yeah that’s a good question. I think it really originated so I was coming back from America I was studying a masters at NEC in Boston and I’d come back and I was kind of looking for something I was looking for my next project something that I was you know wanted to be excited about but also that would be different and I was looking at my values and I was looking as an artist who am I? And what stories do I want to tell? And I remember I wanted to do something significant and something that’s going to be you know just meaningful in a way that’s not just me doing art and sometimes its hard as an artist to be like you know everything I don’t know its hard to explain but when you’re writing music and you're going “I'm just going to put it out there” sometimes for me it can be challenging I don’t always have that oomph and that real like to finish to get over the finish line and so I was looking at kind of stories and looking at what do I what influences me and I realised that women in general like that topic of women in jazz had come up quite a lot and as a female as a singer too I kind of had come up against some interesting things from my career and I felt like how can I start to action as an artist but someone that I actually would like to move into activism and actually making some changes in the future for my children and my grandchildren and so I thought well what are things that are important? And for me women in music people telling their stories and was where I sort of went “wow what about you know womens stories” like you know and then that’s when I sort of started exploring and I came up with this project, and it wasn’t it actually was for the Melbourne Womens International Jazz Festival. I’d sort of thought “Ok I want to do this project” and then I called up Sonja Horbelt I’d called up Meg from Bennetts Lane Megan Evans and I sort of said “what do you think about this project? What are your thoughts?” And they both were like “Yeah you should do it, like, do it” and that was when it sort of was born where I started going “ok well who are these composers that I love like I want to hear their voices who are not in the forefront of our industry and who aren’t being heard as much as they could be and how can I with my small platform help other people? And then it just sort of went like that and I just got so inspired and called all these people that I feel so inspired by and had maybe never worked with before. So I hadn’t worked with Andrea Keller who is one of my I am really really inspired by her and you know so I’d contact her and she was like “yeah sure, which tune do you want to use I could write for it or you could use this one I’ve already got” and its just went from there.
David: Yeah wow so I can imagine that you, you said some of them you hadn’t worked with before you would have had a connection with all of them in some way. What were some of those connections that you had with them that you’d like to share?
Elly: Yeah sure so lets say if we do stay on Andrea Keller she’s someone that I have listened to since my undergrad from about 19 and so I’d been listening to her for over 10 years at least and I’d always been incredibly inspired by her and so for me that was just sort of a given it was like “OK you know give her an email” got a bit nervous and all that and she was just completely open and said “Yeah you know this is great I’ll be a part of it” but then you have someone like say Georgia Webber who I’ve become friends with over the years she’s a bass player originally from Brisbane.
David: Great bass player from Brisbane.
Elly: Yeah and she’d been living in New York for quite a few years so I’ve been friend with her and became closer with her over the years but I felt that she had some incredible stories to tell as a female bass player and the difference and challenges she’s had and the good things too and so I sort of contacted her and she wrote for this project so she actually wrote a song that sort of very much goes into her experience really and I love that.
David: I love that track because its her talking about being in a band and then missing out on opportunities and then yeah that was a real eye opening track for me I really dug it.
Elly: Yeah I think so too and so that track was called “Here We Go” and I agree its sort of very much like about that like about kind of as a musician just in generally that we do miss out on things because were working on the weekend you know and there’s so many themes in that lyric that she’s written that I love I really feel like quite you know not attached too but it kind of resonates for me so for that you know I thought that great she wrote that tune of the project and maybe one other was someone like Tamara Murphy she’s another bass player from Melbourne.
David: There’s a theme here.
Elly: Yeah yeah and she you know id work with her on and off a few times over the years living in Melbourne and etc and she wrote for that project as well which meant that, and I also wrote the lyrics to that so that was a beautiful kind of combination of her going “hey I’ve got these tunes” and then I sort of went “ok what do you think about this?” And we wrote that sort of she wrote the song I wrote the lyrics and that was as much about being brave and having doubts and pushing through your kind of yeah just pushing through your own insecurities and your own self doubt. So it’s been quite amazing.
David: I was interested in that track actually because I noticed on the liner notes I think it was on Earshift Bandcamp page that you wrote the lyrics for her tune so I was wondering what’s the process like with writing lyrics for an existing song as oppose to when you’re writing say your own song and you've lyrically got to come up with a story. No doubt you’ve got to do the same with her song but the melody’s probably already written or what was that process like with that tune?
Elly: That one was pretty quite interesting like it didn’t take me long. I’ve done this a little bit over the years so Louise Denson in my undergrad gave me a tune just like that and I wrote lyrics to it and I feel like they were in a similar sort of vein in terms of if it doesn’t resonate it doesn’t resonate for me and I sort of won’t really want to get in but when Tamara sent me “Braver” it wasn’t called “Braver” it was called something else and I sort of went “ok what could the topic be first” and I went alright and I contacted her and I said “what do you think about this? Like this whole self doubt thing and trying to be brave and push through some of that. Do you feel like that sometimes?” And she’s like “Yeah of course” and so that was where for me the impotence then was like whoah and then I’d just sing along with the melody and find you know a lot of it’s very sub conscious for me at first then I’ll rejig the lyrics but its very much how I am feeling at the time and that was for me “Ok great, I’ve got to be stronger, braver” and the words would come out and then id just put them all together so I guess one it has to resonate, two then its very much a stream of consciousness that then sort of forms into like a bit like more lets look at the lyrics now and change them but that song honestly it wrote itself within a day of me just looking at it and then I was able to put it together.
David: Did you write lyrics for any other pre-existing songs on the album or was that the only one?
Elly: I think that was the only one yeah cause I wrote two tracks of my own like so I’ve put two tracks on there that is just fully original of mine and then I’ve written lyrics to “Braver” and the rest actually the composers wrote the lyrics as well.
David: Yeah right cool so did any of the women have more of an involvement in it? Like I know you had Andrea on the actual recording date. Did say did Tamara come in and go through sort of oversea her tune or was it sort of more left to you in the studio? What was the sort of the vibe? the scenario?
Elly: Yeah that’s a really good question. There were some composers that had more influence when it came to the arrangement cause I sort of very much left it up to everyone. I sort of said “could you arrange it? Or would you like to arrange it? I can arrange it but” you know so there were some songs sent said “do what you like” someone like Louise Denson has arranged it with horns and has really kind of really you know it’s very much everything is there of hers and I’m must sort of singing on it. So its still a collaborative things but she’s really kind of influence that on a whole you know in terms of the arrangement as well. Andrea Keller as well she’s an incredible arranger and she’s kind of gone “Ok so Elly’s on this and were going to have Jules - Julien Wilson - so she then arranged it for how she could hear it with the actual instrumentalists. So she’s someone who will kind of think about who are the people playing on this? Ok James Maclean great you know Sam Anning ok cool so she arranged it specifically for me and Jules and sort of changed it to her other arrangement she had in the past on other recordings. So that was interesting but then there’s things like “Braver” where Tam sort of gave it to me, I wrote lyrics and then she’d had some ideas of where she wanted the drum kind of part but I’d changed it a little bit and then we sort of changed it back so I kind of I felt a bit more free with that one and I sang it a lot more free I felt than I have with other pieces cause I felt like “ok I’ve written lyrics to this I’m just gonna go for it” so that one really just morphed out itself. Shannon Barnett she arranged that one too very specifically which was really beautiful so yeah all over I think Georgia we kind of did what we wanted with that one as well so they had fairly clear ideas of what they wanted in their arrangements but we sort of changed it up.
David: Which really fits in beautifully with the theme of the whole album because it's like a collective of women coming together to have their real stamp on the album individually on their tunes and they're owning it. But just thinking about the band that you had too like Andrea Kellers got a pretty intimate knowledge of that band like that’s kind of her working band. So what was that like having those guys in the studio? Like did they come up with parts in the studio that were sort of like “can we try this or can we do that” or did they just sort of stick with their part?
Elly: Yeah they definitely put their stamp on it which was wonderful. It was honestly, Dave, it was one of the best days like I’ve had in years as that recording experience.
David: I can imagine it would have been awesome.
Like honestly it was funny because I actually was moving again so it was like within that week I was about to move to England. So there was this real kind of like be in the moment for me. I was like well there’s moving again so we went in I put on a massive spread so I got,I asked everyone “what do you want to eat so I was like “Andrea what’s your favourite things?’ And she’s like “macadamia nuts or some sort of nuts” and I said “What do you like to eat?” So I bought in all these beautiful bits of food for lunch and we kind of went in and I kind of last minute kind of I was producing it and I kind of was like I can’t of just produce it myself I need someone else I’m bored so we had Mat Jodrell kind of step in because he was only playing some of the album. So I said “mate can you can you help produce it? Like I completely trust you anyway but like could you just help be in the control room and say “yep that takes great” you know cause I’d just keep going. So he sort of stepped into that role quite beautifully and we just jumped in there. We’d only rehearsed it I think had we rehearsed it? Yes we had a rehearsal the day before for a couple hours. Went in and played through most of it. There were definitely songs like there was a part so there was the “Hear Me” tune there were parts where Sam Anning was like “Oh this might be a bit busy here, lets open it up, so I’m going to take out some of that bass line and do this” so we definitely workshopped some of the pieces in terms of the arrangements say “mmm I’m not sure about that” and then as we go we definitely kind of moved things around.
David: Yeah I could imagine with that band they couldn’t but help sort of put their stamp on it because they’re all just great musicians.
Elly: Exactly.
David: Well lets talk about your track “New Orleans” which we’re going to have a listen to in a minute. Can you give us the background context of that. Where did that tune come from? Because you are a girl from Tasmania you're not from New Orleans so let's put us in the picture as to where this tune came from.
Elly: Well that was an interesting one. I was living in Brisbane at the time and I was moving to America and I'd previously travelled around New Orleans and I was like couldn’t believe this place. If you haven’t been its one of the most interesting places I’ve ever been and I mean on a spiritual level too. It hard to explain but on a physical spiritual kind of, there’s stuff going on there that’s just like whoah what is this place man? And I really just I don’t know it stayed with me and New Orleans is really more about leaving again right I feel like my whole life is about moving and leaving like and letting go and starting something new so New Orleans might not technically you know technically it says its about New Orleans but its actually really about you know just starting again and leaving you know and saying goodbye to my family and to my friends you know so that was me moving to America from Brisbane but being influenced by New Orleans and that sound as well you know that kind of you know old school New Orleans kind of thing so I was kind of like I’m hearing this sound which is New Orleansy so I’m just kind of gonna and within a jazz standard or jazz kind of world I was making it sort of you know that American sort of thing but really it just about leaving.
David: Yeah right well let's hope you can stay where you are for a while. You’ve just moved again and so.
Elly: Yeah.
David: It was nice to hear that track on the album actually because you know there’s so many stories going through that album and then that’s got quite a deep story just from what you’re saying but it does break it up when it come to musically like its yeah I really thought like it was just the right spot to put it in the album.
Elly: Oh that’s good.
David: But that’s just my opinion which counts for nothing really.
Elly: Thats good yeah because it was interesting cause some of these yeah because we kind of had these discussions at certain points going like a lot of these could be ballads right they could be really heavy and so there needed to be some light in there and that sort of lift as well in the positive so I’m really glad that you said that’s cause I kind of put that in thinking “ok we need to kind of find some of that kind of contrast as well”
David: Yeah no it really balanced it. Well let's have listen to it hey? And then well talk more about the album.
Music - Elly Hoyt - “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers” - New Orleans
David: What exciting things do you have coming up Elly, over the next you know we’re in the middle of lockdown we're not exactly sure what its like in London at the moment but in Victoria here it’s petty hectic so what have you got coming up on the horizon?
Elly: You know as we’ve talked about a little bit previously there’s not a lot of live gigs kind of going on you know a lot anyway so its kind of looking at how to pivot and how to still be creating and performing in different ways. What I’m really excited about is “Earshift” Jeremy Rose is sort of starting a beautiful festival through “Earshift” and that’s going to be on October 11, Sunday October 11 and i'll be performing for that. So that’s what I’m excited about its an online festival and I'll be be performing for that.
David: So what will be the line up? How are you going to obviously online are you going to have a band or a duo? Whats it gonna be?
Elly: Yeah it s a tricky one because I’ve thought about this a lot. I think if I had a really big room like a really nice room and I had really good internet and a good set up I would have a full band. The issue I have with that is I don’t really have that space here in London and so what I’m planning to do but it might change is to have either a duo or a trio so definitely piano and voice maybe piano and bass voice. Well see and see if I can do it up here in my loft and set up you know I’ve got a bit more space so I can bring it back and we could play live from here and set it up so we’ve got sparkly lights and make things kind of nice and pretty but its an interesting on because I haven’t done a lot of live concerts so I’m sort of still figuring out how do we do this in a way that’s not too stressful but also like lovely.
David: And will you be playing tunes off the album?
Elly: Yes so i'll be definitely playing off my latest record all the “Australian Women Composer” pieces. And I’m also hoping to bring in a couple of songs that didn’t make it on the record that I still love to sing from other composers. Cause Ive had you know 9 tunes are on the album but it think I had up to 12 composers be involved and I would love to do another volume I would love to a volume 2 and have more composers and upcoming composers on the record.
David: Very good so have you got any projects that you’ve dusted off the shelf that you’ve never had time for but now you're going to do now?
Elly: Mmm that’s a good question yeah its interesting I’m actually writing a record at the moment and its fully original so.
David: Can you tell us about it without giving it away too much?
Elly: Yeah I know right its still cooking it’s still kind of marinating .
David: It's brewing it’s brewing on the stove.
Elly: Yeah I'm not really sure where its going to go at the moment but there’s definitely a lot of themes the themes are all about home, moving, dislocation, sense of identity, you know all that kind of stuff which is really quite at the moment for me where I am coming from as I’m getting older and wanting to find roots like you know, Tassie roots. So yeah I am doing a bit of research into my heritage my Irish heritage and the different convicts that came out from Ireland to Tassie and my own journey of being a traveller a world traveler and trying to assimilate but at the same time trying to keep my own cultural identity so yeah that’s kind of what I’m working on at the moment so I’m just writing a lot of tunes but its going to be interesting because I think its going to cross over quite a lot. I don’t think its going to be straight ahead sort of jazz its going to be very much contemporary and there’s a lot of sort singers songwriter guitar sort of stuff on there too so well see. We’ll see how it all kind of all come together.
David: Well thanks heaps for talking to us Elly it's been awesome to have you on the show. This is the third episode let's hope we can keep it going and appreciate you being on to help us out with it and its been great talking to you particularly about the album and good luck with the new stuff you’re working on. It's going to be great to hear that.
Elly: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
David: Great well let's take it out with actually listening to “Braver” from “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers”. Thanks Elly.
Elly: Thanks mate.
Music - Elly Hoyt - “The Composers’ Voice: Celebrating Australian Women Composers” - Braver
So that was “Braver” from Elly Hoyt’s 2019 release “The Composers’ Voice” a track written by Tamara Murphy and then lyrics also by Elly Hoyt herself. Well now we move to a track from Brisbane guitarist and composer Mike Anderson from his album “Eyes and Wolves” his latest release and on this album he’s joined by fellow Brisbane musicians bassist Nick Quigley and drummer Nathan Goldman and this is a track entitled “A Few Blocks Up”
Music - Mike Anderson - Eyes and Wolves - A Few Blocks Up
So that was “A Few Blocks Up” from Mike Anderson’s “Eyes and Wolves” release. Well now we’ve come to the last track of the third episode of the Australian Jazz and Groove podcast and we’re now going to listen to a very talented composer, drummer and percussionist Lachlan Hawkins and apart from being a fantastic drummer he’s also forged a solo career on the hand pan. Now if you don’t know what the hand pan is be sure to google it and you’ll definitely get to hear it in this very next track from his 2018 release “No Enemy Within” all the tracks on this recording are original and the one we’re going to listen to is entitled “Forge Ahead”. This is Lachlan Hawkins.
Music - Lachlan Hawkins - No Enemy Within - Forge Ahead
What an amazing sound that was from Lachlan Hawkins and his album “No Enemy Within” and that track was entitled “Forge Ahead”. Beautiful stuff. So it's that time again folks the end of another episode and a big shout out to Elly Hoyt for taking the time to talk about her 2019 release “The Composers’ Voice”. Also a big thank you for all those that have sent in music to be played and we’ll hear from a lot more of those tracks in coming episodes. So if you would like to show your appreciation for these artists as we said in previous episodes please go and buy their music. Even if its just one track that you’ve liked google them or search for them on band camp or other platforms and purchase this music and if you would like to have your music played then also please email me at austrlaianjazzandgroovepodcast@gmail.com and get in touch that way also if you’re able to leave a positive review on platforms like iTunes, Spotify or other podcast platforms please do that that way we can get more people listening to this music and more people being able to purchase this fine work from these Australian musicians and composers. But for now it’s time to wrap it up thanks again for joining us on the third episode of the Australian Jazz and Groove Podcast and until next time it’s bye for now. Cheers.