LIVE AT 21 SHEPHERD

A night not to be missed. Two of Australia’s most iconic and inventive improvisers in duo, and a Sydney’s hardest working Free Jazz unit, on fire.
A double bill of formidable beauty.

7:15 BUCK / SPENCE

Alister Spence – piano, prepared piano, percussion
Tony Buck – drums

Spence and Buck – two endlessly curious, deeply committed distinctive, improvisers, share a fascination with submerged rhythm, oblique extended forms, entwined interplay, and sound for its own sake. As contemporaries their musical histories have run in parallel—and occasionally intersecting—for the last thirty years.

The duo’s debut release, Mythographer (ASM013, 2023) was listed in the ‘Best of 2023’ by the New York City Jazz Record (January 2024 edition).

Both musicians bring a wealth of musical experience, offering each other the opportunity to dig deep into their vocabularies in order to engage in genuine, interactive dialogue. Whether playing wide-ranging abstract improvisations, swinging driving pieces, or more reflective soundscapes the pair manage to find focus and form wherever the music takes them.

8:30 BELIEVE

Peter Farrar, saxophones and percussion
Novak Manojlovic, piano and percussion
Clayton Thomas, double bass and percussion
Laurence Pike, drums and percussion

This powerhouse band combines four of the most inventive improvisers – and composers – in Sydney’s creative music scene.

BELIEVE connects the spectrum of contemporary creative sound making with the fluid, anything is possible momentum of free jazz. For the past three years this Sydney-based quartet has committed to a musical process of learning, exploring, experimenting and growing in public. No other local group has been so committed to playing live.

21 Shepherd is the home of The Living Room Theatre, welcoming artistic endeavour across theatre, dance, and music.