Music from the Gumbo Pot

Lindsay Arnold recalls a rowdy performance (audio above) still remembered by many Australian spectators of the local jazz scene which was fortunately captured on tape:

This recording from Joe Lane’s cassette recorder at a pub in Port Melbourne in 1992 has a notorious reputation among musicians who’ve heard it.

The legendary Joe ‘Bop’ Lane, We couldn’t find a photo of Serge.

Lindsay Arnold recalls a rowdy performance still remembered by many Australian spectators of the local jazz scene which was fortunately captured on tape:

This recording from Joe Lane’s cassette recorder at a pub in Port Melbourne in 1992 has a notorious reputation among musicians who’ve heard it.

I was just ‘sitting in’ on drums with old pals Joe ‘Bop’ Lane (vocal) and Serge Ermoll (piano) on tour from Sydney,  Mark Simmonds (tenor sax), all now ‘late’ and Jeff Kluke (bass). 

After the first tune, Serge, a Russian maniac full of mind-altering substances including vodka, decided to give the audience a jazz history lesson — after one of my finest spontaneous solo efforts — and this became edgy ‘street theatre’ when a woman in the audience dared to heckle him, so we retaliated with Miles Davis’ “So What.”

Yea verily, a piece of Oz Jazz History, which Joe explained at the end that I was a part of. It could even be seen or heard as a precursor of hup hap hop pip. Half the audience left before the end.

And here’s a YouTube video of a Joe Lane performance in Sydney; while the quality’s not the best (these were the early days of camcorders) Joe’s genius shines right through:

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