We saw some blindingly great music (if anyone gets the chance to see an Israeli double bass player called Omer Avital – don’t miss it, we saw him with Joel Frahm, Avishai Cohen & Jonathon Blake at Smalls, 3 sets, finished at 1.30am, $20 in the door & $10 for the kid.), Stephane Wrembel at Barbes, the famous Slavic Soul Party etc etc. But we met some lovely people (including a few Aussies) who were all happy to tell us about other gigs and venues, my son (a drummer) had a couple of jams, with some really good players – and we were just starting to get into the swing of it when our holiday finished.

There were a couple of rock venues he wasn’t allowed into – The Mercury Lounge and the Knitting Factory being 2, and many venues we didn’t get a chance to get to.

Not only were all the places we went completely fine with him being there with me, there were also no talkers, no drunks and in many places the only payment consisted of money in a jar for the band.

My son has great teachers and a great music program at his school – but I honestly think those 2 weeks in NY were worth a year here just having lessons, jamming with his friends, playing in the school band and hardly ever seeing live jazz in terms of inspiring him creatively and technically. The chance to jam with professional, good, improvisational musicians was incredible – in the 20 minutes he played, his playing visibly improved – he began to push himself and I could see his confidence growing by the second. Especially when they told him afterwards that if they thought he was no good they just would have stopped playing!

Anyway, excuse the rave – but if anyone is doing anything about setting anything up, or can put me on a mailing list, or needs any help at all with marketing, promotion, organisation or anything – please contact me.

Using the World Bank inflation graphs as a guideline, he shows that the inflation of ticket prices has nowhere near kept up with inflation in general. So, while the connoisseurs represent a solid market demand, they are a bunch of cyphers who are more than willing to spend hundreds of dollars on the latest GaGa tickets for their teenage children while refusing to shell out for the stuff they supposedly treasure.

I reckon you’re right Luc: there should be room for a music-only space in Sydney and the reason why it’s not currently possible might be that Sydney (and it’s probably true round the world) jazz connoisseurs don’t pay enough at the door.

Having said that, I have no proof. We kept the Sagacious Arts gigs cheap as and we still only averaged 40-odd payers per gig.