KIWI JAZZ

NAIROBI TRIO

Live @ at the McDonald Winery (New Zealand, 1997)

I found this CD in the sales rack in Port Vila’s only record shop. It burned shortly after … At first I was intrigued by the name, especially when I realized (i) none of the musicians are from Kenya but they're all Kiwis and (ii) there are four members in the trio …

Then I was fortunate to hear them playing live at the Port Vila’s Four Days Jazz in Paradise Festival in 2005. Various bands from the Pacific region (Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand) were playing in hotels around town.  This event was supposed to be repeated the next year but I understand the organizers lost too much money the first year so it couldn’t be repeated.  Too bad as it was an occasion to see and hear some interesting performers such as Nairobi Trio, Aussie Jazz legend The Galopagos Ducks and New Caledonia’s B-3 Wizard Michel Benebig with his band, performing in beautiful settings.

The Nairobi Trio has been around for over twenty years and is now a bit of a New Zealand music  institution  These guys are everything but your standard "gypsy swing revival-i-play-faster-than-django" type of band.   They do have “hot club” style tunes (I’m coming home Virginia, All of Me) in their repertoire but they do not try to sound like a Django / Grappelli clone. They play these tunes in a typically kiwi, relaxed and easy, way.  There is something like a "west coast" feel in their music (i'm talking West Coast in rock term: remember David Laflamme / It's a Beautiful Day?).  At times they sound like a Kiwi version of Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks (“Swing is the Thing”).  The Grappelli influence is obvious in Richard Adams violin playing (just listen to All my tomorrow) but their overall sound and style are rather fusion oriented with some obvious folk / rock influences (“East of Eden”) verging sometimes toward smooth jazz (“Take Good Care of my Heart”).  An obvious reference is David Grisman country-jazz / dawg jazz.  If you like David Grisman’s albums (think of Quintet '80 or Hot Dawg for instance), you’ll probably enjoy this band.

PACIFIC JAZZ

TOM MAWI QUARTET - AT TOM'S PLACE (Fiji - Australia - 1999)

A couple of months ago I posted a big band from Mauritius, a small Indian Ocean country better known for sugarcane and tourism than for jazz music.  This time we go further east, to the mighty Pacifc Ocean  and another small island state known for sugarcane (a declining industry) and tourism but also, unfortunately, for military coups and ethnic tensions. 
I found this album not in Fiji but in Noumea, the capital of the French Overseas Territory of New Caledonia (I don't know if it still exists but Noumea had one of the best record shops in the South Pacific, at least for CD re-issues).  A few weeks later I found myself in Suva, capital of Fiji, and attended a conference hosted at the Holiday Inn.  After work we had a drink at the hotel bar where a trio was playing some smooth cocktail jazz as fits this kind of setting but the guitarist was obviously a good notch above average. He had a natural swing - even in this kind of setting where nobody really listens - and obviously he'd listened a lot to Wes Montgomery ,,, that guitar player was none other than Tom Mawi. 

This album was recorded in Australia in 1999, with financial assistance from the French Embassy ... I assume the Ambassador (or was it the Attaché Culturel?) was a bit of a jazz enthusiast.  They even sent Tom to a Jazz festival in France.  I know he also played in New Caledonia.  Merci la France!


Tom Mawi (born 1943) has been active in Fiji since the early sixties.  He names Les Paul and Chet Atkins as early influences. Then he discovered Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Tony Mottola and eventually Wes Montgomery, his greatest influence.  


As you can see the repertoire is mostly standards with two of his blues-based compositions thrown in for good measure. It's an enjoyable album, just plain, well-played jazz.  And when you're having a cocktail at a bar in Fiji, looking at the Pacific Ocean (actually looking at the extremely polluted Suva Bay ...), and Tom Mawi is playing in the background ... you can think for a while that you've reached Paradise.
Enjoy!

A more recent CD is still available and can be purchased here.
And if you wanna see Tom playing the Blues behind singer Michelle Rounds, in Suva , here it is ....