Blake Phillips, Trombone

On Saturday we walked through Sydney's Queen Victoria Building, exiting past the bizarre talking statue of the queen's dog. Beyond the imposing statue of the queen herself, I heard the sound of an amazing live jazz trombone, playing to recorded accompaniment. We stopped for a few minutes and listened, only occasionally able to see the diminutive horn player as throngs of foreign tourists ebbed and flowed around him with the changing of the stoplights. As I captured this single photograph, a fleeting moment when one oblivious crowd ebbed away and before another flowed forth, I wondered if this was another Joshua Bell style experiment: this trombonist was way too good to be a simple busker. The sights of Sydney called, and soon we too ebbed away from the jazz.

That night as we ate fish and chips at a pub, I recalled the masterful street musician and mentioned the fact that, truth be told, I've never really liked trombone- it seems so rare to hear it played really, really well. But this guy did play it really, really well.

The next night I was thrilled to see Harry Connick Jr's fantastic, entertaining, New Orleans-style show at the Sydney Opera House, and was pleasantly surprised to be introduced to yet another excellent trombonist. Lucien Barbarin features with Connick, not to mention New Orleans' own Preservation Hall Jazz Band. After Barbarin and Connick played a couple numbers, they started talking about this great 17 year old trombone player from Perth that Barbarin insisted Connick had to hear. His name was Blake Phillips, he was in the audience tonight, and they invited him and his horn onto the stage.

Imagine my surprise when, after a few minutes of Connick's truly funny time-filling, the George Street busker from the day before took the stage. Connick riffed on Phillips a bit (What are you wearing? Oh, you didn't know you were going to be playing... then why did you bring your horn?), then asked the young musician what he wanted to play. They settled on a blues in B flat.

In a word, Phillips was amazing. Starting slow with just piano, bass and drums providing the barest of frameworks for Phillips to weave his melody, Connick used hand signals and facial expressions to tell the rest of the 12 piece band where to take it. Phillips played his horn nimble and smooth, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. The jam continued to build as everyone onstage and in the audience felt where it needed to go. Ending up with a big, hot exciting blues finish, Connick's band showed an impressive talent for coordinated improvisation, and Connick himself was very generous to provide so much stage time to a young unknown. Blake Phillips may well have had his career made that night.

Read more about Blake Phillips, and hear a bit of his talent here.

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