Chapter 2: The 90s
From Japan to NZ, back again and around the world
“1996-1997 saw me forming bands, recording acoustic jazz albums, forming a fledgling record label - TAP Records - with my friend Andrew Dubber, touring around NZ performing shows and giving workshops at high schools. I also started doing trio shows in Japan at this time.”
LINER NOTES
With my first band after returning to NZ from Berklee College of Music - Matt Gruebner on bass, Jason Jones on saxophone at Auckland Art Gallery (1996)
Rehearsing also with Tony Hopkins on drums, Juan Muzzio on percussion at home (1996)
Performing at Manifesto Wine Cellar with Nathan Haines, Kevin Haines and Phil Collings (1997)
My mother and friends - regulars in the audience there (1997)
At Auckland Town Hall performing with NZ trumpeter Kim Paterson (1997)
Performing trio along with a traditional Japanese Kagura group in southern Japan (1997)
Performing trio in Tokyo for the launch of my album First Thoughts (1997)
“Late 1997 felt like everything was changing for me. I was playing a lot of jazz gigs and taking that music super seriously, then once a month I’d play a jam gig with DJs, rappers and musicians - which at first, I didn’t take seriously, but had so much fun and such a complete sense of freedom doing. It wasn’t long before my long time aspiration to be a straight ahead acoustic jazz pianist was usurped as the sounds of drum’n’bass, house music, acid jazz and hip hop flooded into my life. ”
Visiting pianist Chucho Valdez at his home in Havana, Cuba (1998)
An Unexpected New Course
1998 was a formative year - I was awarded the NZ Young Achiever’s Award which gave me funding to spend a whole year exploring music meccas around the world. That year I went to San Francisco, NYC, Havana, London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney - it was a life changing experience which was to plot an unexpected new course for me. In London, I would meet the creatives that would become my new music family - DJs and producers making music that I hadn’t dared dream of, but seemed to fulfill everything I was inspired by. That year, I was a collaborator on so much music which was part of the early days of what would become broken beat - a seminal underground UK club music sound.
Returning to NZ, I spent the start of 1999 creating a musical diary from my year of travels and experiences. That music became my album Six Degrees - my first foray into electronics, beats and samples, and the album that would set up the next chapter of my life. It would be released in NZ via electronica label Kog Transmissions and its success there gave me a whole new level of career. However, the previous year of travels and particularly the beyond-inspiring time spent in London gave me all the wanderlust I needed to leave my homeland again.
The promotional postcard for the NZ launch tour of my album Six Degrees (1999)