CONSIDERED one of the world’s premier tenor saxophone players, Grammy Award-winning American, Joe Lovano was teamed with three of Australia’s finest modern jazz exponents in Paul Grabowsky on piano, Dave Beck on drums and Phil Rex on double bass for what was always going to be a memorable concert.

A feast for jazz connoisseurs and a revelation for the simply jazz-curious, never less than sensational, their interpretations ranged through frantic ear-splitting cacophony to silky-smooth swing, as the four musicians challenged themselves and each other with ever more complex improvisations. John Coltrane’s uber-cool “Fifth House” alongside a sublime version of Rodgers and Hart’s “Easy to Remember”, the music just kept coming. No-one wanted it to stop.

COMPLETELY contrasting in mood and performed by the six-piece ensemble, Baecastuff, “Mutiny Music”, proved an equally absorbing experience. Constantly changing projected images of the Mutiny of the Bounty, various historical documents, descendants of the mutineers, and Pitcairn Island itself, were projected behind the six musicians as they performed improvisation drawing on Polynesian drumming, hymns written on Pitcairn Island and language samples to form a soundscape. It was an experience that was at times, intriguing, compelling, mesmerising and occasionally perplexing.

Over the last nine days 2015 Capital Jazz Project has presented an extraordinary range of contemporary jazz music performed by a formidable line-up of local, national and international musicians. Saturday night’s contrasting performances were representative of the extraordinary range and standard the programs on offer throughout the festival.