Music Making in The Blue Mountains (from 1983 till today)
I’ve been asked to write some reflections on my involvement in playing piano in Blue Mountains venues. This has been quite a bit of fun!
In 1983, we moved to Katoomba because I was taking up an appointment as a music teacher at Katoomba High. My wife, Joan met Sarah Childs at squash, and Sarah and her husband Brendan invited me to play piano at their guesthouse, Balmoral House.
They were very kind to me, and when my wife was ill, and I said I wouldn’t be able to play, they told me to bring our four kids, and they entertained them in their home, plying them with icecream and other treats and kids’ TV shows.
I enjoyed playing for Dick Smith and the Australian Geographic people one day, but Mr Smith disappeared before I could get his autograph.
I later joined The Blue Mountains Trio, standing in for Gavin Tipping, when he was overseas. It was fun doing gigs with Gustaw “Joe” Szelski, gypsy violinist and Georg Mertens, cellist and guitarist. We played at Caves House at Jenolan Caves, where we met Dawn Fraser on one evening.
The drive at dusk to Jenolan Caves was not fun! We had to deal with fading light, bad weather and animals suddenly appearing in front of us.
One night the trio was invited to play a program called A Night in Vienna for a group which included former prime minister Gough Whitlam. It was an honour to play for him and his colleagues and friends – but, I didn’t get to meet him.
I had some gigs at Katoomba’s Carrington Hotel, in a large dining room and smaller lounge. I had to play on two very small grand shaped pianos that had no resonance. Nobody ever stopped to say they’d enjoyed the music. This made the evenings very long!
After a while, the manager decided to hire some proper large Kawaii grand pianos. This was wonderful! It changed things completely. They were enjoyable to play and folk began telling me they liked the music. (You only need a couple of people to interact positively with you to keep you going! Too many would be overwhelming. If you ever get the urge to thank someone, please do it. Most people don’t!)
From time to time, I would get some tips (and I’m not talking about advice on how to play). I discovered that noisy, brash Americans are great tippers!
I have played in nearly every village in the Blue Mountains, both in gigs and in supporting students from Katoomba and Blaxland High Schools.
Some of my most enjoyable times were playing piano with Dave Clayton’s Titanic Dance Orchestra. He had some wonderful performers to play with, including Tony Burkys on guitar, and Al Meadows singing or playing harmonica. And you can’t beat Dave’s bass!
Hi Andrew. I'd never seen anything like them before. They looked like "apologies for a grand piano" - much smaller than a baby grand.
I think they were far too small to fill a room with sound- especially a big ballroom. And, I think that even in a small room they would have sounded dead. It was hard work playing those awful instruments.
“I had to play on two very small grand shaped pianos”
Are they what most people would call a baby grand piano? Or are they two separate instruments? I’ve never heard a description like that before.