The Wayne Kelly Trio - Ugly Beauty

“A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world, depends on your imagination”.

The Wayne Kelly Trio waltz the music of American jazz pioneer Thelonious Monk in this performance, traversing the space where the composer-pianist Thelonious Monk, who produced a new jazz language meets one of Canberra’s finest jazz composer-pianists Wayne Kelly.

Swagger into a distinctive world of sound bursting with colour, angularity, and light through The Wayne Kelly Trio featuring Brendan Clarke on double bass, Andrew Dickeson on drums and Wayne Kelly on piano. Lifelong navigators of the music of Thelonious Monk they look to bring a hard-swinging freshness and their Australian sensibility to the enormous humanity present in Monk’s work.

An established institution for over 30 years with different musicians performing over the three decades, all connected by a passion for the love of music and jazz, The Wayne Kelly Trio is informed by and draws inspiration from the music of Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Ahmad Jamal, Bud Powel and Wynton Kelly to name a few.

And keeping with Monk’s mantra “I always believed in being myself” the program steps into original music recently composed by Wayne during the challenging and uncertain times of COVID. From slow and soulful funky jazz to fast-paced lively always swinging tunes in the face of adversity, Wayne’s originals look to give hope, optimism and healing going to the heart of the human condition.

Take this musical adventure with us and get into the Monk mood.