I sent a text to my buddy Finn Scholes, one of the hottest young brass players in the city. I said “dude, there’s nothing on tonight”. But I was wrong.
Finn Scholes is "one of the hottest young brass players in [Auckland] Photo: Matthew Crawley
The band leader of The Carnivorous Plant Society soon put me right – firing back a message almost instantaneously: “I’m playing at Ponsonby Social Club till mid-night. There’s a good jazz night CJC, also sometimes good bands at Grand Central. Wednesday night is my best night of the week!”
What a riposte! Those residencies have run for years now and standards are always high. Being a trumpeter Finn has to play relentlessly, or else he’ll lose his tone and he needs those precious lips to bank his cheque. Inspired, I vowed to see how many gigs I could get to on a single Wednesday night in Aucks. I was encouraged by the thought that car parks may actually exist on a wintry Wednesday after dark. This was key, as I’d have to mince efficiently from venue to venue if I was to sneer a range of acts, almost all playing between the hours of 9pm and 11pm.
I started at Golden Dawn; where leopard-print-suit-wearing Matthew Crawley often puts on a Wednesday night gig. Aldous Harding was in a couple of weeks back, but tonight it’s the debut of Lake South, a new persona from the man behind Urban Tramper and The Wellington Sea Shanty Society.
This latest act is a two-piece built around an electric drum-kit with an acoustic guitar poured over Lake’s fine lyrics. His new track Good Keen Man is an early highlight, but we can’t stay for the whole set as the Auckland soul scene are amassing tonight at The Wine Cellar down the road. There, a tight band made up of a D’Angelo worshipping group of session players are getting ready to start earnestly nodding.
It’s a thrill to see this glorious man tap a hi-hat pattern with his middle finger while slapping a drum-fill down with his pinkie.
The Means are stoked tonight as their talismanic leading lady Esther Stephens is in town visiting from her new home in Melbourne, where she’s often seen wailing with her Young Gifted & Broke peers Tom Scott and Haz Beats. The Means aren’t on yet; another guest vocalists Bailey Wiley is supporting with an ad hoc group lashed together by the inspired and completely unsequenced drum-machine playing of Swarren, who strokes the pads like piano keys. He’s solid as rock for a verse then swinging like a monkey during a chorus. It’s brilliant and it’s a thrill to see this glorious man tap a hi-hat pattern with his middle finger while slapping a drum-fill down with his pinkie.
Time’s ticking though and now the evening starts to get weird. We leave the Wine Cellar and ascend the stairs to K-Rd, turn left and walk a few doors down to Verona where the Tim Tee Sessions are going down. We’re unlucky as we catch them between sets, but the scene is lively enough, with a couple of conga players entertaining a lone woman dancing and lurching around a sparsely filled bar. That’s our cue to hit Kingsland.
While we’re getting our kicks checking out this new music it's the rush experienced as we slip into a series of God-given car-parks that really fuels our adventure. New North Road, the main drag in Kingsland is a notoriously difficult place to put a car. One must pity the residents who have to do this dance daily. Our luck is still in and we couldn’t be closer to the Portland Public House where The Liam Neeson Tribute Quartet are taking up almost all the floor space of an already small corner bar. This band is led by Watercolours trumpet player Elizabeth Stokes and it’s basically half of Sal Valentine and the Babyshakes, but Sal’s on drums for this gig. Stokes presses the trumpet to her lips. It's a delight! We’re already bathing in the afterglow of getting yet another great car-park, but hearing Stokes playing brass melts us.
The clock keeps ticking and we’re back in the motor playing John Lee Hooker at welding volume on the way back to Ponsonby to catch the end of an era. It’s the final night of Circling Sun, a durable live jazz residency, lead tonight, by Julien Dyne of Ladi6. We’re here to see Finn Scholes who’s hidden behind a stack of organs and synths. Dyne counts the band off, sax, double bass, organ and a guitar chug and stab rhythms influenced by the Ethiopian great Mulatu Astatke. Dyne adds bounce and pop with his peerless rim-shots. When Finn’s trumpet solo comes around he aims his notes like darts. Parp! He gets you right between the eyes. That’s five gigs on a Wednesday and we didn’t even make it downtown to see another trumpet prodigy Alexis French launch his new album The Cut…
It’s time to go home and watch the forth episode of True Detective again! I Love Wednesdays in this city!