Upcoming gigs

• Hot Foot Jazz – Trad from the 1920s; six-piece band; Walkerville RSL, 1pm – 4pm Sunday 30th November 2025 and 22nd February 2026. Special guest is the award-winning emerging jazz writer and popular vocalist Danica Elle (Lammertsma). Over the past few months it’s been great to see so many swing-dancers coming to support her and appreciating her fine vocal skills.
  We’re at the Walkerville RSL regularly on the last Sunday of the month (except December). Great acoustics. 98 Walkerville Terrace, Walkerville, SA 5081. Seating is cabaret-style, so bring a friend or two and book a table. For bookings please contact Lenny on lennyeamesjazz@gmail.com
  Entry is $10. Optional $20 lunch (book please) from 12noon. Best hamburgers in town. Fish and chips too. The bar will be in full swing; hopefully some swing dancers will light up the dance floor too.
  Listen to some of our typical tunes on YouTube.

  

Past gigs

Just a few examples of some excellent memories:

• Southern Jazz Band – Southern Jazz Club at the HWY, corner Anzac Highway / Marion Road – 7:30pm – 10:15pm Tuesday 29th April 2025.
  “If you’re forming a band, pick players better than you; they’ll make you aim high… and they’ll make you sound better too.”
  It’s great advice.
  This gig with the Southern Jazz Band is a perfect example. I’ll be lucky enough to be playing with a super bunch of guys, almost all from the Southern Jazz Club Hall of Fame.
  This band is revitalisation of the very band that spawned the Southern Jazz Club back in 1971!
  The Club meets at the HWY every Tuesday night. More details here. Doors open at 6pm for meals and the show starts at 7:30pm.
  The Club features cabaret-style tables, a quality dance floor and bar service for drinks and a delicious meal.
  Door charges are $15 members; $25 non-members. Visitors and new members are always welcome! Bookings: please send an SMS to 0419 030 595.

• Hot Foot Jazz Reunion Band – featuring Louise Messenger from London – Southern Jazz Club at the HWY, corner Anzac Highway / Marion Road – 7:30pm – 10:15pm Tuesday 11th March 2025.
  We recently heard the great news that Louise Messenger will be visiting Adelaide in March, so we’ve booked her along with a hot 8-piece jazz band for a special reunion performance at Adelaide’s premiere jazz venue, the Southern Jazz Club.
  The Club meets at the HWY every Tuesday night. For Louise Messenger with the Hot Foot Jazz Reunion Band on March 11th we’re expecting it will be booked out. So please organise and book a table now. More details here. Doors open at 6pm for meals and the show starts at 7:30pm.
  The Club features cabaret-style tables, a quality dance floor and bar service for drinks and a delicious meal.
  Door charges are $15 members; $25 non-members. Visitors and new members are always welcome! Bookings: please send an SMS to 0419 030 595.
  Louise Messenger was the darling of Adelaide swing dancers before she headed off to live in the UK seven years ago. Now she’s the darling of the jazz and swing circuit in London and Europe, so we’re very lucky to have her back for this exciting concert. Swing dancers welcome!
  “LOUISE MESSENGER IS A SUPERB PERFORMER: SHE’S FUNNY, ENERGETIC, SASSY, TALENTED, ENGAGING AND HAS A STUNNING VOICE” – THE UPSIDE NEWS.
  Backing Louise will be the Hot Foot Jazz Reunion Band: Ally Cunningham (vocals), Brenton Tregloan (vocals/guitar/banjo), Dave Sutton (drums), Ron Flack (reeds), Graham Eames (trumpet), Martin van der Koogh (trombone), Chico Czikowski (piano/vocals), Brian Loffler (bass/vocals).
  You can also catch Louise’s show This Is Not A Love Song at the Jade on March 3rd, 4th & 5th.

• Fossils – On 1st December 2024 our Fossils folk group will be playing a mini-set at the Douglas Simper Tribute and Benefit Concert. The concert will be a way to honour Doug Simper’s contribution to music through a breadth of genres.
  The concert musicians are donating their time to honour Doug but also to celebrate the significance of Adelaide music in the 1970s. They were heady days, not least through the contribution of young immigrants coming to live in Adelaide but also through those who grew up in the suburbs of Adelaide.
  Concert starts at 3pm at Church of the Trinity, 318 Goodwood Rd, Clarence Park South Australia 5034. Tickets are selling fast and it looks likely to be fully booked, so please do buy tickets at TryBooking now to avoid missing out.
  
  Artists appearing:
  • Rod Boucher with Buffalo Drive
  • Sevenfold
  • Richard Palmer and Co.
  • Fossils featuring multi-ARIA Award winner Peter Combe OAM
  • Leigh Newton
  • Melinda Steel performing some of Doug’s piano pieces
  • Jan Oliver Singers with Jenny Ward on piano performing some of Doug’s songs
  • Holy Horns led by Andrew Newhouse
    

    

Doug and Lorna

• 2024 South Coast Jazz Festival – Goolwa SA – Friday 18th to Sunday 20th October 2024. I’ll be playing bass for three bands: Hot Foot Jazz, Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra and Delta Jazz Men. The Festival is an excellent event offering a mix of trad jazz from the 1920s and mainstream jazz from the 1950s, played by some of the best local and interstate bands. It’s great to celebrate our art form with so many musos, including highly talented young bands spawned at the Jazz Department of the Elder Conservatorium of Music. More Festival information here.

• Hot Foot Jazz – Southern Jazz Club – 7:30pm Tuesday 4th June 2024. Trad from the 1920s; six-piece band featuring some of the finest Adelaide trad jazz musos including several from the Southern Jazz Club Hall of Fame. Details on the Southern Jazz Club website.

The Southern Jazz Club – Adelaide’s home of jazz – at the HWY every Tuesday

• Hot Foot Jazz – Walkerville RSL – Special guest vocalist with us during the second half of 2024 was the brilliant and irrepressible popular vocalist Ally Cunningham.

• Hot Foot Jazz – Walkerville RSL – April 28th 2024.
• Hot Foot Jazz – Walkerville RSL – Feb 25th 2024.
• Strictly Trad – Southern Jazz Club – 7:30pm Tuesday 10th October 2023. This 7-piece band includes some of the finest Adelaide trad jazz musos including several from the Southern Jazz Club Hall of Fame: Gary Boland – trumpet – leader; Alex Taylor – trombone; Don Armstrong – reeds; Chico Czikowski – piano; Brenton Tregloan – banjo & guitar; John Stephens – drums; Brian Loffler – bass. Seating is cabaret-style, so bring a friend or two and book a table. Details on the Southern Jazz Club website.
  

• Fossils – Live Arts at Newland, Victor Harbor – 2pm Sunday 10th September 2023. Fossils folk group – featuring Peter Combe OAM – was formed in 2014 to revive the popular folk music of the 60s and 70s. It’s the powerful lyrics, unforgettable melodies, and superb harmonies that Fossils will bring to life with songs made famous by the likes of Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary. Some of our favourites include The Times They Are a-Changin’, Pack Up Your Sorrows and Leaving on a Jet Plane. More info and bookings here.



• Hot Foot Jazz – Southern Jazz Club – 7:30pm Tuesday 29th August 2023. Benefit night in support of the 2023 South Coast Jazz Festival. Special night with three bands; Hot Foot Jazz starts at 9:30pm. Details on the Southern Jazz Club website.
• Vieux Carre – Southern Jazz Club at The Highway, 7:30pm Tuesday 8th August 2023. Named after the famed Vieux Carré French Quarter – the oldest neighbourhood of New Orleans – this 7-piece band features lesser-known tunes from the early decades of the 1900s. Jazz of that time was a heady mix of French, Spanish, Anglo and African influences, immortalised in evocative locations such as Storyville, Mahogany Hall and Basin Street. The band includes several musos who’ve been inducted into the Southern Jazz Club Hall of Fame. It’s always a particular pleasure to share the bandstand with reeds-player Don Armstrong, who’s in-demand in both Adelaide and London. Show starts with the Andrew Courts Trio at 6:45pm and Vieux Carre at 7:30pm. Details on the Southern Jazz Club website.



• Hot Foot Jazz – Walkerville RSL – July 30th 2023.
• Fossils at the Aldgate Village Well – July 2022.
• Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra at UKARIA Cultural Centre – November 2020.
• Fossils in Loxton – April 2018.
• On the road with Hot Foot Jazz – 2003 onwards.
• TV appearances with tropical rock group Mandala, July 1999 and April 2000. The group had a refreshing original sound, playing mostly compositions by bandleaders Martin Hawkins and Caroline Chaplin, and including elements of Tibetan throat singing.
• On stage with cover-band Lena & The Mix – 1990s.
• In the late 1980s and early 1990s my jazz pianist mate Peter McMillan had a regular (6 nights a week) gig in the Adelaide Hilton lounge. I’d bring my bass in on Wednesday evenings to give him some company, and together we worked our way through the best of mainstream jazz in the Real Book. It was a great education for me, and supper in the staff kitchen was a bonus.
• Diddychwy – playing a mix of Celtic jigs and reels plus traditional Aussie bush ballads – 1980s.
• Jazz residency with the Don Bond Trio – late 1970s.
• Jazz residency with Ray Horne (ASO percussionist) and John Brice (piano) – late 1970s. These were my first experiences of sight-reading arrangements for visiting international musos who appeared as the floor show. Fortunately Ray and John were brilliant sight-readers, so I was able to get by riding on their coat-tails.
• Attempting to lip-sync our Caatalyst recording of the CAA Song – 1978.