Castlemaine Jazz Festival once again comes to The Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel. We are just one venue with38 bands performing in the 6 venues – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine Bowling Club, Phee Broadway Theatre, Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel and this year two nights at the Boomtown Winery.
You can wander from venue to venue at your leisure and enjoy some beautiful Jazz this Kings birthday weekend (June), or you can stay at just one! The Program at The Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel includes some current favourites and some new to the venue.
Saturday 8 June | 12-10pm 12.00noon Steamboat Whistlers [T]
1.20 pm The Django Fretts [T]
2.40pm Rebecca Barnard [T]
4.00pm TMT (Tamara Murphy Trio) [C]
5.20pm Meg Corson & Cam Scott [M]
6.40pm Nigel Maclean [C]
8.00pm Hargreaves Jazz Quartet [M]
9.20pm Stat [C]
Sunday 9 June | 12-8pm 12noon Ben Nieuwkerk’s Strange Awakening [C]
1.20pm The Anticlinal Fold [C]
2.40pm The Bird Conference [C]
4.00pm Kind Of Blue Trio [M]
5.20pm. The Clunk Orchestra [F] [cancelled]
6.40pm Maggie Jackson NYJazz Trio [M]
The Sentimental Bloke [1919] will be presented in-cinema with a music score by Jen Anderson, which is performed live by Jen Anderson & TheLarrikins [Dave Evans and Dan Warner]. The film, an icon of Australian silent film, is based upon the best-selling verses of C.J. Dennis. It humorously tells the heart-warming story of Bill – the Sentimental Bloke – and his sweetheart Doreen
“The pièce de résistance of Australian feature film-making from the silent era” The Guardian
About the Film
The film is the digitally restored version which incorporates new footage found in the vaults of the George Eastman House (Rochester, New York), and restored with the vibrant colours of the original tinting and toning. Director. Raymond Longford was one of the Australian silent era’s most prolific and successful film directors.
An adaptation of C.J. Dennis’ verse narrative of life set on the backstreets of inner Melbourne in the 1910s, The Sentimental Bloke is a tale of redemption, depicting the social rehabilitation, courtship and marriage of the titular ‘Bloke’, Bill (Arthur Tauchert) to his sweetheart, Doreen (Lottie Lyell). Lyell, an international star of the Australian silent era and a filmmaker in her own right, co-wrote and edited the film with Longford, her partner and key creative collaborator until her premature death in 1925, from tuberculosis. Lyell was 35.
For the film, Longford and Lyell relocated the setting from Melbourne to Sydney, shooting on location in Woolloomooloo, which then enjoyed a well-earned reputation as a tough inner-city neighbourhood, as well as at Manly Beach and the Hornsby Valley (the orchard scene). Longford’s direction – Longford was himself an actor before becoming a director – elicited a remarkable naturalness from his talented cast, which also featured Gilbert Emery in the role of Ginger Mick.
A hit when it opened at Melbourne Town Hall on the 4th of October 1919, The Sentimental Bloke broke domestic box office records and screened to packed houses for some years. It subsequently disappeared without trace once ‘the talkies’ took over until the 1950s when it was rediscovered in a film library in NewYork!.
*The Digitally remastered versions is presented courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Jen Anderson and The Larrikans
About The Band Jen Anderson Jen has earned an international reputation as a composer and improvising violinist. With a strong classical training background and many years of professional performance improvising with numerous bands, she has also composed music for film, television, theatre and dance.
Jen has enjoyed national success with her score and live performance of string quartet music to the silent film ‘Pandora’s Box’, and further national and international success with her score for the silent film ‘The Sentimental Bloke’. Jen and her band the Larrikins accompanied the screening of the film at several prestigious screen events including the London International Film Festival (UK), Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Italy), Telluride Film Festival (Colorado USA), Tokyo Film Festival (Japan) and Chungmuro Film Festival (Seoul, Korea).
As a composer for film and television her many credits include Ablaze (documentary feature film, 2021) The Show Must Go On (documentary 2019), Hunt Angels (documentary feature film) The Goddess of 1967, Simone de Beauvoir’s Babies (ABC television mini-series), and the silent movies Pandora’s Box and The Sentimental Bloke.
The Larrikins Dave Evans Dave Evans is one of Melbourne’s most acclaimed musicians, widely recognised for his mastery of all musical genres. He performs regularly in Northern Europe and has performed and recorded with The Band Who Knew Too Much,Bric-a-brac, and Jen Anderson & The Larrikins. Dave Evans has performed across Australia in mainstream theatre shows and avant-garde works. He played the featured accordionist in the stage musical Warhorse. His interpretations of tango on the accordion bring his jazz improvisation skills to the fore as well as showing an authentic understanding rarely heard outside native Argentina.
Dan Warner Dan Warner is a songwriter from Melbourne, Australia. In the 80s and 90s, Dan sang and played rhythm guitar in several local bands including The Warner Brothers, Overnight Jones, Dan & Al and The Largest Living Things. Dan now plays with his band The Night Parrots featuring Marcel Borrack, Clio Renner, Nathan Farrelly, Adam Simmons and Ash Davies. Dan has contributed to The Sentimental Bloke project as one half of The Larrikans with Dave Evans.
