10/9/2006 You know I'm back , I'm back, you know it, Ch'mon! Ok, so where did we leave you? In the beautiful, sunny, home of the ludies. We headed down to Germany. We had a wonderful feeling in our hearts from our time in Copenhagen and it stayed with us all the way down to Bavaria. We got to this little town called Diessen, just out of Munich and thought. Oh my lord, we came all this way for a gig in this tiny room in this tiny village in Bavaria??? Not only that but it started to storm violently so we assumed that noone would come. WRONG. It was the best gig we did on the whole tour. I think part of it was because we had been listening to Tys Tys (http://www.myspace.com/tystysmusic) in the car for hours on end. We were all in the same musical headspace. The place was packed out with what must have been people from every village in the area. It was boiling hot and I was sweating like a donkey but it was brilliant fun. After that we headed up to the North Sea Jazz Festival. After two days of driving we ended up only seeing the last 3 hours of the festival because we got too pissed and pulled an all nighter during our stopover in Hamburg, (thanks to Till for putting us up unexpectedly!) Some of it was cool, some not so cool. The best moments for me were Erykah Baydu, Cheik Lo and Paco de Lucia. The worst was Kanye West. We hadn't organised any accom in Rotterdam so we had to stay up all night again but this time unwillingly. This is when even the remnants of the glow of Copenhagen couldn't save us from the pain of accumulated hangovers and sleep deprivation. We dropped the car back in Brussels and jumped on our flight to Paris (via Munich!?!) which travel minister Zoe had booked us. In Munich we had to check in again. Somehow, Bazzy had managed to lose his airline ticket for the second leg of the flight. The lady at the desk was a scary German Frau. She was wearing a scary black suit and her scary black hair was pulled back very tight. A whip would not have looked at all out of place in her hands. She said, (in her scary german accent) "Mr Flower. You do not have much time. You must decide". The top half of her face hardly moved and her voice was loud and urgent. It was like something straight out of Austin Powers. I thought she was about to say "Do you chose the sharks with the lazer beams on their heads, or the lazer beams with sharks on their heads? Either way is CERTAIN DEATH!!!" Anyhoo, Paris was pretty cool. Except that me and Zo were attacked on the metro at 5am coming back from a party we had crashed in La Bastille that was basically full of beautiful french lesbians. I went to alot of art galleries but was generally not as excited about being in Paris as I had been the previous year when I had fallen in holiday love with a french guy (how deliciously cliched!). Anyway, after Paris we all went separate ways. I went to London and had a great time but felt like I was in Australia because there are so many damn auzzies there. Did some very big gigs with the Cat Empire which was great fun. Then, after a couple of weeks of that, flew to Bangkok where I met my friend Bobilee and we commenced our Asian Adventures. Cambodia was AWESOME. I was in Phenom Penh. It was cool because I was teaching there so I got to be part of the place, hang out with alot of amazing little Khmer kids as well as being a touro. I worked at this school called 'The Happy School'. It's for kids who have fallen outside the state school system because their parents are too poor. The idea is to get their education level up to scratch so they can be reintergrated. It was a wonderful experience. Cambodia is a really bizarre and amazing place. The food is fantastic - I wasn't really expecting that from a third world country. I became insanely addicted to the iced coffee. they make it with sweetened condensed milk. Hmmm cafe de dako de kau. That's pretty much all I can say in Camai .There are no road rules either. I flew a kite off the back of a moto in the pouring rain. I partied with the expat community at 'Pontoon' and even went to an 11yr old Cambodian flower selling girl's Karaoke birthday party. Gee, those Cambodians really love their karaoke. So, that's an overview. I'm gonna send some photos of us the morning after our awesome gig in Diessen. We look pretty happy and relaxed I reckon. We were swimming in the lake. I've gotta go to bed now. Big day tomorrow. xxxx Elana. 7/13/2006 Hello Loved ones. I actually don't have a clue where I am right now. We're staying in a Formule 1 Motel, somewhere in the middle of Germany. We just left Copenhagen today. It was very sad to leave. We'd been there for a week and had an awesome apartment and some really cool friends. We got there and met up with Jonas, this guy that had randomly sent me an email asking if he could perform 'Give Me the Night' for his recital (a drummer of all things!) I wrote back and said 'sure, as long as you get us a gig in Copenhagen'. I figured, seeing how we were in Amsterdam, Copenhagen would be...right next door. WRONG! After our 14 hour drive (with all the extra getting lost bits factored in) we arrived 1 hour before we were due to play.Luckily, we had accidently surrounded ourselves with the nicest people ON THE PLANET. They organised all our gear, did heaps of promo, bought us drinks and food and gave us an INCREDIBLE pad right in the centre of Copenhagen. We hung out, seeing gigs, drinking and swimming and celebrating. Mostly we checked out the local bands. My new favourite group is called Tys Tys. The Danes are HILARIOUS. They love Jazz. It was kinda bizarre actually because in Australia, jazz is a bit of a dirty word and in Denmark, being a jazz muso is like being a minor celebrity. Our gigs have been going really well. I also did a couple of gigs with the Cat Empire and they were fun too. In the end, Ollie and Felix stayed back a couple of extra days in Copenhagen after their bus had left because they realised we were onto a good thing. We all celebrated Zo's birthday together and I tried to impress everyone with a series of backflips off the 5 metre block at what we affectionately called, 'The Home of the Ludies' meaning; the place where you can find LUDICROUSLY attractive Scandinavian chicks and guys Inevitably, things would not go so swimmingly forever and I ended up doing an almighty side flop, much to everyone's delight. We're playing in a town called Diessen on the outskirts of Munich tomorrow night and then we head to Rotterdam on Saturday to check out the North Sea Jazz Festival. We have no tickets and no accomodation so it should be pretty interesting... Hope you are all well. x Lan. 6/21/2006 This is as much for my parents as anyone who is curious to see where we are heading. If you're gonna be around and you wanna hook up, shoot me an email! x Elana Brussels from the 27 - 28th June Luxembourg from the 29th, 30th (June) to the 1st (July) then Amsterdam 2nd July. Copenhagen 6th July (Copenhagen Jazz Fest) Munich (to play at K7 in Diessen) on the 14th July then North Sea Jazz Fest (Rotterdam) Paris from the 19th to the 25th, then something for a few days... UK from the 1st of Aug to 8th then I'm going to Cambodia to do some aid work with my friend Bobilee! Due to return to Sydney on the 24th of August. 6/16/2006 BRAG MAGAZINE Elana Stone questions 1.Is the current Australian music climate conducive to jazz music? Music should always be relevant to people. It should speak directly to your heart or your bones or your crotch or your brain. If it fails to do this then it is bad music. I think it was Duke Ellington that said ‘There are only two kinds of music – good and bad.’ To me, Jazz is more a concept or an approach than an actual style. It involves playing and being open to changes that happen around you. As far as I’m concerned, you can play jazz in any musical climate because it’s both informed by popular culture and also separate from it. It can exist with or without mainstream music. Having said that, I’m often not sure what jazz is. I have been called a jazz artist but to me, I play and write in a more rock, soul, singer-songwriter vein. My band and I have a jazz approach to the performance of our songs. WE explore the contours of the tune. How do you feel about the jazz scene in Australia? Artistically jazz is definitely alive and well in the Australian music scene. It is flourishing in the pockets of Sydney and is in plague proportions throughout Melbourne. The main problem is venues and I’m talking about Sydney specifically now. Venues are being shut down at an alarming rate. Musicians and audiences are being forced to setting up makeshift venues in homes and warehouses in order to play for and hear each other. It may seem like the Sydney jazz scene is dead but in fact, it has gone underground. 2.You won the National Jazz Awards in 2005 – how was that furthered your career? Probably the coolest thing that happened was I started guesting with the Cat Empire. They rang me up out of the blue one day and asked me to come and sing with them at the Enmore Theatre that night in front of 2,000 people. I said “F*K YEAH” and got up and belted out a couple of tunes and had a bit of a free vocal jam with Harry Angus. I love those guys. They’re great musicians and cool people. I also scored a regular gig at Bennetts Lane which is a really cool jazz club in Melbourne. 3.What brought you to jazz music in the first place? My earliest memory of being attracted to, or even hearing jazz music was when I went over to my primary school friend Alice Wesley-Smith’s house. I was about 10 years old and had been unwillingly receiving classical piano lessons for about 5 years. I was playing all these ironed out, boring songs called ‘Gavote’ or ‘Etude’ or whatever, and my friend Alice was playing these awesome sounding boogie-woogie piano tunes called things like ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ and they sounded GREAT to me. I felt really ripped off. 4.Have you ever had the desire to break away from jazz and pursue a more commercially-viable sound – or is music a “for love, not money” career for you? To me, being commercially viable is secondary to just making honest music. The music that I write is not really what I would call jazz in a conventional sense. It doesn’t ‘swing’. It’s just a combination of all my influences. There’s as much Led Zepp in there as there is Louis Armstrong. I don’t think to myself – ‘God, I’ve got to break away from jazz!’ but I do sometimes think I would like to shake off the stereotypes that come with people’s perceptions of it. I just try to write good, honest songs about my experiences and my friends/band-mates play those songs and throw their influences into the mix. I think what we end up with is actually quite a ‘commercially-viable’ sound. 5. What’s in stall for you? What are you working on at the moment and what are your plans? At the moment we’re frantically trying to tie up all our loose ends before we go away (in 10 days!!) to Europe to tour for a month and a half. We’ve got gigs in Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Munich and Copenhagen. We’re gonna hire a car but I’m not aloud to drive because apparently I’m a crap driver. Actually, it’s true. I am a pretty bad driver. Today I reversed out of a driveway and into a parked car and, in a separate incident, I almost ran into an old couple who were walking on the FOOTPATH. We’re just finishing pre-production on a new album which is going to be tremendous. I’m booked to do a couple of big festivals with Cat Empire while I’m over there so, should be good times… 12/19/2005 I'm sorry about the lateness of this update. A few things have happened since my last edition. Firstly, I WON WANGARATTA!!!!! How did that happen??!! I don’t know but let’s not ask too many questions. Very exciting... Prizes include $6000, a recording financed and released by the ABC and an opportunity to perform in the a concert series in May 2006, which will include shows at Chapel Off Chapel in Melbourne. It was a great weekend. Heaps of awesome singers. It was great seeing the heats. I'm just bummed that I didn't get to see everyone perform. I was so happy to be in the final that I think I stopped caring about it being a competition and started having FUN! This (apparently) is the key to success. This also happens to be an ingenious segue to my next exciting piece of news… I had the great fortune of being asked to perform with the Cat Empire last month!!! Their guest performer who had been touring with them Melbourne guitarist Novak Conrad became ill and had to drop out of the tour. I got a call from trumpeter Ross Irwin who remembered me from this jam we had back in our uni days in Canberra at this great little old style English pub called the Wig and Pen. Actually, I believe everyone in the band was there that night except maybe Kieran and Carlo but it’s all a bit blurry…all I can remember was that I was blown away by these guys from Melbourne. I got up and sang a tune (god knows what it was?) anyway, I must have done alright because on this otherwise uneventful Friday evening I got a call asking me to come and bust out a couple of tunes with the Cat Empire to a sold out crowd at the Enmore Theatre! Well, I wasn’t exactly going to say no, was I? I’m going to attach a DVD so you can check out the gig for yourself. I’ll also load up some photies asap. So, since then I’ve done two more gigs with them, one in Sydney and one in Adelaide to close the tour. I’m also booked to play with them on New Year’s Eve at the Falls Festival!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, life’s good. Also, I got nominated for a Mo Award. This is apparently not a subtle way of telling me that I need to go to the salon and get a wax, it is a performing arts prize. The nominees are… (drrrrrrrrrum) Grace Knight, Michelle Nicole, Emma Pask, Elana Stone, Monica Trapaga. Michelle Nicole has taken it out for the last four years so we won’t be holding our breath. Not with the likes of Pasky in the running! Anyhoo, the winners will be announced on March 14 so stay tuned…! 8/31/2005 ALSO! Just found out I got into the Wangaratta Jazz Competition- it's vocals this year. The ten finalists are : Sophie Brous, Emma Gilmartin, Gian Slater, Alison Wedding (Vic) ; Kristin Berardi, Jo Fabro, Eduardo Santini, Elana Stone (NSW) ; Megan Washington (Qld) ; and Jo Lawry (SA). 8/31/2005 I just got back from O/S (New York and Europe). I had such an incredible time, musically and spiritually. I am feeling really excited about writing/recording /performing my own music and going to see and hear live music. I want to really bring the public’s attention to great associations like Jazzgroove and SIMA before it’s too late! The word ‘Jazz’ seems to strike a chord of fear and confusion among the population of Sydney in particular. We need to inject it with a feeling of youth and vibrancy to change this. We just launched my debut album ‘In the Garden of Wild Things’ at the Vanguard (King St, Newtown). The album is a collection of my own songs with the exception of 1 track ‘Give Me the Night’ which was written by guitarist Aaron Flower and lyrics by myself. This album was recorded in December of 2003, before I started working with the current line up of the Elana Stone Quartet The album features James Muller on guitar, Sean Wayland on piano, rhodes, organ etc, Brett Hirst on bass and Evan Mannell on drums. Special appearances made by Aaron Flower on guitar, Zoe Hauptmann on bass, James Hauptmann on atmospheric sounds, Jeremy Borthwick and John Hibbard on trombone and Simon Ferenci on trumpet, Steve Marin on conga and a choir from Newtown High School of the Performing Arts. It was recorded in December 2003 at Sony Studios and mixed by Phil Punch at Electric Avenue Studios and mastered by Rob Gist – also at Electric Avenue Studios. The beautiful artwork was done by designer, Kare Martens. I have just recently returned from a round the world trip. I participated in a Bobby McFerrin Workshop in New York, attended meetings with his management regarding signing a contract with them and also competed in the Semi finals of the Montreux Jazz Vocal competition in Switzerland. I am excited to announce that we (the Elana Stone Quartet) are being showcased as part of the Jazz Now festival on the 9th of September at The Studio in the Sydney Opera House. Also performing that night are Richard Nunns (NZ) playing traditional maori instruments with Judy Bailey on piano, followed by the Scott Tinkler Trio (trumpet) featuring Brett Hirst (bass) and Simon Barker (drums). So it should be a great show. I will be appearing at Wangarratta Jazz Festival in October (28th, 29th & 30th) with the Elana Stone Quartet and also with the Mark Isaacs Trio (Ben Waples – bass, Felix Bloxom – drums) and at the Manly Jazz Festival on the 1st of October (3:30 – 4:30) doing some standards with a trio that is yet to be determined. I am in the process of organising a national tour for the band so I will keep you posted on future gigs. There will be some live footage appearing on my website soon also. Looking forward to seeing you in all the old familiar places... Thank you for all your energy in keeping the jazz scene alive in Australia!! x Elana Stone 10/8/2005 Elana has been invited to return to New York to record an album of her original music for Bobby McFerrin’s Management Company: ‘Original Artists’ some time in 2005. ‘Elana has developed into a powerful and dynamic vocalist who is well grounded in jazz but has also explored other kinds of music. Both her compositions and her vocal style reflect her eclectic listening tastes’ – Jasmine Crittendon, Drum Media, 26 August, 2003.