The weather man said it would be cool, and as fate would have it the snow came in sending the faint hearted and chainless concert goers scurrying off the mountain to less treacherous terrain, but for those who bunkered down the jazz was hot and exciting.  
   Jazz festivals seem to be popping up all over the country at the moment. The general idea is to attract visitors to the area and of course get them to spend their cash. As a result of this “cash philosophy” the quality of the jazz can often lean towards the commercial and even non-jazz styles. Not so this year at Thredbo.    
A diverse range of styles where presented to cater for an equally diverse range of tastes and it has to be said that the all round quality was tops. 

Full credit must go to John Speight and his team of helpers. This was John’s 19^th festival at Thredbo and it gets better each year. Congratulations John. Here’s looking forward to number 20 in 2007.  

From a performing musician’s perspective humping keyboards, amps and drum kits from gig to gig in the snow can be, well let’s say, a physical experience, but once done the music flowed, the enthusiasts were well pleased and it was time to settle into what is always the highlight of the festival, the final late night jam session in the Alpine Lounge Bar.

The “Cat In The Hat” John Morrison organized and compered the jam session in his easygoing and entertaining style reminiscent of Ronnie Scott’s. John Morrison is a superb drummer and along with the house trio including on guitar Mike Price, head of jazz studies at the ANU, supported the soloists very ably indeed. Mike was easily able to comp through any song that came along and seems to know the chords for every tune ever written. He also delivered some delicious guitar solos much to the audiences delight.

A dazzling parade of blowers (a technical name for “sitter-inners”) stepped up to the microphone and lifted the listeners to great heights of excitement.

For me the highlights of the final jam session were to hear the huge tones of Marty Mooney and Paul Furness who could be easily heard at the back of the room even though neither used the microphone. Paul has a passion for early jazz and uses an alto that I suspect he rescued from the ARK. Marty is a mainstream tenor sax swing player and grooves along nicely in the jazz blues tradition.

The festival is a musically sociable event for musicians and trombonist Jeremy Borthwick was making friends with everyone and playing with groups of all styles. From straight-ahead to funky-electric and modern jazz, he was equally at ease with all and got into the jam session too from the word “go".

A surprise guest appearance by Shannon Mowday, who is all the way from South Africa dazzled the assembled with not only her good looks but also her fine musicianship on alto and baritone sax. WOW!

Closer to home Sydney based sax man Adrian Cunningham then upped the degree of intensity by delivering hard bop jazz with a tinge of blues and consummate technical skill.

Just when I was thinking “how good is this, can it possibly get any better?” James Ryan took the stand and blew everyone away with unbelievable skill and musical taste. An unknown to me but following a chat I discovered that he was Australia’s 1^st ever Master of Jazz graduate. Originally from Darwin he studied at the ANU and then worked in Europe for 4 years and has now settled in Sydney. He teaches at various universities and is currently active in the Sydney music scene performing with his own group. Style wise he can obviously cover any genre but prefers the modern and avant-garde.  
As the snow was coming down and the musicians were trading choruses thrilling the audience with breathtaking feats of musical dexterity I was thinking to myself, “this should be called “The Winter Jazz-Olympics”. 

Cheers Paul. 
P.S. Bring your chains next year.