HELEN MATTHEWS & RAY WALKER - CD LAUNCH - 'A Slight Diversion'

Mon 24 May 2010 @ 8:00pm

Admission Members $10 Student members $5 Non-members $15

RAY Walker and Helen Matthews go ‘way back’- from the early days of live-to-air television at Channel 7 where they appeared as youngsters on Club Seventeen and Teenbeat. Their paths crossed throughout the years, from the ‘sit ins’ on Sunday nights at The Hole in the Wall to the occasional studio recordings when WA had a flourishing advertising industry.

However, it was the late seventies that cemented their musical partnership at the Sunday sessions at the Highway Hotel in Claremont – ironically now a medical centre! A session that, within three months, had queues around the corner, and where patrons sat quietly and hung on every chord. The group was called ‘A Slight Diversion’ with bassist Brian Bursey (who also played electric bass and cello) and a young percussionist who played in the band Manteca, Gary Ridge, now living in Rio de Janeiro. Although so far away, Gary’s drumming is on three of the tracks on this new CD, entitled ‘A Slight Diversion’, made possible through the wonders of a laptop computer and 21st technology.

This recording project is a walkway of songs of beauty and sometimes pathos of swing and bossa nova and with a touch of humour. Ray and Helen are delighted to have as their guests for the evening: Jessica Gethin, violin, Sophie Walker, cello, Karl Florrison, bass, Garry Howard, drums/percussion and the witty and vivacious, Ali Bodycoat as presenter for the evening.

Don’t miss this partnership between WA’s ‘First Lady’ of jazz and Perth’s premier jazz guitarist.