Review: International Women’s Day at The Ellington Jazz Club
International Women’s Day at The Ellington Jazz Club
Sunday, March 8, 2026
Sunday at the Ellington was a double celebration: not only was it International Women’s Day, but it was also the final of a three-day festival commemorating the Club’s seventeenth birthday. Ever efficient, program director Simone Craddock combined the two to make a mini festival of Perth’s prominent female jazz musicians.
Featuring both established and emerging artists, on one level the program was a celebration of fantastic music and the many brilliant women singing and playing it in our fair city. On another, it was all about renewal and rebirth, passing the torch on to the next generation.
For the matinee, the birthday party proper, four of the club’s ‘golden divas’, Ali Bodycoat, Simone Craddock (one and the same), Jessie Gordon and Libby Hammer, delivered a spirited and idiosyncratic run through the classic American songbook. Backed by the fine trio of Hanna Kim (grand), Lucy Browning (double bass) and Holly Norman (kit), with extraordinary skill and constant humour, the ensemble ducked and wove their way through two sets of inventively arranged standards to end with one original, Jessie Gordon’s lovelorn Torch and Stone.
Given she was the first artist to grace the Ellington stage, it was apt that Ali Bodycoat should be in this collective. Full circle. After the presentation in the second set of a four-candled birthday cake (‘one for every four-and-a-quarter years’, Hammer quiply calculated), Bodycoat gave a short rousing speech on the history of the club and its importance to Perth music. But that was the only sense in which any of the singers was pre-eminent in this company. A non-hierarchical collective, not only did the four songstresses take turns on lead vocal, but, accustomed to fronting the show, they divvied up the intros as well—though a certain feistiness did emerge as one or other jumped in to have the last word on the next song.
The show began with the four singers lined up side by side, Hammer on lead, for a swinging rendition of I’m Coming Home. An apt opener, the Ellington has been a home for these women over a fair whack of their singing careers.
From there they moved through all the permutations four singers can muster. Each proved their cantatrice expertise by leading, sometimes with just the band, then reconfigured in duos and trios before coming back together as one tight choir.
Although it is hard to pick a high point among so many peaks, the lush a cappella trio of Cole Porter’s I Love Paris does spring to mind. Arranged by Kim Anning as a duo for Bodycoat and Hammer, when Gordon first heard them do it, she had to get in on the act. The song was rearranged to accommodate her.
The duos included Craddock and Gordon’s cheeky take of Irving Berlin’s Cheek to Cheek, Bodycoat and Hammer (as Abby Bammer and Lolly Ollicoat) counterpoint-syncopated Happy Days Are Here Again, and Gordon and Hammer on ukuleles for the genealogically complicated I Am My Own Grandpa.
Bodycoat soloed the soulful ballad, The Lies of Handsome Men, and the sensational Grant Windsor arrangement of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. A deeply moving rendition; one woman at the back of the room cried her way through this most sublime love song. Alas, it was the show’s only missed opportunity that the three other singers didn’t harmonise Isaak’s haunting rejoinder, ‘This world is only going to break your heart.’ That would have made for an utterly perfect interpretation.
With a brilliantly long-held note at its climax, Craddock reworked Lerner and Loewe’s On the Street Where You Live into a celebration of the Ellington: On the Street Where Jazz Lives. In the second set she let rip with a stirring and funky take of Miss Celie’s Blues from the film The Colour Purple.
Gordon pulled out her uke again to lead the audience through La de da de da de da, which ended the first set, then opened the second, to sweet harmonies from her sister divas and ironic interjections from Libby Hammer, with the traditional gospel classic Down by the Riverside. Gordon, whose father hails from the southern USA, was raised on gospel music. Deep in her soul, this is the key to her unique vocal style.
As well as the opener, Hammer delivered a bluesy Muddy Water in the first set and then stunned the room in the second with her syncopated melody and sophisticated scat on Recipe for Love.
The trio backing this splendid sorority were superb. Kim, Browning and Norman wove an intricate tapestry through which the singers picked their colourful threads. On almost every song, Kim delivered a stylish feature, the highlight being the plaintive break in The Lies of Handsome Men. Lucy Browning revealed her range by deftly soloing on the jazz standard Cheek to Cheek and the intricate blues of Miss Celie, while Holly Norman kept a solid beat throughout and featured in the round robin of solos on the opener and closer. Great musicians all, these women stand shoulder to shoulder with the many fine sidemen who feature so often on the Ellington stage.
All up it made for an elegant afternoon’s jazz, a fitting celebration for Perth’s premiere jazz club.
The evening show was given over to a high-energy octet of Perth’s up-and-coming female artists, Echo of Aphrodite.
Co-created by singer/saxophonist Andrea Jordan-Keane and drummer/rapper Martha Bird, this powerhouse band specialises in Funk, with a capital F. Their two sets resounded with the rhythms and beats that, emanating from 1970s Philadelphia and San Francisco, branch down to Prince, Chaka Khan, Taylor Swift and Olivia Dean. Funky town.
Their band are a selection of very hot young players, all recent graduates or students from the Academy of Performing Arts. Right to left, back: Lucy Browning (bass guitar this time), Sarah Curran (electric guitar), and Holly Harrison (electric keys). Front: Matilda Parry (trumpet and backing vox), Isabelle Cranley-Dixon (tenor sax), and Grace Kay (baritone sax and backing vocals).
Driven by the solid beats Bird pulls from her kit and led from the top through Jordan-Keane’s sweltering voice and intermittent alto sax, this virtuoso band can really rock a room. Much of the music was written long before these outstanding young women were born, but it has clearly captured their hearts and souls and lives beautifully through their finely attuned funk sensibilities. The largely older audience utterly loved it—it would be tremendous to see them play at a dance party of their peers.
It is no mean feat to rap while playing the drums, and on at least two songs Martha Bird proved herself up to the challenge. She would go down well at a slam poetry contest, her sassy attitude perfect for the part. It made a great counterpoint to Jordan-Kean’s sensual, sweet and soaring melodies.
The owners of the Ellington, Zoe Jay and Travis Simmons, sponsor a prize for Equity and Excellence at the WA Academy. This generous award assists students through their studies and gives them the opportunity to perform in the Club. Echo of Aphrodite’s tenor saxophonist ‘Issy’ Cranley-Dixon is a recipient of this award. Her performance Sunday showed why. A lissom livewire, she not only featured with a few complex solos but also, towards the end of the second set, shimmied her way through the room to get the audience dancing. Although not one of the backing vocalists, she clearly knows her songs and lip-synced along to many of the lyrics. No doubt at (and on) some stage soon, audiences will get to hear her sing as well.
It was a long day’s playing for Browning. By the end of the second set her left hand was cramping up—she had to massage it to get through the final numbers. Little wonder, she’d put in an extraordinary day’s work: three hours plus on stage covering pretty well the full range of modern jazz. You can see why she is a bassist of choice for the Perth scene.
It was a welcome change to have the Ellington stage overtaken by women. Nothing against the blokes, but so often the only woman on stage is the singer fronting the band. The brilliance of the music delivered on International Women’s Day is testament to the quality and depth of talent among the women working in the Perth jazz scene. Here’s to parity.
IAN LILBURNE
Photos by Alan Holbrook
