Wednesday nights in Fitzroy with the band that refuses to leave the room that made them.
“12 years of this bullshit, yet we still enjoy it, and more so,” was the opening call from Greg Sher, frontman of Fitzroy group The Rookies, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Rooks Return, at the sleepier end of Brunswick St, Fitzroy, didn’t take long to adopt me as an advocate upon my move to Melbourne.
Worn in just the right amount with a smokers to die for. I’d followed common whispers of the Wednesday night jazz before, but I’d always time it fashionably and have little patience for the queue hosting a ten shopfront tour.
We forget about the special relationship between patience and gold.
The Rookies in Fitzroy
- Greg Sher – Sax and Vocals
- Tom Sly – Trumpet
- Joel Trigg – Keys
- Anton Schulz – Double Bass
- Chris Cameron – Drums
- Live Jazz Wednesdays every week
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Like perfect dusk, a circular keys riff begins the crossfade from the soft aroma of conversation to the first page of the night.
Those well-seasoned ease in their shoulder rocks and hip sways, and it’s not long before I catch someone beaming at their friend after absorbing half a sax solo; perhaps she’d never experienced such a thing within what would usually be described as personal space.
“The beautiful thing is you can only fit a certain amount of people in the room,” Greg tells me when discussing the night’s reputation.
“We’ve had heaps of offers to move to much bigger venues for much more money, but what we do is so embedded into the bricks and mortar of this space, we would never move …
“I mean, we have the greatest gig in Melbourne every single week of the year.”
It’s hard to contest.
“One of the owners who was working was like “The Rookies” and we were like, fuck it, we’ll be named after the bar,” he reveals amidst the origin story.
“But it’s come to mean, almost retroactively, quite a lot to us. People talk about potentially becoming a master, where we now see ourselves as internal rookies, internal beginners, internal students … it’s a life’s journey and we kind of know there’s no way to arrive.”
In a time embellished with ‘fake it till you make it’ mentality, this was warming to hear.
After a string of contorted faces processing a language they barely understand and yelps reminiscent of old hard bop recordings, the boys in bloom take us up to the skies, monetising delays, cymbal shimmers and long brass tones to create something you could slot into a Safdie movie. It’s the kind of moment that makes you consider a fork in the road.
At the break, I witness a compliment thrown from stranger to stranger, an interaction with an essence that only has the band to thank. But my focus quickly shifts as my chain bracelet is caught in the hair of someone slipping past, I manage to rip it out before she moves on, unaware. I’ll come here when I miss London.
We begin again, but no one can predict the narrative. Scattered calls in soft moments are echoes from past peaks, sustaining a thread, and taking us into the next rush; a give and take between punter and band, one could not survive without the other.
“If you can have one eye on the audience and how they’re feeling, you can make them a part of it,” I hear from Joel Trigg on the keys.
“I can even have a conversation with people behind me, like, I can hear them making a joke and respond to it. That’s really unique, not a lot of jazz gigs you get to do that.”
The Rookies created a world but have taken on the responsibility to talk about the one outside.
“We share intention for a world that’s better than the one we live in now.” They, like many artists across Melbourne, use the time when their voice is loud to help steer the ship in the right direction.
“The future is here it’s just not yet evenly distributed,” is met with support of all different pitches.
“I think there’s something fundamentally radical about attending cultural things. I think there’s a revolution that’s always been burning and it happens in spaces like these. And I’m not pissing in our own bucket here, we just play jazz. I think it’s what you do.”
“Maybe just going out to more things and doing more stuff with your mind and your body and your body-mind and your mind-body is perhaps more revolutionary than you think it is.”
And maybe we all need to hear some forgotten truths over a good-natured trumpet once a week in Fitzroy.
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