‘Share in the beauty of the musical moment’: Acclaimed jazz pianist Paul Grabowsky kicks off 2025 at The Count’s
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20.01.2025

‘Share in the beauty of the musical moment’: Acclaimed jazz pianist Paul Grabowsky kicks off 2025 at The Count’s

paul grabowsky
Words by Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier

Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC)'s famed jazz club The Count's will host two milestone events this February, launching its 2025 season of live music and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary album Concierto.

Kicking off the year’s Live at The Count’s program at the Clayton Campus is MPAC’s Executive Director, Paul Grabowsky.

The lauded Australian jazz pianist and composer has been at the heart of the university’s music scene for over 12 years, and he is bringing a lifelong passion for jazz to The Count’s this year for a very special birthday.

Paul Grabowsky

  • Wednesday, 19 February, 7:30pm
  • The Count’s
  • Tickets are on sale now

For the latest news and lineups for every Melbourne festival, head here. 

With its indoor and outdoor dining areas, cosy interior (there’s not a bad seat in the house) and upscale Italian-inspired eatery and bar, The Count’s is the perfect setting for this intimate event.

A professor at Monash University, Grabowsky was asked to expand the 45-minute runtime of Concierto into a full 90-minute concert. “I remember the album. Beautiful record,” he recalls fondly, “with some great luminaries on it like Chet Baker as the trumpet player, and Paul Desmond as the alto saxophonist. Jim Hall plays guitar… a really great band.”

He set about rearranging the music and expanding on the original tracks, in the process finding musical interpreters who would fit within Hall’s unique style. Grabowsky also searched through his own back catalogue of earlier compositions from the ‘90s and 2000s in order to build a complete concert.

The goal, he says, “is to set up a conversation between the music which I’ve recreated from that album and my own music, which is, character-wise, quite different. But they both come out in a commonality of the jazz tradition, if you like.”

Paul’s fascination with jazz began following a classical piano education in his youth, where he began to see beyond the restrictions of Western canon after his older brother, an electric bassist, introduced him to more improvisational music.

“And then at school,” he says, “there was a jazz band. This was the ’70s and that was very unusual in those days. There wasn’t another pianist at the school who really had any chance of being in that band. I, at least, could read music really well, and I was starting to figure that there was something in this music that could be valuable, formative work.”

His jazz education continued at home, too, by listening to the radio every night. During his teenage years, he would tune in five times a week between 10pm and midnight.

This interest in jazz consolidated itself once Grabowsky embarked upon music studies at university: “I discovered that the classical music education no longer held any attraction for me. I really wanted to learn about jazz.”

Grabowsky’s upcoming performance at The Count’s is a special occasion for the celebrated pianist, as he is the reason for its existence in the first place.

From 1990-1992, Grabowsky served as musical director of the comedy chat show Tonight Live with Steve Vizard, where he was referred to by the show’s host, “in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way”, as The Count. The name stuck and it became his alias throughout Paul’s time on the show.

When Grabowsky joined Monash University, the former Vice-Chancellor – and now Governor of Victoria – Margaret Gardner thought the campus jazz house should be named The Count’s in honour of Paul’s impact on Australian culture and music.

“So the name of the club,” he says, “is a bit of a reference to that.” Paul is proud of his joint responsibilities as an educator and a musician, but he does not approach his piano bench from the perspective of a teacher.

“My aim as a musician is not to be didactic; I’m not trying to consciously educate. I don’t think that’s my role. My role is to communicate through music, and to share in the beauty of the musical moment, which is what I think jazz is all about.”

Grabowsky’s relationship to jazz music remains as strong today as it was in those first explorations of the discipline in his youth, always excited by what comes of such a free-form musical style. It’s a style of music which allows for a great variety of expression and feeling, due largely to its amorphous nature.

“Because jazz is largely improvised music,” he says, “what is happening in the moment is the meaning of it. The meaning of it happens in the process of making the music, and that is always what I seek to achieve.”

Opening the 2025 season with new interpretations of a classic jazz album celebrating its 50th birthday, punters will have plenty of musical colour and texture to enjoy at The Count’s come 19 February.

To get tickets to see Paul Grabowsky presents – The Concierto Project, head here.

Coming up next at The Count’s: Wilbur Wilde Blowout Ft Amanda Testro, 26 February. Find the full Live at The Count’s lineup here.

This article was made in partnership with The Count’s.