Mushroom Jazz brings live improvised sets to Melbourne every fortnight
Grab a booth, order a drink and forget the setlist; this one’s being written on the spot at The Vic Bar.
Mushroom Jazz is bringing together a rotating cast of Melbourne musicians for a fully improvised live jazz night every fortnight. Named after Mark Farina’s legendary mix series of the same name, Mushroom Jazz translates that genre-fluid, low-tempo sensibility into a live setting, swapping decks for instruments while keeping the same spontaneous, crowd-reactive energy that made the original mixes so beloved.
The whole night is built around eclecticism and spontaneity. Rather than sticking to a fixed script, the band reads the room and lets the music move freely between styles, meaning no two nights ever sound quite the same.
Mushroom Jazz at The Vic Bar
- Live jazz band, every second Thursday
- Expect a journey through jazz, neo-soul, hip hop, spiritual jazz and house
- Plus, one free drink for each person when a booth is booked!
- Brainwaves — 9 July
- Finn Milne — 23 July
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
View this post on Instagram
Many of the bands playing Mushroom Jazz have some serious dance floor pedigree hiding behind the instruments. Joel Segal moonlights as Short Hand, AKA Zeb doubles as Skin Contact, and Algbra records under the alias Brainwaves; though on this stage he’s behind the bass, not the decks, meaning the improvisation on stage is often shaped by musicians who already know how to read a crowd from years spent producing and DJing.
That Brainwaves alias isn’t just a stage name, either; it’s also the project kicking off this month’s run on 9 July.
Steered by Ju’Suan and Algbra, there’s no script here: every session pulls in a fresh lineup of musicians who improvise on the spot, drifting through neo-soul, hip hop, house, trip hop, jazz and electronic textures built around groove and feel rather than any set structure.
Past guests have included Thando, Tyla Moonchild, RARA ZULU, Annalisa Fernandez, Shantael Raphael, AKA Zeb, Julian Joseph, Nkechi, Miles Nautu, Melody Kin, Anna Morley and Tanya George. Drummer, producer and bandleader Ju’Suan sits at the centre of it all, blending downtempo beats with live playing; the whole thing is really about giving musicians room to connect with a crowd on the fly.
Closing out the run on 23 July is Finn Milne. His music leans heavily on rhythm, drawing together West African traditions with North American and European jazz to show how closely the two are actually related.
Expect a set that mixes originals with contemporary and spiritual jazz standards, alongside a few pieces from Chale Wote, Milne’s separate, still-running project linking Ghanaian traditional musicians based in Melbourne with the local improvised scene.
Milne takes piano, joined by Lily Appelt on bass and Quinn Knight on drums.
That mix of trained musicianship and DJ instinct is what sets Mushroom Jazz apart from a standard jazz gig.
Instead of working through a set list, the band treats every performance as a conversation with the audience, letting the room’s energy dictate where the music goes next; one minute leaning into a spiritual jazz groove, the next sliding into a house-inflected groove without missing a beat.
The venue’s intimacy plays a big part in that exchange too. With the band and crowd sharing such close quarters, the energy genuinely runs both ways, the audience shapes the performance just as much as the performance shapes the room.
With two acts locked in for July, Brainwaves and Finn Milne, there’s plenty of reason to book a booth and see where the night takes you.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with The Vic Bar.
