Saxophone quartet performance of arrangements by Phillip Johnston of the music of Steve Lacy

“Seminal, brilliant post-modern jazz” –Downbeat Magazine

“An exceptionally individualistic composer and superb improviser…” –The New Yorker

“Johnston’s music embodies all that’s good about jazz. It’s honest, original, and inspired, above and beyond the typical. It’s also some of the very smartest and best-humoured music to have found a home under the jazz banner.” —Jazziz

Date: Fri, 1 May 2026
Time:
Doors: 6:30 pm
Music: 7:00 pm
Address: 277-279 Broadway, Glebe

Phillip Johnston - Alto Saxophone
Peter Farrar - Alto Saxophone
Tim Clarkson - Tenor Saxophone
Jim Loughnan - Baritone Saxophone

This performance pays homage to the compositions of American soprano saxophone virtuoso Steve Lacy, as well as original jazz and New Music works by Johnston. Lacy’s work has been rarely performed in Australia since his untimely passing in 2004, but Johnston has been arranging and performing his work regularly since the early 80s and continues the practice here. His essay on Lacy’s tune Prospectus was included in the definitive 2021 book on Lacy’s work Steve Lacy (Unfinished).

Johnston is known internationally as an improvisor, composer and arranger, with his groups The Microscopic Septet, Big Trouble, The Coolerators and Fast N Bulbous. In addition to his own compositions for film, jazz club and concert hall, his reinventions of the music of Steve Lacy, Herbie Nichols, Thelonious Monk, Captain Beefheart and Jelly Roll Morton have garnered wide acclaim.

These four saxophonists have performed together as the front line of The Greasy Chicken Orchestra and Phillip Johnston Octet, as well as forming the contemporary music ensemble Saxophone Special, playing music encompassing early jazz, bebop and the avant garde. Peter Farrar (Believe), Tim Clarkson (Mara!) and James Loughnan (James Morrison) showcase their individual unique personal voices in music that balances composition and improvisation.