Jazz / Sandra and Gary France. At Smith’s Alternative, August 6. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

To a capacity house on Wednesday night that had jazz host Geoff Page, scratching his head in astonishment, husband and wife team Sandra and Gary France, with a team of top Canberra musos, hosted a joyous evening of contemporary jazz

The first half of the program was dominated by Sandra France’s own compositions – most of them songs for a yet-to-be-staged musical, Shimmy to the Other Side, written with Sydney playwright Alana Valentine, her collaborator on the 2019 music theatre work, Flight Memory.

Sandra is an expansive, expressive pianist who led the ensemble from her keyboard, which she used to full dramatic effect.

With Leisa Keen as vocalist singing largely at the serious, lower end of her range, the ensemble joined in the with gusto to perform often-quirky numbers, many looking at the end of life, although the opening number, was dedicated to the family dog, Miss Max.

This was followed by Beetle, a song using sharp, explicit language written about a truly appalling person, then I Am The One, Cream and Good Family Man, relating to Alzheimer’s, in which saxophonist Andrew Hackwill performed an extraordinarily poignant sax breakout.

The first segment finished with France’s own arrangement of what she admitted was some “weird” music by Charlie Parker – Moose the Mooch.

After a break featuring an entertaining sound check (who knew how much fun that could be?) it was time for a complete change of pace.

Gary France, now clad  in a lairy shirt inscribed with pictures of drums, assumed centre stage at the vibraphone to present his ensemble, Vibelicious, which he said had only been practicing together for six months and for which Sandra, unfamiliar with the Afro Cuban jazz style, had been on a learning curve.

This was where the joint really started to jump, as Gary, joined by Sandra on keyboard, Hackwill on sax, Malcolm Newland on drums, Andrew Milman on bass guitar, and veteran percussionist John “Jonesey” Jones on bongos introduced the more traditional jazz audience to the lively rhythms of the genre, inviting them to get up and dance.

He said this part of the program was dedicated to the late Canberra sax player Niels Rosendahl, who in his lifetime was commissioned by Gary to rearrange the numbers we were to hear.

These included the rearrangement of a number by Canberra composer Sally Greenaway and Mongo Santamaría’s 1969 jazz standard, Afro Blue.

A high point in the second half was Maria Schneider’s The Pretty Road, initially written for an extensive trumpet solo, but unsurprisingly, adapted by Rosendahl for sax. Hackwill’s sensuous and sensitive playing did Rosendahl‘s memory proud.

“I was always told, leave ‘em wanting more,” Gary told the audience before introducing the final number, Latin jazz signature number Wachi Wara, where each member of the ensemble took turns to show us just what stuff they were made of.