A post about something that isn’t music, but that is all the same dear to my heart: wardrobe.

I was at work a little while ago, where I meet Sall’s patients, and that day I suited up. That motivated this post. Some time before that I went to a fabulous dinner at the parish where I work in St Kilda, playing the organ (i.e. I play the organ there on Sunday mornings rather than at dinner) and I wore a suit and an overcoat and my black hat (which is actually an Akubra that they call a Bogart. Strange but true.). Also, I wore a cravat, as I had at Sall’s work, because in recent years I have fallen in love with cravats and I think they are desperately underrated. They draw comments something like in November when I’m growing a moustache, and they start conversations, and people tell me of their distant grandfather or whoever who always wore a cravat. They compliment me on having thought of it, and I’m pleased.

My first cravat was hand-made for me by my mother-in-law, but since then I’ve found a few vendors who have them available so now I’ve a repertoire and can vary with mood or weather or whatever.

Ties are good, and I have a few crackers that I’ve enjoyed to wear over the years. They’ll have their turn again, to be sure, and I’ll vary the knots – half Windsor usually but occasionally a full Windsor – but at the moment it’s cravats all the way for me. A bow tie is also dependable, provided you’ve tied it yourself (and there’s no mystery here boys: it’s a bow). Long ago, at school, when we went to formals if you’d tied your own bow tie then at the end of the evening you could untie it and the ends hanging down around your neck were – well, are there words? You thought you were in a 1960s Fellini movie. (News flash: you weren’t. You were also probably very, very drunk.  But God almighty, you were having fun.)

Here’s another thing: cufflinks. If you’ve ensured that your shirt isn’t swamped by your jacket sleeve, then your ’links will be visible. Make ’em shine! Most of mine are Jensen, although not all; one of my most precious pairs was given me by my brother when he was married because I agreed to sign the document, and in fact I wore them to dinner in St Kilda. I love the trouble it takes to tie your sleeves before you emerge. So often I’m merely rolling ’em up, but even buttoning is a thing. Because

There is also: the

Okay I thought there was a word for it but the best with which I could come up was ‘the bands’. That seems ridiculously boring; these elasticised items go just above the elbow and permit you to draw your shirt sleeve up just so it isn’t all over your hand. It keeps the cuffs cleaner, of course, and that’s good; also – in fact there’s nothing else. That’s it. Our local menswear store has ceased to stock bands so when I needed to replace my ancient ones I had to go to Fairfield to a shop with a very chatty gentleman who saw the Beatles in 1964 and needed me to know about it. (They will also make the security gate ping when you go to court or try to get on an aeroplane. That is tedious but worth it.)

So hoping your trouser leg gets just over the shoe, and that your jacket is fastened when you stand but loose when you sit, and that you always pat your face dry, that’ll be all for now.

25/ix/2025

Trigger warning: proceed and you’ll hear Allan Browne’s voice.

Friends, the third Browne – Haywood – Stevens album is getting closer. I have a shortlist of items from which to select the final playlist, and it may in fact be a double album because we have so much stuff, but please know it’s on its way.

The Melbourne International Jazz Festival has just released its program for this year, and features an event called ‘Celebrating Allan Browne’. A nice idea, I guess, because yes we loved him and yes we remember him. But it’s a very, very small fraction of the number of people who played with him, and I have to say that the memorial concert given in his honour in September 2016 was a far better way to go about it. Lots of us played, and there was traditional and modern jazz, representing far more areas of his musical interest than merely the modern, and it felt that even in his absence he was properly represented. Why not put us all in the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and really celebrate him? Anyway.

Part of the process of getting our track listing together for this album is listening to what Al said on the gigs where we played together. His raves are famous, and I’ve given some of them before  and as I said there they came to identify his live performances for some people just as much as the music that was played. We want to include some of his talking among the chosen pieces, so here is a sample.

Al’s extraordinary gift for bullshitting, and his superb sense of the ridiculous, as well as his wide and deep reading, all contributed to these raves. Jeff Kennett came in for a beating frequently, as he was state premier at this time; sometimes certain friends had come to hear us and they would be somehow wound into the discourse. One never knew where things would end since detours, while expected, were totally unpredictable.

We may or may not use this particular selection, which comes from Bennetts Lane on 7 December 1998, I don’t know. There are, in fact, some 101 items from which to choose, and they range in duration from 0:27 to 4:51. This one was actually edited because Al talked a lot more about Peter Bayerer and I’ve no way of knowing how he’d feel about this. I am finding hearing Al’s voice both consoling and a bit heartbreaking; the reminders of the time we spent together are however marvellous and that time is treasured forever.

30/viii/2025