David Ades

One day when I was almost 18, I heard strange voices in my head telling me to pick up this curiosly shaped thing called an alto saxophone and blow the fuck out of it. I did and I have lived a life of the glorius uncertainty ever since. Nothing else makes much sense to me and not only does playing the saxophone provide me my livelyhood but it also keeps me relatively sane in this insane world.DAVID ADESAustralian alto saxophonist David Ades began playing professionally in 1980. He has been heard with the cream of Australian musicians such as Phil Treloar, Mark Simmonds, Paul Grabowsky and a two and a half-year stint with vocalist Vince Jones.In 1981 David journeyed to New York living in Harlem for the next three years. Of this experience David relates the time he spent in Harlem as having a profound influence on his musical conception and view of life. “It was amazing up there, I played in this club called the Blue Book and I never knew who was going to show up and play. On some nights it was Jack McDuff, Sonny Stitt, and Roy Haynes or maybe Stanley Turrentine and Freddie Hubbard would turn up and they would just hang out and play whenever they felt the urge. Most of the time they would encourage me to jump up with them. It was an education you couldn't buy for all the money in the world.”In 1984 David returned to Sydney much in demand as a featured soloist, and started receiving attention in the Australian press. Caught at a Kings Cross venue S.M.H music critic John Clare described David's playing as “Distinctive as the masters, a unique and original voice. David's presence is as large and luminous as life itself, a rare talent indeed.”In 1987 David received an invitation to perform with the Phil Treloar group “Feeling to Thought”. It was with Phil Treloar and this group, that David became exposed to many different musical idioms “It was incredible. One week we performing a collaborative piece with the Tasmanian University String Orchestra, the next week we were playing with Simone De Haahn’s “Pipeline”. The line-up was Mark Simmonds on Tenor Sax, Steve Elphick on Bass, Dave Ades on Alto Sax, and Phil Treloar - the Drummer and Composer for the group.In 1989 David joined the Vince Jones group and spent the next two and a half years touring all over Australia and accompanying Vince twice overseas. It was toward the end of this period that David recorded his debut solo album for Roo Art Records titled “Bird on a Head”. Critics both here and overseas described the album as “ground breaking new music, David's musical personality is stamped all over it.”In 1992 David met his wife to be Australian painter Melissa Jane Thompson and soon after moved to Asia with her for the next five years. There he settled down to consistent performing all over the continent featuring at many of the international jazz festivals in the region. He performed with Wynton Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval, Cristy Lloyd Smith and many others. “The best thing about playing in that part of the world,” David says “is that I've never played so consistently, I would sign contracts and be playing jazz six nights a week with great players, unheard of in Australia.”David returned to Australia toward the end of 1998 and moved to his current home of Bangalow on the far north coast of N.S.W. There he met and formed a musical friendship with Scott Tinkler, Greg Sheehan, and Thierry Fosmale who together with David make up the band FATS. Their first self-titled album and their latest "Juicy Shoots" have been released to great acclaim in the Australian press, resulting in performances and rave reviews at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival, The Brisbane Biennial, The Byron Blues and Roots Festival and ABC’s PULSE series, screened nationally in September 2002In 2000 David re connected with Phil Treloar. This resulted in a newly formed Feeling to Thought performance of a new piece of Phil's entitled " SHADES in memoriam Roger Frampton " dedicated and inspired by the essence of the late and great Roger Frampton. The piece was performed in the Studio of the Sydney Opera House, Nov 24th 2002 and was also recorded at ABC studio's for national broadcast on the " The Listening Room"" Through it all blew the storming, aching saxophone of Ades. it often seemed the room could barely contain its power, and that it would burst walls and hearts simultaneously. It was as majestic as it was raw, as complex as it was primitive and as potent as it was vulnerable." John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald, Reveiw of Shades at the Sydney Opera House 26th Nov 2002.“ Talented musicians do more than serenade their audience. Through music they inspire a will to unearth the complexities and struggles that spark life into their craft. David’s performance at the Jakarta International Jazz Festival did just that. He played with a passion that was scary; pushing his instrument to places unheard of, reaching a pinnacle of melodic invention and excitement. In gentler moments his sensitivity created moments of sublime beauty “ (Jeremy Tan, Jakarta Post, 1997)