I feel sorry for the young jazz fans who attend concerts these days. They have never heard the greats.

They have never heard Duke Ellington playing for hours on the piano in the bar at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney limbering up before a big concert with his orchestra, or John Malachai (peerless accompanist to Sarah Vaughn, Joe Williams, Billy Eckstein and Dinah Washington) playing in Bill Harris' Pigs Foot in Washington D.C. They weren't in the Arts Centre at ANU when Earl Hines gave a concert of unparalleled grandeur involving solo trio and quartet performances. It lasted hours and he must have been nearly eighty when he performed.

They missed Cannonball Adderly at the Southern Cross Club in Canberra or Ray Brown at the Labor Club. They haven't heard Sonny Stitt and Art Blakey blowing the walls down at Fat Tuesdays in New York, Stan Getz in a small church in Switzerland, Nina Simone in a smoke filled club in Paris or Monk picking out minimalist tunes in a world of his own.

They are all gone now. Like Sir John Falstaff we have heard the chimes at midnight.

I don't get to jazz concerts much these days. I miss the smoke filled rooms where you could hear great music for a small cover charge and the price of a couple of beers. It is concerts these days, in huge amphitheatres with astronomical prices. The only consolation is the occasional trip to Bennett's Lane. These days I sit around the Debate office playing CD's and streaming jazz radio from the US.

But I had a rare pleasure last night when I went to a concert at Llewellyn Hall in Canberra. The bill was the Mike Price Trio and Vertical. The two groups have a common member, the wonderful Eric Ajaye, who coincidentally played bass for Joe Williams and Sonny Stitt as well as Taj Mahal and Freddie Hubbard. He now teaches at the Canberra School of Music. He was joined by two other faculty members in the Mike Price Trio, Mike himself, one of the best guitarists going around and Colin Hoorweg, who has to be the best drummer in the country.

Two numbers stood out, the Billy Holiday classic, “You Don't Know What Love Is”, which was originally written for an Abbott and Costello movie, and the theme for the film “Two for the Road” which was Henry Mancini's favourite of all his tunes. The treatments were subtle understated examples of jazz chamber music, with extended improvisations that were beautifully worked. It was sheer extended pleasure to listen to.

Vertical is Eric's own group. His pianist Paul Dal Broi was unable to play so Mike Azzopardi filled in. His technique was dazzling, as good as any I have heard in a long time. Niels Rosendahl is a driving powerful sax player and the drumming of Christopher Thwaite matched Eric's strong rythmic backing. The highlight of the set was Eric's own composition “Here to There to Hear”, a complex piece where beautiful melodies were contained by a strong percussive intensity. It made an old jazz fan's heart soar to hear music played as it should be, never forgetting that jazz is essentially percussive and that the rhythm is everything.

The concert lasted two and a half hours so it was too late to go and get a schooner of VB when it finished. It is hard to do jazz without a beer, but there was still a touch of euphoria when I got home and opened the fridge.