Bruce Cale Quartet
The Bruce Cale Quartet was a short-lived Australian jazz ensemble of the early 1980s, led by bassist and composer Bruce Cale. Its music joined post-bop structure with free improvisation of rare intensity and collective rapport.
Two live concerts from 1980 survive on Tall Poppies. Bruce Cale Quartet Live (TP175) documents the final night of a week-long engagement at the Adelaide Festival of Arts. On Fire: The Sydney Concert (TP203) captures a NSW Jazz Action Society performance at the Sydney Musicians’ Club a few months later. Both sets are built largely on Cale’s compositions and remain vivid archival documents of a band that left little other commercial record of its music-making.
Bruce Cale Quartet is featured on the following titles
On Fire: The Sydney Concert
Tall Poppies is proud to release this fine recording of the Bruce Cale Quartet: Dale Barlow (flute and saxophones), Roger Frampton (piano), Bruce Cale (bass) and Phil Treloar (drums), each an exceptional creative musician. Recorded in 1980 at the Sydney Musicians’ Club, these performances document a unique musical journey.
Bruce Cale Quartet Live
Tall Poppies releases a fine live document of the Bruce Cale Quartet: Dale Barlow (flute and saxophones), Roger Frampton (piano), Bruce Cale (bass) and Phil Treloar (drums). Captured at the 1980 Adelaide Festival of Arts, the set traces a distinctive creative path.
Members of Bruce Cale Quartet
Bruce Cale
Bruce Cale's bass and writing fuel a 1980 quartet of primal force and telepathic fire, while his concertos and mountain suites open into lush, tonal orchestral space.
Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton’s free improvisations on prepared and unprepared piano open worlds of gamelan, cracked chimes, industrial ticks and sudden melody. As pianist, saxophonist and composer he brought the same searching heat to live Australian jazz quartets that still sound urgent decades on.
Dale Barlow
Dale Barlow's saxophones cut with a big, singing tone through hard-swinging post-bop and freer Australian jazz. On tenor, soprano and flute he spins long linear lines that still sound urgent decades after they were caught live.
Phil Treloar
Phil Treloar's percussion lives where composition meets free play. On the Bruce Cale Quartet live sets his cymbals drive the heat and his accents keep the soloists honest; as composer-performer he builds long-form works that think in pure sound.