Features / Music
All the world is her stage, but jazz singer still calls Brunswick home
Michelle Nicolle has maintained a residency at Sydney Road venue for 18 years
Andra Jackson
INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed jazz singer Michelle Nicolle has performed in concert halls and jazz clubs around the world but her allegiance remains with the Brunswick Green.
The singer who has collaborated with American jazz luminaries Kurt Elling and Wynton Marsalis, has held a Thursday night spot in the Sydney Road venue’s front lounge for 18 years.
The only nights the Brunswick resident is not behind its microphone performing with her band are times such as the Covid pandemic, and last year when she sang to rapt crowds in Prague, or in March this year when she was launching her latest CD in Los Angeles.
Nicolle is originally from Adelaide where she studied music at university. She moved into Brunswick 30 years ago with her husband and musical partner, drummer and improviser Ronny Ferella.
Reflecting on what the suburb was like then, she recalls while there was always a lot of music happening, “there was not so much jazz, it was more in the city and the St Kilda side’’.
In the time she has lived in Brunswick, Nicolle has witnessed its musical transformation as jazz venues emerged, including the Brunswick Green, and The JazzLab, where she will be appearing this Friday night (May 9).
“I remember even before that doing a regular jazz gig at the old Post Office [Penny Black] along Sydney Road.’’
The opening of the Cross Street music venue has become part of the broader jazz community, she says. “And JazzLab, how crazy is that? It is just round the corner.’’
In July it will be the 18th anniversary of her Thursday night gig at the Brunswick Green, apart from the Covid hiatus. She remembered when she first started the gig, thinking it would be amazing if this could be a weekly gig, “to just know I am going to have that gig and [owner] Paul [Postema] said, ‘Absolutely, you have got this gig as long as we are here’.
With a varying lineup that has included her quartet members guitarist Geoff Hughes, bassist, Tom Lee and Ferella, and the legendary saxophonist Paul Williamson and guests such as trumpeter Mat Jodrell, Nicolle gradually built up the spot until it boasts a regular audience crew.
“They are kind of like family now.
“It has been great because it makes me have something each week even if I don’t feel like doing it which is really rare. What has been great is that I keep learning repertoire, and the musicians I get to rotate each week.”
Nicolle attributes early touring opportunities around Australia and overseas to former tour manager Henk Van Leeuwen.
He organised funding for her and her band to play at the Netherland’s famous North Sea Jazz Festival, Estonia’s Tallinn International Jazzkaar Festival, the Jarasum Jazz Festival in South Korea, the Singapore International Jazz Festival, the Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival, and clubs in Turkey as well as Australia’s top end.
Part of that time she was a young mother.
“It is so much work creating a tour. If it wasn’t for Henk, I don’t think I would be doing it [performing] now,” she says.
Two of her more recent career highlights include performances with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with the hip Elling in 2015 and with trumpeter Marsalis and both the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra in 2023.
“Those gigs [overseas or with the MSO], they are one offs. I am never going to play with Wynton Marsalis again. I guess it means that people for that little minute notice you and in writing it looks good.”
Nicolle is a highly creative vocalist with a wide vocal range who can reimagine a song with her scatting and Elling hailed her as “a singer born to sing”.
Recommended by the MSO for a soloist role in Marsalis’ epic Rising composition she acknowledged feeling daunted by the role that she saw as gospel. For the Melbourne concerts she was placed high above the stage as she sang the words ‘All Rise’.
But she discloses in Sydney at the dress rehearsal before the Opera House concert, Marsalis called her to his dressing room.
“He talked me through the music again, it was amazing. I will never forget that moment. He was at the piano. I had to sing the phrase ‘All Rise’ I think, eight times.
“He gave me an idea to think about every separate time even though they were the same notes so having that insight from him was huge.’’
Marsalis also had her stand next to him as part of the band for the performance.
“It was an unforgettable experience. Sometimes I think did that really happen? Yes, there are pictures,” she laughs.
Nicolle finds the biggest challenge is to keep motivated when there is only so much a jazz musician can do in Australia.
Finding opportunities requires background work and a lot of organising.
“For most of us, we have to do that ourselves so you have to find a way of wanting to do that. That’s the biggest challenge, finding a way to do that. It is not about the music.
“For me the way I’ve found that keeps my motivation going and keeps the spark alive is keeping on working on adventures where I am going elsewhere and meeting different people so I get excited about that and I come back energised.”
One such adventurous project was her 2023 release of her chamber jazz interpretation of the music of JS Bach that she describes as fun to take on.
Nicolle now handles overseas opportunities herself by networking.
Van Leeuwin, now retired, recommended she attended a jazz vocal conference in Finland in 2016 that included representatives from the United States who lined up appearances for her that flowed onto university invites and club dates in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
At one of those club dates she found herself performing in 2020 in Los Angeles with guitarist Larry Koonse. When invited to perform for a series of house concerts in Seattle, she asked him to accompany her.
They hit it off musically and last June she returned to LA to record The Silent Wish with him, her 11th album.
So far, it has drawn eight glowing overseas reviews including from Spain’s La Habitacion del Jazz.
The singer is no stranger to accolades. So far she has accumulated the Music Victoria Award last year, the Bell Australian Jazz award in 2017, and the Mo Award in 2001, 2003, and 2004. One review in Prague last year was headed Michelle Nicolle We Surrender. But she remains grounded.
“All those things are really nice but what has meant the most is that I’ve got a crew of people that I really like working with and I know if I ask them to do a project, they will say yes,” she says.
“Basically having my same band for so long, having Geoff play in the band for so long and having Tom who has been with us 20 years now, and Geoff 26 years. It is a long time. That means more than anything.
“Those gigs [overseas or with the MSO], they are one offs. I am never going to play with Wynton Marsalis again. I guess it means that people for that little minute notice you and in writing it looks good.”
The busy singer also teaches two days at Melbourne University’s Victoria College of the Arts and the VCA’s Secondary School and next semester a day at Monash University’s Jazz course.
She has just returned from a week at Ballarat teaching at the Australian Jazz School, now in its second year, and is about to head to Mount Gambier to teach and adjudicate in its Generations In Jazz course.
She likes to keep on her toes with an ever-expanding repertoire that she does by inviting her audience at the Brunswick Green to nominate a song for her to sing and see if she knows it.
The Michelle Nicolle Quartet will be appearing at The JazzLab in Brunswick at 8pm on Friday. Michelle Nicolle and Friends perform in the Brunswick Green’s front Room from 8.30pm on Thursdays.
