GUITAR

I started off wearing out Cream and Hendrix records, while learning jazz standards in the styles of Joe Pass, Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel (still working on them, too!), while also playing Grand Funk, McKenna Mendeleson Mainline, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull (learnt flute for a while after that) etc. Had a band playing Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears, Tower of Power and Rastus (who?)

Moved on through funk stuff - Average White Band, Crusaders, etc., and found John McLaughlin and Mahavishnu - That really turned my head around!!! Then Chick Corea, Larry Coryell, Flora Purim, and the rest of the seventies jazz/rock/latin/fusion stuff.

Since then, I've been playing everything except full-on classical, as well as arranging heaps of MIDI stuff, either for performance, or scoring for ensembles.

Like most guitarists, I'm into guitars, but haven't enough money to indulge myself too much - computers cost money too! :)

1999 - I've also just finished my first CD, of jazz guitar, in time for Christmas 1998 - it's called "First Take". I learnt a lot about digital audio, recording, mixing, etc., in the process.

First Take

 

April 2010 - The Bernau and Lambert CD was released.

 

E-Mail:colbee1@iinet.net.au

I'm a guitarist/performer/music teacher, playing a variety of styles in a wide range of situations. I've worked with many well known artists, ranging from Australian acts like Jade Hurley, Daryl Braithwaite, Simon Gallagher, Jackie Love and Normie Rowe in the cabaret and rock fields and Ricky May and Erroll Buddle in the jazz field, to international stars such as Al Martino and Thelma Houston, plus supported a broad variety of international and national artists, varying from B.B. King, Joe Cocker, Leo Sayer, the Pointer Sisters and Hot Chocolate to Renee Geyer, Split Enz , John Paul Young and Jon English.

I completed my Diploma of Music (Jazz Studies) in 1988, and have taught classroom music Years 7-12 since 1990 at Marist College Canberra, conducting the Jazz Band and an electric guitar ensemble, probably the only one of its type in Australia (I wonder why? - six adolescent electic guitarists, bass and drums!! Not running currently, but may surface again in the future, once I get new earplugs!!) In 2010 I have decide to concentrate in teaching guitar both at Marist and in my own studio.

In 2003, I played in Canberra Philharmonic's extremely successful procuction of the musical "Chicago", playing tenor banjo, ukulele and mandolin. Then I worked as principal mandolin in the Austalian Ballet's production of Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet". Whoa! That was a bit of a headspin!! Previously, with "Chicago" in 2003 and in 1985, when I last performed in the show, I was able to get away with tuning the mandolin like a guitar, and as long as I could handle the picked tremolo, all was cool.... "Romeo and Juliet", however, needs real mando tuning, so in two and a half weeks, I had to relearn fingerings, reading etc (a bit like learning to play standing on your head!! :)). Luckily it worked out OK.

This did lead me to a new interest in mandolin, however, and a bunch of us got together and formed the Canberra Mandolin Orchestra, which started in 2003. I've since moved on from there and with my wife Lea formed COZMO (Capital of Australia Mandolinata Inc.). We play a wide range of music styles from Baroque and Classical to Ragtime and modern Australian compositions.

In recent years, I have ben performing regularly with 10 piece function band Big Boss Groove, Bernau and Lambert Duo, COZMO (Capital of Australia Mandolinata), folk bands My Wife Deirdre and 3 Sheets to The Wind. I currently (2024) play in the Blamey Street Big Band and Indian fusion group Funkaars