Kris Davis Trio
Soojin Suh Coloris Trio
SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S JAZZ FESTIVAL
Presented by SIMA
October 24
An evening of innovative jazz where sounds were shaped, layered and contoured into rhythmic tessellations and shifting melodic snippets.
Presented by Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA), Canadian pianist Kris Davis brought her masterful trio to the intimate stage of St Stephen’s Church for the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival 2026 concert series. With a discerning and jazz literate audience completely mesmerised, it was fascinating to hear two trios of similar line up – piano, bass and drums – where it was often the bass lines that linked us most strongly to the musical explorations.
COLORIS TRIO
Soojin Suh | drums
Jaehun Kang | piano
Hoo Kim | bass
As a prelude, the Coloris Trio led by drummer Soojin Suh and prominent in the evolving Korean jazz scene, subtly blended resonating gong and bell tones with throbbing pivotal bass notes and chunky piano chords. ‘What’s Behind The Door’ took Kim’s slow bass pizzicato into a virtuosic bebop style solo where the notes were flashing past, accompanied by a rat-a-tat snare from Suh. Three of her connected original works on the uncertainty of life allowed pianist Kang to beautifully phrase melodic lines in ‘Beginnings And Endings’ and the drums flickered the apprehension with delicate brush and rim strokes. Suh’s humble concern that their playing may disturb the natural beauty of the historic church was totally unfounded.
KRIS DAVIS TRIO
Kris Davis | piano
Robert Hurst | bass
Johnathan Blake | drums
Kris Davis is Associate Program Director of Creative Development at Berklee’s Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Pyroclastic Records founder and highly regarded for her work across performance, education and independent music publishing, actively supporting and nurturing new artists, especially women musicians and composers.
The opening Davis composition ‘Little Footsteps’, dedicated to her son, gave a spotlight to a phenomenal solo from bassist Robert Hurst and seemed vitalised by the subterraneous drumming of Jonathan Blake, the piano moving into a shimmering crescendo where the crowd actually cheered at the climax in acknowledgment. In contrast, ‘Where Does That Tunnel Go?’ from the Trio’s latest 2026 release Lost In Geneva, was an exploration of a previous Davis musical space (Good Citizen 2010), jolting between a repeated piano riff and percussive cross rhythms.
‘Congestion Pricing’ had all the hallmarks of Big Apple traffic noise, fascinating in its pianistic colours and Blake tapping, touching and coaxing the suspended and cymbal set-ups. It appeared from this pew that Davis even included moments of prepared piano, leaning over into the piano to pluck and reverberate open strings. Closing the set, ‘Run The Gauntlet’ (Run The Gauntlet 2024) references multiple inspiring female pianists and was remarkable for its keyboard artistry in irregular metres, an incredible Hurst harmonic bass solo and Blake’s polyrhythmic precision drums anchoring the tight collaboration of three extraordinary musicians.
Bold, inventive, and impeccably crafted, the night was leading-edge contemporary jazz that spoke directly to listeners with a palette for complexity and finesse, appreciated while sipping a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc from the bar.
Kris Davis is the Alfred Hook Lecture Keynote Speaker at the Australian Jazz And Improvisation Research Network Symposium at The Sydney Conservatorium from October 31st, tracing entangled local histories of jazz and other improvisatory practices, transnational and intercultural encounters between improvising musicians, cognitive entanglements, and the global circulation of improvisatory practices and repertoires across space, time, and tradition.
An exceptional evening concert on October 29th will showcase a culmination of Kris Davis’ week-long residency mentoring Con jazz students and a free masterclass providing insight into her innovative practice is on October 28th.
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