The Evolution of Melbourne Cafe Music

How did bossa nova, jazz and easy listening music come to be a permanent part of café life in Melbourne?

Until the early 1980’s the idea of a creative youthful café culture did not exist here. The only options were European-run cafes, bistros and restaurants or pubs or the Australian cafeteria model such as Coles once was.

For many of us living in the inner suburbs these establishments were part of the daily routine, each with their unique characteristics. However, because the styles of these places were traditional and often rooted in the past, they did not specifically cater to youthful interests. Music was definitely not an essential part of the café going experience.

The stirrings of change began in Brunswick Street Fitzroy. The demographic at the time with its high proportion of students and alternative lifestylers in cheap rental properties as well as the old time locals, was a perfect setting for a new café society.

Noon, Saturday 29 May, 1982 – the doors of the Black Cat Cafe opened. It was our dream to establish an alternative café that featured elements of places we had already frequented as well as a heavy emphasis on music, social gathering and a casual approach to dining.

Instead of no music at all, we placed the cool sounds of Stan Getz, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Henry Mancini, Sergio Mendes, Miles Davis, Nelson Riddle, Joao Gilberto and Paul Desmond at the disposal of those to whom cappuccino had only previously meant Italian or Greek cafes. Our record collection was the perfect source for creating an ambience that accompanied our coffees. Bossa Nova, 60’s jazz, film and TV soundtracks, easy listening, latin cocktail music. Music that was cool, stylish, relaxing, sophisticated and above all, music that put you in your own movie. It sounded weird and kitsch, but it was lurking in everybody’s subconscious. We obtained it from various sources such as specialist record shops, op shops, markets and fetes due to the fact that commercial re-releasing of such music was 10 years away. It wasn’t readily available at this time, and basically, was still considered quirky.

The idea caught on immediately and other like-minded businesses began to open. Rhumbarella, Marios, The Galleon. These places formed the basis of a new concept in café design that was differentiated by décor and music. Importantly, Melbourne’s young people finally had places they could call their own.

Five years previous to this we had both separately been involved in theatre and music which had been a formative time in terms of taste, and after running the Black Cat for a year, it was time to return to live performance. With Andrew Philipp (sax) and Russell Cook (drums) we formed the Buddy Lovestein Big Band, a 4 piece cabaret mock-big band which enabled us to synthesise our taste in the recorded music we loved into a contemporary live band. This eventaully led to the formation of the Bachelors From Prague, an 8-piece pop-jazz outfit who played their first gigs at the Black Cat. The Bachelors’ sound became fully formed with the opening of the Moscow Cocktail, started by Rob Furst in ’84 on Sunday nights at the Champion Hotel, on the corner of Brunswick and Gertrude streets, and running for about a year and a half. This scary pub was transformed each week into an elegant cocktail lounge with an ambience created by the sophisticated and exotic recorded music of Bella Sounds, Toni, as DJ. Patrons came dressed for the occasion and some who had been dancing to the lush sounds of Frank Sinatra, Xavier Cugat, or Lalo Schifrin would then wander down to the Black Cat for a hot chocolate that was served to them by members of the band who were also working at the café. It was a very small scene.

Another night, organised by ourselves, the Purple Pit, followed in the same venue. This became very popular with locals and built up a following that enabled us to open our next weekly one-nighter, the Batchbox, in North Melbourne. Once again featuring the Bachelors and Bella Sounds, proving that in the ‘80’s one really could dance to jazz, latin and swing. In ’92 after 3 world tours, 5 CD’s and numerous Australia-wide tours the Bachelors decided to call it quits. The next phase was to open a real nightclub.

At 8pm, Thursday May12, 1994 – the doors of the Night Cat opened in Fitzroy. Here we continued the theme of music and style that we had been pursuing. At last we had a permanent venue to express our ideas with live music, atmospheric recorded music in a comfortable loungey atmosphere. This was in direct contrast to the hard-edge clinical designer look that proliferated at that time. At first we booked bands with a specific style and eventually encouraged musicians to form new groups that were tailored to the venue. And the response was very strong.

In early ’96 we began a new project to write and record music for a CD which would primarily be a soundtrack for cafes. A combination of cool jazz, bossa nova and easy listening. The Velvet Quiet was an ideal companion to the caffe latte in the ‘90’s. We had come the full circle, from listening to those 60’s recordings, through the process of playing live music and running venues, we created our own 90’s Melbourne lounge music recording.

Our passion for this musical genre has held us in good stead all these years. Our extensive use and creation of these melodic, stylish and gentle but rhythmical sounds which in the last 10 years have been re-issued in remarkable quantiities, has proven that this music is not just a background "Muzak" as perceived by many, but in fact has become a very powerful tool for the creation of mood, atmosphere and ambience in the cafes, bars and restaurants in Melbourne today.

© Toni Edwards & Henry Maas 1999