The first recordings

The first one was Reflected Journey and I managed to get Mike and Randy Brecker to play on it. This is not as easy as it sounds when you live in Australia and they don’t. I had to steal them away from their respective tours when they came to town. Mike was in Melbourne with Paul Simon back in 1991 and Randy was touring under his own name. I liked the Pat Matheny group at this stage of my life and that’s probably reflected in this record. It was actually the first and last time I incorporated electronics into my music. My heart will always be with acoustic instruments. (I think that playing a digital piano is like dancing with a mannequin).

I made another eight discs. The second one A Brief History of Standard Time (reissued in 2002 as The First Take) is a trio recording which features Ray Brown on bass. He was such fun to work with. I met him in Tokyo. We were all playing at the ‘Playboy jazz festival’ when I approached Ray and told him I would love to record with him one day. I was serious but not expecting anything to come of it. About a year later he wrote to me from Istanbul – he was going to be touring Australia soon and wanted to know if I still wanted to make that record. I was in the middle of Reflected Journey and was in no position to go into the studio with Ray. Anyway we managed to make the record a year later. He sat on my left in the studio and never took his eyes off my left hand. The bass book I wrote for the sessions is signed by Ray. It says “It was a total pleasure. Let's do it again. More ballads.” I treasure these words, especially now that he’s gone.