Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen

Hitting Australian shores with his Absolute Monster Gentlemen for the first time since his 2016 Grammy Award win for new album GoGo Juice, Jon Cleary has officially announced the Australian leg of his World Tour for this November. A hot ticket on Australian shores where he has sold out everywhere from Sydney's Opera House (Legends of New Orleans tour) to The Corner Hotel and torn up festival stages across the country from Bluesfest and WOMADelaide to Wangaratta Jazz, this is a Grammy Award winning album tour not to be missed. A respected peer of such New Orleans R&B icons as Dr. John and the late Allen Toussaint (who wrote most of the horn arrangements for GoGo Juice) Jon Cleary came to international fame through his work in the bands of Taj Mahal, John Scofield, Dr. John and Bonnie Raitt, with Raitt unabashedly dubbing him the ninth wonder of the world.

The AlbumWorking alongside Grammy Award-winning producer John Porter (Elvis Costello, Carlos Santana, B. B. King) Cleary says Funk is the ethnic folk music of New Orleans, and I wanted to infuse GoGo Juice with a sound that was true to the city I love. Watch the GoGo Juice Album Trailer here. Thoroughly steeped in the classic New Orleans keyboard canon – from Jelly Roll Morton to Fats Domino to Art Neville, James Booker, and beyond – Cleary uses that centurys worth of pianistic brilliance as a point of departure to forge his own unique and eclectic style. As heard in the widely varied grooves and textures of GoGo Juice, Clearys sound incorporates such far-flung influences as 70s soul, gospel music, funk, Afro-Caribbean (and especiallyAfro-Cuban) rhythms and more. I love New Orleans R&B, Cleary explains. Im a student of it – and a fan, first and foremost.

But theres little point in just going back and re-recording the old songs – although on my live solo shows, especially in New Orleans, I make a point of trying to keep the fast- disappearing tradition of the R&B pianist/singer alive by playing the old songs that are in danger of being forgotten. As for recording, however, I think the greatest New Orleans R&B records are the ones that built on what went before but also added something new. By writing new songs you get to channel all the music you absorb through your own individual set of filters – and the fun is in seeing what emerges.The ManBorn in Kent, England to a musical family, Jon Cleary epitomizes the fanaticism and inherent single mindedness of a musician who decides that he simply wasnt born where he was supposed to be. Like Dylan to New York, infatuated with the music of New Orleans throughout his entire childhood, as soon as he was old enough to leave school, Cleary took
off for the Crescent City.

When his flight touched down he had the taxi take him straight to the Maple Leaf, a funky uptown bar which then featured such New Orleans piano legends as Roosevelt Sykes and James Booker. 35 years and 8 albums later –hes now a defining part of New Orleans musical heritage.