Name: Leigh Barker - SMITHS ALTERNATIVE
Start: 2025-11-08T09:00:00+11:00
Location: Smith's Alternative

Virtuoso string bassist, bandleader, composer and arranger, Leigh Barker moved to Paris from Australia in 2016 to bring a new international perspective to his many musical projects. In the years before his departure, Barker was already sustaining a busy international schedule including such highlights as the Sydney Opera House, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Festival in Iowa and The New York Lindy Exchange as well as global tours with the “Tom Vincent Trio” and the “Hot Jazz Alliance”. As a sideman he has accompanied artists as diverse as Branford Marsalis, Gordon Webster, Sarah McKenzie, Andy Schumm and Dan Levinson, and in France and Europe since 2016 with many the greats of traditional and mainstream jazz, including Christophe Davot, Chris Hopkins, Olivier Franc and Duved Dunayevsky.
Ambitiously as a bandleader Leigh has maintained a regular line up in both France AND Australia, which allowed him to spend two days in the studio with the Melbourne based musicians in late 2022. This produced the new full length album “CROSS STREET” available in all mediums from May 2025, (including for the very first time vinyl!) These sessions reunited Leigh with all his regular bandmates, allowing the group to develop even further Leigh's vision of an inclusive and diverse music, where one finds the all the critical elements of blues, swing, hot jazz and classic themes, at the heart of an exuberant, spontaneous and virtuosic orchestra. On the new album and now in 2025 live on tour in Australia, vocalist and violinist Heather Stewart anchors these five musical comrades with her moving and swinging voice, while the orchestra traverses a rich palette of rhythm melody and improvisation.
Leigh Barker - string bass
Heather Stewart - voice and violin
Eamon McNelis - trumpet
Max Teakle - piano
Abby Constable - drums
Valdis Thomann - trombone