Stage set for Perth jazz revival

THE changing face of Perth's jazz music scene was highlighted this month by the approval of redevelopment plans for one historic venue coinciding with the opening of another.

An extensive redevelopment of the Hyde Park Hotel is set to proceed after the Town of Vincent approved modified plans put forward by the hotel's owner, the Woolworths-owned Australian Liquor and Hospitality Group.

For nearly 30 years, jazz aficionados had gone to the Hyde Park Hotel for the line-ups of Australia's oldest jazz society, the Perth Jazz Society.

There was public outcry when ALH acquired the hotel from long-standing owners the Higgins family in 2006.

The jazz society subsequently moved to the Charles Hotel in North Perth in 2007 so that it had more security over its future.

The Town of Vincent vehemently opposed the original redevelopment plans for the Hyde Park Hotel.

"We wanted interaction with the street, we wanted windows, not big walls, and we wanted the culture that had developed at the Hyde Park Hotel," Mayor Nick Catania said.

There was also concern about a 1,094 square metre liquor store, which ALH said catered to a growing market for boutique and international wine and beer.

ALH took the dispute to the State Administrative Tribunal last December, but subsequently its architects, Oldfield Knott, prepared new plans that won council support.

"Now it interfaces quite well with the street because it's got glass, it's open, it enhances the street," Mr Catania said.

"We are still concerned about the liquor store, the size of it, but if you're going to have a place like that it's got to be pleasing aesthetically."

Meanwhile, a brand new jazz venue opens this week in a renovated building in Northbridge.

The Ellington Jazz Club on Beaufort Street is set to inject a new vibrancy into the Perth jazz scene.

The club will open this Thursday with local band Victoria Newton Sextet.

Speakers at the opening will include Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief Sam Walsh, who is an active supporter of the arts in Perth.