Phil Slater is a trumpeter, improviser and composer living and working in the Illawarra region. He is the leader or co-leader of the Phil Slater Quintet, Band of Five Names, and Daorum, and has performed and recorded with a wide variety of artists including the Australian Art Orchestra, Sandy Evans, Archie Roach, Paul Grabowsky, Genevieve Lacey, Katie Noonan, Andrea Keller, Mike Nock, Jonathan Zwartz, Missy Higgins, Lou Reed, and many others. He has composed and performed music for the Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Legs on the Wall and Force Majeure. He has been awarded the Bell Award for Australian Jazz Musician of the Year, the Bell Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Ensemble (Phil Slater Quartet), the National Jazz Award, the Freedman Fellowship and the Limelight Award for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Jazz. His recent recording The Dark Pattern was nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Jazz Recording, the Australian Music Prize (AMP), an Australian Independent Recording (AIR) Award and an Art Music Award. Phil is Lecturer in Jazz Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and was awarded a PhD in 2020.
“‘The Dark Pattern’ is by far the most consistently sublime and intensely beautiful music I’ve ever heard”, wrote reviewer Joe Cummins of Slater’s recording. Here, Slater reveals the highly original process that has been his musical life’s work over the last five years.
