Thar he blows!
Andrew P Street talks armed forces and Jazz festivals with Carl Riseley.
Insert your own horn-themed pun here
It might seem initially odd that a man best known for making it to the final three of Australian Idol is featuring as part of the Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival, but Carl Riseley isn't your average Idol hopeful. The trumpet-wielding Navy musician with the old-school voice was hardly a musically-illiterate ingénue when he signed up for the show (reportedly after losing a bet with a mate), and his loss after getting to the final three turned out to be a huge advantage for his career.
"I think it also helped a lot, being an instrumentalist," he shrugs. "I was a trumpet player for years before I started singing so I know what it's like to be behind the singer and just be playing the music, you know? But I think I left all my ties with Idol behind when I left - I'm not managed by the guy who manages all the Australian Idol artists, I'm not with Sony - and they have a big say, obviously, in what kind of artist they want you to be - so I've been very lucky in that. Universal has taken me on as the artist that I am, and I showed Australia what kind of artist I was on the show, and they were happy about that and just let me evolve into whatever I wanted to."
After five years in Sydney Riseley is now based in Melbourne. However, he's looking forward to popping back to his former home to for the Festival. "Yeah, it's very exciting. I haven't actually seen the program, actually? Who's on? Deni Hines, D.I.G, James Morrison? Oh man, that'll be great."
Since he'd not seen the bill, what attracted him to being part of the event?
"I thought it was a great opportunity to get together with the Royal Australian Navy Big Band again. I'm really excited about playing with them, ‘cause obviously I spent five years with those guys. That's gonna be fun."
Clearly his ties with the Navy are still strong - through, presumably, they're less official these days.
"No no, I'm still a reservist," he hastens to clarify, "but I've been so busy lately that I haven't done much with them."
So once a sailor, always a sailor?
"That's correct. They always say to you you're a sailor first, and that's completely true. But being in the reserves it just means that if the world goes to shit you can get picked to go to war. But you'll be the last ones to be picked, especially the musician branch of the reserves. It's all very part time - you have to do a minimum of 20 days a year just to acknowledge your position as a reservist, but that's about it."
So does that mean that, were a coup to occur during the Jazz & Blues Fest, the Navy Big Band would be in a position to quell it?
"Oh yeah, we certainly will," he dryly replies. "We'll have our weapons ready and armed as well. We've got special compartments within our cases. And stretchers as well - we're really good stretcher bearers."
The 18th Annual Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival runs over the June long weekend (Sat 7 - Mon 9 June)