Three-tenor frontlines in jazz are rare. That’s one reason why TTTenor is so exceptional.

Another is who makes up this front-line: John Mackey, Roger Manins and Andy Sugg. Based in Canberra, Auckland and Melbourne respectively, these tenor players represent the best of contemporary jazz in the southern hemisphere. They excel at the very thing that makes jazz so unique and special: great solo and collective improvising. 

Mackey, Manins and Sugg’s experience is wide — they’ve worked with a veritable who’s who of the international jazz scene — and their understanding of the language is deep. On stage together they make the most exciting jazz combo performing anywhere in the world. 

And TTTenor has a great back-story: Way back in 1873 you could buy a saxophone from Thomas Turrell’s Music Warehouse in Auckland (New Zealand). While across the ditch in Australia, you could hear it filling out the sound of the NSW Police Band. 

But back then, the saxophone was brand new; it arrived with no history, no performance tradition (it had only been patented in Paris in 1846). So Australasians made their own; and from that point on they never looked back.

This tradition, now so deeply embedded in Australasia’s musical psyche, has never stopped evolving. Today, at its summit, is TTTenor. When you hear this group play you understand why jazz has had such an impact all around the world, and why it’s still the most exciting music there is.