Tony Newstead

Tony Newstead was an Australian jazz trumpeter. Born on October 1, 1923 Melbourne, Victoria. In 1946 he also participated in the first Australian Jazz Convention, a tradition that created the longest-running continuous jazz event in the world. He formed the Tony Newstead Southside Gang after service in World War 2. By 1950 Tony had completed his cadetship and became an engineer. He became an expert in telecoms but continued playing jazz. In 1957 Tony was fortunate to earn a Commonwealth Government scholarship for overseas studies in network planning and completed a postgraduate diploma at Imperial College, London University. Returning to Australia via New York in 1959 enabled him to play with jazz greats, his personal highlight being a night playing with the Eddie Condon band. As an engineer Tony was in high demand and worked in the USA in that career whilst playing jazz on the side. In Washington Tony thoroughly enjoyed access to many jazz clubs and venues and soon found a niche, as evidenced by the fact that he had played on more jazz records released in the US than he did in Australia. He played regularly at the Potomac River Jazz club and in 1972 and '73 he was invited to the annual Manassas Virginia Jazz Festival. Tony subsequently worked for Telecom, the Australian National telecommunications company. In the mid 1970s Tony was told that the private Hong Kong Telephone Company was quietly searching for a chief engineer. He went on to serve two three-year terms, on secondment from Telstra. Before leaving for Hong Kong, he recorded an album with John Tucker's Yacht Club Jazz Band. In 1984 he decided to set up a consultancy to address an emerging suite of opportunities in telecommunications. In 1999, aged 76, he retired from active professional work and enjoyed some years of retirement in Melbourne, Sorrento and Sydney. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 94..