The Letty Katts research project was the culmination of twenty years of conversations with the famed restauranteur and market owner Peter Hackworth about the modern jazz scene in Brisbane in the late 1950s, and the musicians that she booked to play in the corner of her first business, The Primitif Coffee Lounge.  In 2021 Peter donated scans of the beautiful evocative photos of this vibrant music scene to the State Library of Queensland. 

 

In her project Leah was able to identify many musicians in the photographs, and collect new biographical information about them. Her findings were presented as blogs on the John Oxley Library site, and in performances, including original songs, at the Memory Awards Research Reveal (2024), and a lunchtime concert at Brisbane City Hall (2025).

In 2015, partnering with Peter’s family and funded by the BCC, Leah brought together original patrons and musicians of the Primitif for a reunion, “The Primitif Requests the Pleasure…”. Helen Russell provided musical direction for the “New Prim House Band” and Peter’s daughter Gian recreated the Primitif menu. Many Primitif patrons attended and original Primitif musicians sat in, including Buzz Ennis from the original house band and Wilma Reading, whose remarkable international music career started one night at the Primitif when she got up to sing on a dare.

> Wilma Reading Oral History from the State Library collection

The Primitif research started in 2003 when Leah and Helen Russell created “Foolish Things” a musical history of live music in Brisbane over 60 years, based on collected images and the oral histories of musicians and venue owners across generations – from the Doctor Carver Club for black servicemen at South Brisbane during WWII to The Zoo nightclub in the Valley, a hub for Brisbane’s rock bands in the 1990’s. With funding from the Australia Council and Arts Queensland, Foolish Things was presented at Brisbane City Hall in the program of the Queensland Music Festival and the photos people shared with us were displayed in the foyer in a banner exhibition co-curated with the Museum of Brisbane. There was also a 2005 season of “Foolish Things” at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts.

> Video montage with original song, "The Last Dance at Cloudland"