Ricki Malet started on trumpet at age 10 and was accepted into the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) at age 15 where he completed his Bachelor of Music in 2003.
Over the last 20 years he has performed all over Perth (including a residency with quartet ‘The Fix’ at the Moon Café for 15 years) with various bands covering lots of different styles and has toured extensively, with tours to Europe in 2002 with Original Band Prawns with Horns, New York in 2006 with the West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO), Melbourne in 2006 with the Mace Francis Orchestra (MFO) and 2007 with Funk outfit The Roast as well as Australian tours with MFO in 2008, 2010, 2011 & 2013, the Daniel Susnjar Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group in 2017 & 2018 and the Jamie Oehlers Quintet in 2019.
Most recently Ricki has played and recorded with the Australian National Jazz Orchestra at the Sydney Con Jazz Festival in 2017 and 2019 and been invited to perform and workshop students at The Brubeck Institute in 2014, 2016 & 2017, SHOWA University in Tokyo, Japan in 2018 and Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG) in 2019. Ricki was also a finalist in the National Jazz Awards at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival ’17, a two-time Freedman Jazz Fellowship nominee and a recipient of a WA Music (WAM) award for best instrumentalist in 2017 & 2019.
He has recorded 7 albums with MFO, 2 albums with trad jazz group The Hounds, 1 album with Daniel Susnjar’s Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group, 2 albums with Australian National Jazz Orchestra, 1 album with Jamie Oehlers, 1 album with Kate Pass Kohesia Ensemble and an album and an EP with his ‘electric band’ Fat Sparrow in 2015 and 2017.
In addition he features on tracks with many other groups including Descarga, Prawns with Horns, Drapht, Optamus, Odette Mercy and her Soul Atomics, Saritah and more.
When not performing Ricki teaches at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and works as an MD with the West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO).”