Chris Qua (14 November 1951 – 30 April 2023), nicknamed "Smedley", was an Australian jazz musician, remembered as flugelhorn and double bass player with the band Galapagos Duck.
In the late 1950s the family moved to a big house in Ashfield, Sydney, which became a meeting place for musicians and jazz lovers, and an informal venue for improvised music.
With some guidance from Geoff Bull, Qua took up the trumpet and, later, the double bass, gaining inspiration from the work of Ray Brown of the Oscar Peterson trio.
[1] He became a member of a Dixieland jazz band playing in Sydney's bohemian Newtown pub scene, and in 1969 at the ski chalet, Charlotte Pass, Mount Kosciuszko.
They were eminently versatile — Des Windsor on piano and organ, Marty Mooney and Tom Hare on reeds, and Qua on double bass and brass, notably flugelhorn.