players on the Melbourne jazz/session scene and showcased younger entrants into the scene, such as The Red Onion Jazz Band. Melbourne musicians like Brian Brown, Bruce Clarke and Frank Smith also worked extensively on soundtracks and advertising music, and Clarke's Jingle Workshop studio in St Kilda, which produced much important music in these genres, was a significant focus, not merely for its commercial work, but also because it was the venue for regular Sunday jam sessions, many of which Clarke recorded. Rock 'n' roll rapidly gained popularity in the youth music scene from the mid-1950s and pop and rock continued to dominate in the Sixties and beyond. Many leading jazz performers like Graeme Lyall, Stewie Speer and John Sangster and Tony Buchanan worked with rock groups and absorbed important stylistic influences from the Motown, soul music and funk genres. From the late 1960s, there was a revival to the 'big band' format, partly fuelled by the popularity of big band rock ensembles like Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago. The most notable local modern big band was the acclaimed but short-lived Daly-Wilson Big Band, which enjoyed considerable popularity and which was the first Australian musical act to tour the Soviet Union. Another very popular band is Galapagos Duck, who exerted a huge influence on the Sydney jazz scene as part-owners of and regular performers at Sydney's longest-running jazz venue, The Basement, which opened in 1973. Serge Ermoll's Free Kata, the first free jazz ensemble to record and internationally release a series of albums including The New Language of Music on EMI and the Philips Records title Spontaneous Improvisations. An early example of jazz on Australian television was Sweet and Low, a 1959 ABC series which aired for a six-episode season. Another series was Look Who's Dropped In, a four-episode ABC series that aired 1957–1958, and 1959 ABC series Australian All Star Jazz Band. Women in jazz Women had played in jazz bands of their own since the early 1920s, with bands led by Thelma Ready, Eve Rees, Alic Dolphi, and Grace Funston, among others. The groups were often considered a novelty by the press, but received employment at venues such as Melbourne's Palais Pictures. The groups gained further popularity during World War II, but many found themselves unemployed following the war, with Grace Funston complaining that when the male musicians had returned the women lost their jobs. At the Palais,