Last weekend Jazz Inspired played at the Whangamata Jazz Festival. In August we were invited to this festival by organiser John Norris who heard us play at the Bay of Islands Jazz and Blues Festival in August. John also asked us to provide backing for Sarah Bradley. Sarah is a jazz singer as well as a TV presenter and she sang a number of show tunes such as "I got rhythm" and "Anything Goes" and a range of jazz standards. The pics above show us rehearsing with Sarah at the Bushland Park Lodge on Saturday morning. Thanks to Reinhard and Petra for their hospitality.
Our first set was on an outdoor stage in a fairly strong breeze and we were miked up like a rock band. Always take pegs! I had my music pegged and the wind still threatened to blow the music stand over. Things could only get better and they did. We played to a packed house at the Corvette Cafe and Bar for 3 hours on Saturday night. Folk were cramming the sidewalk to hear us and we were pressed for an encore at the end. Nice to have our music appreciated.
On Sunday we played from 10 am onward at the same resturant to a fairly steady crowd until numb lips and fingers forced us to stop around 2pm. A highlight was meeting a French speaking guy who used to be a sort of personal assistant to Clark Terry, Jon Faddis, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis and many other jazz greats when they toured in Europe. He had several photo albums full of snaps of him hanging out with them. I also enjoyed hearing Mike Booth playing flugel and trumpet with his combo; he is a pretty fluent improvisor with a good sound. Although I did not get to hear them, the Queen City Big Band were appreciated by many people we spoke to. Other bands/artists at the festival were: Miles Ahead, Indigo Blue, Riverhead Slide, Good Oil, Brilleaux and Mike Cassidy .
In October this year Jazz Inspired played at a jazz festival in Dargaville organised by the Northern Jazz Society. We were lucky enough to have American jazz trumpet players Bob Montgomery http://www.dmamusic.org/bobmontgomery/ and Bryce Luty along with us as guest artists. The festival was a great success with ticket sales exceeding expectations.
The photo shows an all in jam session from the Saturday night. The video below is us performing "Lulu's Back in Town" at the Lion's Club.
Jazz Inspired is a Whangarei-based sextet consisting of 3 horns and rhythm section. We play a range of jazz styles ranging from swing to latin-jazz to bebop including original charts written especially for the group.
On this blog you can follow our news and keep up to date with information about our gigs.
If you wish to hire us for a gig or want to contact me please email me at tunefultrumpet@gmail.com
