Jazz In Churches Project

The Northern Jazz Society has won funding to hire Jazz Inspired to play for its Jazz in Churches project which will involve Saturday night performances in 3 different churches in Whangarei in June, July and August. These will be the first gigs with Jazz Inspired for our newest bass player, John Drake from Kerikeri.

STOP-PRESS: First concert will be on the 26th of June at St Andrews Church, Hunt Street, Whangarei.

Cape KariKari Saturday 10th April

Jazz Inspired provided the background music for a wedding at a spectacular location in northland, a vineyard at KariKari Estate . The band played for about 2 hours while guests mingled on the front lawn overlooking the north coast of Cape Karikari. Pictures to come.

If you are interested in hiring the band for your wedding email me at jazz inspired

Project Promise and Glenbervie Wedding

Jazz Inspired provided background music for about 400 guests as they mingled during dinner and dessert. The event was in a large auditorium seating approximately 400 hundred guests. Project Promise was sent off to a flying start with many generous donations made.



The photo above is from our gig the next afternoon at a birthday party at the Blaxlands house in Glenbervie. The band enjoyed several hours of playing and a nice lunch and dessert in very pleasant surroundings.

Jazz Inspired plays for Project Promise

On Friday 19th March, Jazz Inspired is playing for a special dinner to raise money for a new cancer treatment centre for northland. The band will be a quintet for the night and feature a new lineup with Don and Derek on horns, our new member Stu Lawerence on bass, Brian Phillips on guitar and Phil on drums as usual.

Jazz Inspired at Salut

Last Sunday we played at Salut Bar in Bank Street. Guest vocalist Sarah Harris was a hit with her renditions of "Crazy Rhythm", "Anything Goes", "Lady is a Tramp", "I got rhythm", "Can't Help lovin that man" and the old favourites: "Autumn Leaves" and "Summertime." The band is sounding very tight after 3 recent jazz festival appearances and the audience was very appreciative. Keep an eye out for Sarah Harris appearing again with Jazz Inspired next year.

Up Coming Performance

Jazz Inspired will be performing for the Jazz Society at Salut in Bank Street, Whangarei on the afternoon of December the 6th. We will be playing from 2 - 5pm and Sarah Harris will be a special guest artist to sing some vocal numbers with us.

Jazz Inspired Back Sarah Bradley

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 . 

Northern Jazz Festival

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.

Introduction

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