The 17-piece Queenstown Jazz Orchestra’s striking up again for its next big gig, ‘Jazz in Concert’, in Arrowtown on November 12.
Its last major concert, in August last year, was somewhat memorable.
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, former players were invited back, swelling numbers on stage to 27.
And, near the end, audience members’ cellphones were buzzed with the news of an impending Covid lockdown.
“Imagine if that had happened a day before,” says band leader/drummer Peter Doyle, who co-founded the orchestra in 2011.
The orchestra played just last month for a swing dance in Arrowtown, but Doyle says their next gig’s “a sit-down, full-on concert”.
“We’re hoping we’ll fill the hall, which will be about 250 people, and it will be a very relaxing night, but with some great music.
“We tend to do music from the ’30s, the ’40s, the big-band era, but we also put a bit of a twist into it.”
They’ll be performing music from jazz legends like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, George Gershwin, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller and Hoagy Carmichael, and more modern artists like Diana Krall and Michael Buble.
“It is a real mixture of slow and fast, swing and contemporary jazz – it’s not classic jazz, as such.”
Doyle says they’ll be boosted by two trumpeters, three trombonists and a sax player from Dunedin who all play in that city’s symphony orchestra as well as its jazz orchestra.
“For us, to have these sort of people in a little local Queenstown band is amazing.”
He’s also thrilled to have local musos like trombonist Luke Petre, who originally joined when he was just 13, then left to pursue a flying career and only recently returned here, and saxophonist Alex Yevstifeev, who’s originally from Rochester in New York State in the United States.
Doyle originally spotted him playing soprano sax on the Queenstown waterfront.
Once again, local singer Melita Langston will sing vocals with the orchestra, while Doyle will also chime in from behind his drum kit.
As always, a highlight of the jazz numbers will be solo improvisation by various musicians.
“When they start doing solos, they’ll not be looking at [any] music, because they know the chord sequence of the tune.”
It’s the spontaneity of the music making that often has audiences sitting on the edge of their seats.
“It’s bloody exciting,” Doyle says, “you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen.”
You’ll never hear the same piece of music again, he adds – “you’ll hear the melody line, but the rest of it, no”.
The concert’s once again being sponsored by Harcourts.
Queenstown Jazz Orchestra’s ‘Jazz in Concert’, Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall, November 12, 7.30pm; tickets $35 from eventfinda, Arrowtown Pharmacy, Frankton’s Summerfields Pharmacy and Lakes District Museum
