Huge band’s birthday bangers deliver the home down

Conductor Ian McLean and the Blamey Road Huge Band on the Harmonie German Membership. Photograph Cassidy Richens.

Saxophonist Andrew Hackwill in full flight with the Blamey Road Huge Band. Photograph: Cassidy Richens

Leisa Eager sings with the Blamey Road Huge Band. Photograph: Cassidy Richens

Happiness is… an ecstatic conductor Ian McLean. Photograph: Cassidy Richens

Music / The Blamey Road Huge Band live performance. On the Harmonie German Membership, Might 20. Reviewed by CASSIDY RICHENS. 

THE Blamey Road Huge Band’s birthday bangers introduced the home down, with a gala live performance of hits from Rely Basie, Quincy Jones, Sarah Vaughan, and plenty of different much-loved American requirements from the large band period of the ’30s and ’40s.

A nod to the band’s twentieth birthday, the gala live performance, devised by conductor Ian McLean, was additionally a tribute to American composer and arranger Sammy Nestico. 

Billed as a musical wander by way of an interesting historical past, “Ella Fitzgerald meets Rely Basie” fantastically captured the sound of early massive bands, with mild moments increasing to the full of life full sound of a 20-piece jazz orchestra, bringing a contact of sophistication to the again streets of ‘Bundah. 

McLean, just lately returning conductor and founding director of the band, was clearly having fun with his publish as he skilfully led the band whereas narrating a beautiful story of Nestico and his work with William James “Rely” Basie, which earned him 4 Grammy Awards. 

Shaped in 2002, Blamey Road is one in all Canberra’s longest operating neighborhood bands, enjoying massive band music of all eras. The present line-up options lead trumpeter Mark Du Rieu and Derrick Brassington on drums. They have been joined by particular visitors Leisa Eager (vocals) and Andrew Hackwill (alto saxophone). 

Performing polished variations of Nestico’s preparations, the band offered all of the qualities you’d anticipate from such a gig – complicated harmonies, vocal and instrumental solos, and syncopated rhythms – in a program integrating blues, funk, and Latin sounds.

Incorporating components of “ragtime” and brass-band marching music, Brassington’s groove stored the core sound collectively, offering the driving rhythm central to massive band music. Switching from two beats to the bar, to a driving 4/4, then choosing extra percussive “horse trotting” moments, his absolutely decked out package, full with an array of temple blocks, woodblocks, cowbells, and cymbals. Perrin Lionis (piano), Col Bernau (guitar) and Peter McDonald (bass) accomplished the rhythm part. They have been tight, dynamic, and genuine.

The graceful groove of the horn part carved out the primary physique of sound with repeating riffs and easy harmonies composed and organized for saxophones, trumpets, and trombones. 

The Blamey Road horns labored exceptionally effectively collectively and have been a shocking counterpart to Hackwill’s solo efficiency of Nestico’s association of “Samantha”, a showpiece for alto sax that includes a large dynamic vary.

Nestico, who just lately handed away, additionally wrote for jazz giants Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, and final night time Canberra’s much-loved and multi-award-winning Leisa Eager joined Blamey Road to sing a few of their finest and most beloved tunes together with “Ain’t Misbehavin” and “Perdido”. 

Eager, additionally a classical pianist and double diploma holder from the Canberra Faculty of Music, and former musical director of the Blamey Road Huge Band, additionally carried out a group of songs from the Rely Basie and Quincy Jones libraries together with “Candy Georgia Brown”, “Satin Doll”, “Strike Up the Band”, “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Moon River”. Placing each ounce of herself into the efficiency, Eager sang soulful renditions of those songs exquisitely. Standouts for me have been “Educate Me Tonight” and “Deedle’s Blues”.

A most pleasing live performance, an incredible program, an excellent musical final result for one in all Canberra’s most notable neighborhood bands and a becoming tribute to a real legend.