ADAM Hall is pushing jazz music into the forefront of people’s hearts and minds.
He believes that the more Perth audiences see the diversity in jazz, the more they will understand and embrace the genre.
“When it started, jazz was the pop music of its day and was actually the music for parades, parties and picnics,” the Perth crooner-musician said.
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READ NOW“It wasn’t the music for jazz clubs and sitting there and rubbing your chin and saying ‘Hmm, that’s very sophisticated, very nice’.
“I think it’s really important to convey to an audience that jazz music is everything. In New Orleans, still to this day, it’s the music of the street – party music – and that’s what it is to us.
“If you come from a pop sensibility and just like listening to songs, dancing around and having a good time then there’s a space in jazz for you, but if you like taking it seriously and listening to every note, then there is space for that too.”
A mainstay of the Perth music scene, Hall and his band The Velvet Playboys are performing at the four-day Jazz by the Bay with Buena Vista Social Club Young Guns.
“We have the younger generation of the Buena Vista performers and they are full of energy and life,” Hall said.
“This is Latin music in the modern times and all the things that go along with their style of performance, which is lots of audience interaction.
“They even get people to come up on stage and dance and there’s always somebody in the crowd that reckons they can slap a triangle, so they get the triangles out and get people involved.”
Hall said it was “a great big treat” to bring the musicians Down Under and show WA revellers something they had never seen before.
“Obviously there are a few people around who saw the old vintage Buena Vista, but these younger guys are really high octane,” he said.
“The stories are that the guys from the original Buena Vista Social Club in the ’40s and ’50s were high octane too but by the time they finally got re-released in the early 2000s they were in their 70s, 80s and 90s.”
THE ESSENTIALS
What: Jazz by the Bay
When: June 2-5 (long weekend)
Where: Dunsborough, Busselton and Margaret River
Tickets: www.stickytickets.com.au
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