All that Jazz.

Coral Drouyn gives some insight into her second favourite medium after Musical Theatre.

Despite all the best attempts to kill it (Rap, Reggae and Kenny G), Jazz refuses to die and is even having a resurgence in all its forms – from Dixieland to Swing and Bebop.

Why am I even talking about Jazz on a website devoted to all things theatre? There are several reasons. Largely because Musical Theatre has its roots in Jazz – early musical comedies had jazz scores, and more recent musicals like Chicago have jazz at their core. Many of the movie musicals we see are Jazz driven - pretty much any musical with Frank Sinatra through the fifties and sixties, and let’s not forget Louis  Armstrong. And movie biopics - The Benny Goodman Story, The Glenn Miller Story, have laid the groundwork for films like La-La Land – which is rumoured to become a stage musical next year. So there’s no getting away from Jazz – and why would you want to? While be-bop may not be to everyone’s taste, I defy anyone not to want to get up and dance when they hear a Swing band, or tap their foot to Dixieland. It’s infectious and joyful, and Lord knows the world needs a little joy right now.

Australia has produced, in our current era, three genuine jazz Virtuosi who have received world-wide recognition. We’re all familiar with James Morrison (trumpet) and Tommy Emmanuel (guitar) but some of you may not know the name Andy Firth, and that’s something any purported music lover needs to rectify. Firth is a clarinet virtuoso with astonishing speed and technique and a warm mellifluous sound that could make the angels weep. Like most doyens of Jazz he’s a multi-instrumentalist (boy he plays great alto sax) and an arranger and composer. But also, like Emmanuel and Morrison, he’s warm, funny, and a true showman on stage. He’s also a legend in Jazz circles, a recording artist and an educator who has been called the best clarinettist in the world.

This weekend, from Friday August 25^th, Firth and his Nova Swing Jazz Band will head the Newcastle Jazz Festival – but last week he was in my new stomping ground, Queensland’s Gold Coast – guest of the Gold Coast Jazz and Blues Club. He played two seventy minute sets in the club’s fabulous venue – The Arts Centre’s Paradise room – and blew the roof off – earning a standing ovation. The general consensus was that this was the best jazz band most of the members had ever seen, and I’m not going to disagree with that.

With a brilliant line-up of his own regular musicians, including Warren Shaw on fabulous Baritone Sax and in clarinet duets with Firth, plus original Galapagos Duck members John Conley on bass, and the versatile Rodney Ford (who drives a Holden) on drums and vocals (with a stunning version of “Moondance”…Van Morrison eat your heart out), Firth gave a masterclass in music, but was especially spectacular when he threw out the carefully crafted charts and just lugged about 24 choruses of the best of Benny Goodman. Instruments have changed, technique has got better, so it’s fair to say he would probably have played Goodman off the stage. There were some terrific arrangements of far more recent songs, some accompanying the lovely band singer Julie Wilson, but the true crowd pleasers were the blasts from the past – including a great Glen Miller Medley that Firth called “In The Miller Mood”. As for Firth’s clarinet counterpoint riffing to Wilson’s rendition of “What a little Moonlight Can Do”, well, it had to be heard to be believed.

The Gold Coast Jazz and Blues Club has promised Nova Jazz Band will be back soon – but why wait? If you’re free this weekend, The Newcastle Jazz Festival runs from today right through to Sunday and Andy appears on all three days. It’s well worth the trip to see a genuine musical legend.