More Info →All Types of Jazz Music Represented at Festival

Description: This image was taken for a story that ran in The Manawatu Evening Standard on29th May 1991.

"Get out those dancing shoes and prepare to jam -- the Manawatu Jazz Club's 24th Festival will be held in Palmerston North on Saturday and Sunday. Club president Terry Tawharu says the line-up of performers for this year's festival is better than ever, with more than 90 musicians participating.

There will be 18 bands performing during the festival, which will be held at Palmerston North's Convention Centre. All types of jazz music will be represented, from blues to traditional and contemporarily. "The response has been so good we have had to book another hall at the Centre," he says. Proceedings begin on Saturday afternoon, with the centre open for festival participants to register and for anyone to buy tickets to the concerts which will be held over the weekend.

The first event begins at 8 pm on Saturday, when the Conquerors Big Band will play jazz-based dance music for about five hours, for an event called Jazz on your Feet. Club committee member Marie Redpath says anyone keen on dancing will especially enjoy this session, as there will be plenty of space for people to get up and dance.

The Conquerors Big Band regularly performs in Wellington at the Park Royal Hotel's tea Dances, playing modern and old-time dance tunes. "We plan to have people sitting at tables and they will be able to buy food and drinks during all the concerts," she says. "It will be more of a club atmosphere than formal, sitting-in-rows concerts."

Three concerts are planned for Sunday. Two concerts will be run simultaneously at two venues in the centre between 1 pm and 5 pm. "The idea is that people will be able to move between the two concerts on the Sunday afternoon," says Mrs. Redpath. "People going to that concert will get real value for money -- the choice of two bands and double the music they would normally get."

The third evening concert will be held from 7 pm to 11.30 pm on Sunday. Anyone interested is invited to a jam session after the last concert. Jam sessions, where jazz musicians improvise and extemporise as the moon takes them, are regarded by many jazz fans as the epitome of jazz music.

New music is created and musicians and listeners share something very special. Last year the Manawatu Jazz Club's festival attracted about 1000 people to concerts. Mrs. Redpath says the club expects a similar number this year. [Pictured] Manawatu Jazz Club president Terry Tawharu with his double bass, warming up for jazz jam sessions. terry says he is a self-taught musician, who plays with several groups locally and nationally. He bought his double bass in Germany more than 30 years ago, and says the tone is getting more mellow every time he plays it."