Dunedin Youth Jazz Festival

By Dr William Martin | Posted: Thursday August 25, 2022

As Chairperson of the Dunedin Jazz Foundation and Director of "All Blues", the Otago Boys' and Girls' High School Jazz Band, I was very pleased to see students from across Dunedin performing and competing in the 5th annual band competition at the Dunedin Youth Jazz Festival, held at the Otago Boys' Auditorium on Friday, 19 August.

Having rehearsed since the beginning of Term Two, All Blues has been in the rebuilding phase, with a number of new players joining the band on trumpet, trombone and saxophone. We were very pleased to be able to present three pieces at the competition, including "Mack in the Knife" in the Swing category, Hogey Carmicheal's "Georgie" in the Ballad section and Greg Camp's "All Star" in the Straight section.

There were many standout performers from All Blues on the day. Lara Tyndall is now in Year 13 and played the Alto 1 part, performing a swinging solo in "Mack the Knife". Finn Marshall has also been a big find this year, playing an improvised solo on "All Star" and generally impressing with his loud and bluesy tone. Harrison Clarke, a Year 13 guitarist from Boys' High was a standout performer, earning a "Most Promising" Guitarist Certificate for his rousing solo on "All Star". It was also pleasing to see Year 13 student Connor Purvis performing the lead trumpet line "Georgia", as he has been a consistent performer in jazz band for the last three years and showed much maturity and musicality in his performance. The rhythm section of Pamela Peng (piano), Rata Williams (drums) and Jenny de la Harpe was very reliable, providing a strong foundation for the group.

The most pleasing aspect of the day was the participation of all the players, including Juju Moharram, Jayden Lu, Ayler Biner-McGrath, Theresa Raska, Nikita Lu, Harper Dean, Katherine McArthur, Elizabeth Olusina, Jehaan Gydien and Emily Lokman. The best story of the day was the performance of our trombone section - Theresa and Nikita - who had started learning the instrument at the start of Term Two and were able to perform with the band on the day! A big thankyou to Daniel Blekinger for mentoring these young trombonist and Megan Marshall for assisting with our band on the day of the festival.