It’s a rainy cool day in Wellington and Mike and I are rehearsing with fabulously talented double bassist, Nick Tipping. It’s sounding great!
So we’re all polished up with my new material and ready for 3 more shows to wrap up this current tour.
Hope you can join us Friday night 1st March in Levin, Saturday afternoon 2nd March in Wellington, or Paekakariki on Sunday afternoon 3rd March – full details are on the website.
And btw my Kiwi accent has definitely got stronger (even I can hear it…)
All suspicious looking emails are not scams! I received one recently from a guy claiming to be an entertainment producer at the BBC wanting to use my piano composition “Trout Blues” as title music for his new BBC London Evening radio show. I was so close to pressing delete, but something made me read on. Fortunately.
My piano piece has proven so popular with their audience (over 1 million nightly) they are interviewing me next week. If you are able through the internet, please tune in to presenter Jo Good on BBC RADIO LONDON Evenings on 94.9 FM this Wednesday morning April 26th at 8am Sydney time. After our chat, Jo will play my song “The Boogie Woman.”
So you might be wondering why I named the track “Trout Blues”? Actually it’s a family in-joke with a long backstory, the end result being my older brother Ted only ever refers to me as “Troutie”. (Something about having a mouth like a fish, yeah well that’s families for you…) And BBC producer George Burton wants me to compose more music for a couple of other programs he’s launching.
I was telling sister Gaylene about this extraordinary event exclaiming “Out of all the thousands of composers in the world! This sort of thing NEVER happens in Arts and Entertainment, to which she replied “Well Jan it just did.”
Still it’s pretty amazing don’t you think?!
Finally we are returning to Tasmania!
It’s been too long!
My great-grandmother lived there, so I always feel a special connection. Evidently she was heavily pregnant whilst emigrating, so was put off the ship to NZ at Launceston, as it was felt she wouldn’t make it before the birth. And there she stayed in Tassie for a couple of years on her own with 2 toddlers and a new baby. Who knows how she survived and got together the money to ultimately get to the South Island of NZ.
Fast forward to 2019 and we are comfortably flying in to Hobart in time to drive over to the other side and play at the Wharf at Ulverstone on Sunday afternoon, Oct 13th.
We’re then playing a special concert for the Launceston Jazz/Blues Club at the Boathouse on Tuesday Oct 15th, before heading back to Hobart again. I desperately want to visit MONA, everyone says it’s totally awesome and I’ve never been there.
We have 3 shows on Friday 18th believe it or not, between Margate and Lindisfarne (details below) and our final show is back at Margate on Sat Oct 19th.
We finish the month in Victoria at the Bena Hall on Friday Oct 25th and the gorgeous Paynesville Wine Bar on Saturday Oct 26th.
I’m also letting any Sydneysiders know we are playing at the Cheltenham Recreation Club this Friday Oct 11th. It’s a dinner/show and is pretty well sold out, but there may be a seat or 2 left, so if you’re super keen please contact Anita on cheltenhamrc@outlook.com
Meanwhile I’m packing my puffer jacket in Sydney’s sun. I guess Tassie is like NZ, you never know even at this time of year…….
In boogie and blues,
Jan