Yvette Johansson brings her deft touch for classic material, to the music of Billie Holiday. ‘Lady Swings the Blues’ is an homage to one of the most dynamic, prolific and popular songbirds of the jazz era, spanning her full emotional range; from the jubilation of the Light to the desolation of the Dark.
With her keen sense for atmosphere, reverence for the past and an uncanny ability to inhabit this and almost any genre, Yvette is able to re-create the mood of the era and capture the spunk and the spirit of this stellar diva of the 1930’s and ’40’s.
With a group of hand-picked musicians -expert in this style- Yvette will transform Bennett’s Lane into a bygone jazz-club of yesteryear. She and her small but swing-worthy band, will present a program that includes rare gems, as well as signature songs of the great ‘Lady Day’ -all interspersed with biographical tid-bits. You can therefore, expect both piquancy and pathos; levity and melancholy; music both sombre and sunny; sonorous & swingin’!
After enormous success with her tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, Yvette debuted ‘Lady Swings the Blues’ at Bennett’s Lane, in 2002 -to rapturous response. There is no rhyme or reason as to why the reprisal has taken quite this long, but do be sure to secure your place for this masterful evocation of a golden era, which audiences have waited a decade, to see once more.
Joining Yvette will be an assortment of some of Melbourne’s most revered musicians: Joe Ruberto (piano,) Ken White (guitar,) Mark Elton (double bass,) Andrew Swann (drums) and special guest Joe Stevenson on clarinet and saxophone.
Alto saxophonist David Ades – who toured to Melbourne last year to support the album Matt Keegan Trio Meets David Ades - is again touring nationally.
This time he is promoting his own album of originals, A Glorious Uncertainty, which he recorded in New York last year with Tony Malaby (tenor sax), Mark Helias (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums). He appears with a local group featuring Julien Wilson (tenor sax), Phillip Rex (acoustic bass), and NYC - based Danny Fischer (drums). This is also a musical meeting between two generations of Australian jazz saxophonists, Ades an established master craftsman, and Wilson, a nationally recognized figure, who share a deep artistic affinity.
