Old songs and fresh voices launch NZ Blues, Roots & Groove Festival

The music may be rich in tradition and rooted to past centuries, but there is still room for exploration and discovery.

Manawatū musicians will be stretching their skills when the New Zealand Blues, Roots & Groove Festival commences in Palmerston North on Thursday.

The four-day festival at Globe Theatre begins with community choir The Unity Singers traversing the vast songbook of American roots music, with special guests Jazzin’ 3 providing a centrepiece to the concert.

The Palmerston North Girls’ High School trio, comprising Eilidh​ Mackay, 17, Cate Redshaw, 16, and Madeleine James, 16, have performed together since they were at Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School and are still fairly new to jazz blues.

All three are classically trained singers, taught by Debbie Donkin, now in the hands of Erna Ferry, who performs and records with the Rodger Fox Big Band.

The girls had been suggested to Ferry by Girls’ High’s head of music Danielle Joe after impressing in a school singing competition.

“It was really weird, because none of us had ever sung jazz,” Eilidh said. “We were classically trained. So it was weird, but we all like it now.

“Jazz was definitely a new thing, and we’re still learning, but we like to think we can adapt it a little bit.”

Cate said the biggest challenge was its freestyle nature, where the music was only treated as a guide, with a lot of room for the singer’s personality.

“Everything classical is all written down and on paper. You read what’s there. Whereas jazz, you play around and get to do your own thing.”

When it came to their own tastes in music, the girls were unlikely to be creating any jazz or roots playlists any time soon, but Cate did concede an affinity for country music and that it was “in my blood”.

Her late grandfather Peter Heremaia had been a music promoter who for 40 years staged shows for Toni Williams, Dalvanius and the Fascinations, Tania Rolls, Jay Epae, Robbie Ratana and The Platters throughout New Zealand.

“I do know a lot of the songs,” she said.

The girls would be singing eight songs to backing tracks, including George Gershwin’s The Man I Love, made famous by Billie Holiday, the widely recorded folk song The Wayfaring Stranger, and a gospel version of Ben E King’s Stand By Me.

Each of them would perform a solo.

Ferry said Jazzin’ 3 and the choir would complement each other well, and the same format had been a success at last year’s festival.

“The girls enjoyed it and I think the choir enjoyed it.”

The Unity Singers musical director Stephen Fisher said last year’s festival had forced the choir to expand its range of songs and they went down really well with audiences.

A choir would be 30 to 35 people strong and performing a range of modern, popular standards, such as Route 66 and a jazz version of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music.

“Songs people will know and they like the rhythmic feeling of it … The choir is singing to people who are younger and younger. They’re still old, but born later,” Fisher said.

“So we have to change our style to what they grew up with. So we’ve bene modernising our music a little.

“There’s a lot of learning, but we’re enjoying it as well. We’ve learnt 20 songs, without books, for the concert in June, and then we’ve learnt five new ones since June for this concert.

“The arrangements are a little more technical than what we’ve done in the past. We’ve probably stuck to something fairly safe in the past to ensure we sound good.”

The Unity Singers with Jazzin’ 3 perform Thursday night at Globe Theatre from 7.30pm. It’s the first of nine gigs and workshops being held over the following four days. Visit nzblues.nz for the full schedule, and globetheatre.co.nz for bookings.

A record fair associated to the festival is being held at the Hokowhitu Bowling Club on Saturday from 11am to 3pm.