LEIGH BARKER AND THE NEW SHEIKS

East Coast Tour April 2012
www.leighbarker.com
www.youtube.com/leighbarkerjazz
http://listn.to/LeighBarkerJazz
Australian jazz great Leigh Barker is touring Australia this Autumn with his band ‘The New Sheiks’, featuring award winning blues talent Heather Stewart on vocals and violin.
‘The New Sheiks’ is one of the most enjoyable and entertaining groups in Australian Jazz today – proved when they won the ‘Australian Jazz Bell Award’ for ‘Best Traditional Jazz Album’ in May 2011. They followed this success with a sell-out east coast tour in October and November 2011.
Their live show is a thoroughly fresh approach to traditional jazz, blues and swing featuring some of the country’s greatest improvisers. Following the huge success of their previous tour and award winning album, the New Sheiks will be launching a new CD this tour entitled ‘The Sales Tax’, recorded in Canberra in 2011.
“…a night of swinging, down-home dirty bluesy, hollerin’ jazz and it was great. This is a very good band playing music of an era that is is variously touching and refreshing and enlivening to visit.” – Eric Pozza, Canberra Jazz Blog
Leigh Barker has toured Australia extensively both with his own band and with artists such as Tom Vincent and the ‘Hot Jazz Alliance’. In 2010 he toured the country as support act for jazz superstar Branford Marsalis, which culminated in Leigh performing encores with Branford at the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne’s Hamer Hall.
The ‘New Sheiks’ touring band features Leigh on the double bass, Eamon McNelis on trumpet, Don Stewart on Trombone, Matt Boden on Piano and Piano Accordion, and Sam Young on drums. They will also be travelling with renowned Melbourne based blues singer Heather Stewart. Heather won the ‘Vic/Tas Blues Awards’ for best debut album and best female artist in 2011.
Heather sings classic blues from Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Robert Johnson and Leadbelly, as well as repertoire from Billie Holiday and the other jazz greats. Leigh has been adapting the early blues material and combining it with jazz and compositions from the other band members, to create a mix of jazz, swing and blues that is unique and accessible.
Eamon is well known to jazz audiences around Australia and is a master of all styles of the trumpet from the history of jazz. In 2010 he won the ‘National Jazz Award’ at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival.
Don Stewart performs around the world with the finest traditional jazz groups, including the Graeme Bell band and ‘Fireworks Jazz’. He is also a member of popular Melbourne band ‘The Band Who Knew Too Much’.
Pianist Matt Boden lives in Paris, France but is originally Tasmanian. Matt placed 3rd in the inaugural Concours Boris Vian Jazz competition in Paris in 2009. His dedication to swing and acoustic music means he performs on piano accordion when there is no piano available.
Drummer Sam Young is originally from Canberra and now resides in Melbourne, where he is one of the most in-demand freelance drummers. This is Sam’s first tour with the New Sheiks, and brings a supple and broad swing to the band.
Please see the websites above for tour dates, and more biography and discography information.

Thursday April 19th
Babushka Bar, 59 Humffray St Nth, Ballarat
9pm, bar open at 6pm
$10 at Door
Ph: (03) 53318459
http://evileye.com.au/babushkalounge.com/
info@babushkalounge.co

Adam Simmons Portrait Series Concerts

NEWS FLASH from the Art Gallery of Ballarat

The concerts in Adam Simmons’ Portraits Series  present new and original music in an intimate, close-up setting at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
After the inaugural series in 2011, the focus for this year is on the absolute beauty of sound. The artists involved are diverse in their experience, but each of them is a true virtuoso of their instrument. And the beauty lies not in what they can do, but in how they choose to explore their virtuosity. The concerts will present these master musicians in a rare, intimate setting – those that enjoyed last year’s concerts will not be disappointed!
The Portraits Series concerts feature Adam on saxophones, clarinets, flutes, shakuhachi, fujara, toys with different guest musicians. Hailing originally from Ballarat, Adam is a composer, instrumentalist and visual artist involved across many different scenes within Melbourne and beyond. He performs contemporary jazz, punk, afro-beat, new music, traditional Japanese honkyo-ku, funk and free noise/improv and has worked with an extraordinary range of performers from different cultures and traditions. His ensembles include the Adam Simmons Toy Band, Adam Simmons Quartet, New Blood, Origami, Steve Purcell’s Pearly Shells, Big Fela, Collider, Nick Tsiavos Ensemble and Bolt Ensemble
Visit Adam’s website

No 1 – Adam Simmons with Master Drummer David Jones

Wednesday 18 April, 7.30pm
Awarded the 2010 Melbourne Prize for Music, David is often described both locally and abroad as being one of the most innovative and musical drummers in the world – a true virtuoso musician. He will create a universe of sounds, textures and rhythms that take you through different cultures, ages, moods and styles.
“I first heard David playing with David Hirschfelder at a small concert at Ballarat Grammar when I was a young teenager – it was mind-blowing! And to have actually had the opportunity to share a stage and make music with him has been one of my greatest musical pleasures! Ahhh… this will be fun!!”
Check out his website

Acclaimed bush balladeer secured for second annual Terang Country Music Festival

Organisers of the Terang Country Music Festival have secured two-time Golden Guitar winning artist Amos Morris for this month’s event.
Spokesman for the organising committee Ian Boyd said the decision to lure Morris to the event was a result of feedback at last year’s festival.
“We ran a survey last year, and are doing the same this year, as a means of capturing sentiment and constructive feedback from audiences,” he said.
“Something that came out of the surveys last year was that our program lacked a bush balladeer type performer and so we approached Amos Morris.
“On top of his Golden Guitars in 2008 and 2009, Morris was named Australian Bush Balladeer of the Year in 2005 – the same year he won the Australian Country Recording Best New Talent Award.”
Fellow committee member Ray Worland said the survey feedback was so important to the ongoing development of the festival that extra steps had been taken this year to entice people to complete it.
“Everyone who completes the survey this year will go into the draw to win a voucher for two for a helicopter flight over the Bay of Islands, thanks to Apostle Coast Aviation in Peterborough,” he said.
“Don’t forget that we also have a raffle for an acoustic Yamaha guitar which has already been signed by Adam Harvey, Troy Cassar-Daley, Kasey Chambers and the Dead Ringer Band, Graham Connors, Beccy Cole and many others.”
Tickets for the raffle are available now through Reicha’s Drapery and the Terang Community Health Centre, but will also be sold throughout the festival.
The entertainment kicks off on Friday 16 March with buskers in Terang’s main street and free live music at the Terang Hotel (the middle).
On Saturday there will be a smorgasbord of country performers at the Terang Racecourse from 11am-6pm followed by the Hoedown in the betting ring from 8pm until late.
Shuttle buses will be operating between the venue and Terang.
Organisers are hoping to double last year’s crowd of 600.
For more information please visit www.terangcountrymusic.com

Stan Walker’s new video

Check out STAN WALKER’s incredible new video for ‘Music Won’t Break Your Heart’ that was filmed in the beautiful landscape of New Zealand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_8f9BwFZ4k&feature=channel_video_title

With great radio ads flying in, and the amazing video at TV and online this week, ‘Music Won’t Break Your Heart’ is setting up to be another hit single!

Rory Ellis will be back at Babushkas this Friday

Friday March 9
Babushka
59 Humffray Street, North Ballarat
Tixs at door $ 10, show at 8 pm

Shaun Kirk’s at Babushka

He’s playing at the Babushka Lounge on Thursday 8th March to launch his latest album release, ‘Thank You for Giving Me the Blues’.
In very recent news, Shaun’s new album has just hit the number one spot on the Australian Blues and Roots Charts!
Link here:  http://www.bluesbeatradio.com/ozchart.htm

Described as having ”one of the finest blues voices that this country has ever heard” (Buzz Magazine), Shaun Kirk learned to play guitar from a hospital bed and has since developed into one of the youngest and most accomplished blues guitarists in the country, with an exciting live show seeing him play eight different instruments, simultaneously.

Check out his website here: www.shaunkirk.com or here’s a video to give you a bit of an idea of his sound: http://youtu.be/azSgu1yO-jI

Shaun Kirk Bio

Port Fairy Folk Festival

Port Fairy Folk Music Festival announces their
ARTIST OF THE YEAR…
JOHN BUTLER

The Port Fairy Folk Festival traditionally selects an Artist of the Year from the year’s line up as one who fits the description of ‘an individual who has made a significant contribution to the folk music community and industry’. With this in mind, the fact that in 2012 the title is given to a man who is 36, surely says a lot about what John Butler has been doing with his time.
At the end of the video clip for the John Butler Trio’s 2007 ‘Better Than’, a song in which Butler leads with a driving, rhythmical riff on the banjo, a quote is scrawled on a wall, graffiti style: ‘Art changes people. People change the world’. If this is true, then the prolific John Butler is constantly changing and growing, and all for the better. But on another level, he’s a true personification of this sentiment, considering the way his art ‘changes people’ and certainly has inspired countless young musicians in this country, not to mention his significant contribution as one person working to bring about change, using his artistic success for greater good.
Born in Torrance, California to an Australian father and American mother, John Butler moved to Western Australia with his father in 1986, and now calls Australia his home. Of course, like all successful musicians, John Butler didn’t reach where he is today over night. He began playing guitar at age 16 and started out, like many good folk musicians, as a busker, playing in the streets of Western Australia’s creative hub of Fremantle. Drawing from music styles such as Indian, Celtic, bluegrass and folk, Butler’s self-composed and recorded tape of instrumentals, Searching For Heritage (1996), sold an amazing 3,000 copies.
The John Butler Trio was formed a couple of years later and the John Butler album was released in 1998. Success with his recordings has followed steadily since then, with three albums Sunrise Over Sea, Grand National and April Uprising all reaching number one on the Australian charts. Combined with a swag of APRA and ARIA nominations and awards, John Butler’s musical voice has been heard loud and clear. His funk-edged, blues and roots sound is distinct and his vocal unmistakable. His style is soulful, playful, upbeat, and, most of all, meaningful and message carrying.
If there is one message that Butler is making loud and clear, it is that the music scene in Australia needs to be continually nourished and renewed, and he has made his own big contribution to this by establishing The Seed in 2005 with wife Danielle Caruana, of Mama Kin. The Seed is a music funding body that supports Australian artists, offering a range of grants, mentoring initiatives and music industry conferences, with the idea of sharing finances and knowledge with the next generation of emerging artists. John describes his motivation behind the project on The Seed website:
“When Danielle and I first started the fund we always intended for it to grow into something that wasn’t just funded by ourselves but contributed to by many movers and shakers within the Australian music community.
In the beginning we felt it was necessary for this fund to have credentials and for that my initials served well. But now … [t]his is an Initiative funded BY the music community FOR the music community and I feel The Seed best represents our inclusive approach” www.theseedfund.org
It’s precisely the kind of passion, music excellence and commitment to Australian folk music that makes John Butler a perfect Artist of the Year in 2012. We asked Rhythms magazine’s Samuel J. Fell to interview John Butler and share his thoughts on the award:

“Art changes people. People change the world”

Port Fairy Festival Director Jamie McKew remembers seeing John Butler supporting The Waifs in the backroom at The Nash in Geelong, more than ten years ago. “No one knew who he was,” McKew says – how things have changed. “
Since that day, and indeed, since the days when Butler first embarked upon his musical journey – busking mainly, a slow and steady beginning – his star has risen. Risen to heights not often seen in the realms of roots music, a genre (or a collection of genres) before thought, amongst younger circles, to be ‘uncool’ and ‘old’, until the likes of a few came along and turned that notion on its head. John Butler was one of those few.
It’s because of what Butler has achieved over the past decade or so then, that he’s been awarded the 2012 Port Fairy Folk Festival’s Artist Of The Year. This is a man who began at the bottom, and through talent, drive and creativity, made it to the top, in the process reinvigorating music and minds alike, ideals and perceptions of roots music, of independent artists, of ways of getting your message out.
“It just has to come from a soulful place at the end of the day, and if it has the opportunity of reaching as many ears as possible, then that’s awesome, that’s a dream come true for me,” Butler himself muses from his studio out West, where mere hours before, he’d happily received news of the aforementioned award. Butler is also sage on his methods of presenting his ideas, his messages if you will – “I think, of all things, you have to be playful. If you clutch onto anything too strong, you end up strangling it.”
It’s been this genuine desire to share in such an artistic and subtle way then, that has seen Butler—both solo and in trio format— reach people the world over, come into their lives, enriching them as he’s gone. But in amongst the accolades and the adulation as well, Butler has given back, perhaps most importantly through what was initially known as The JB Seed, now The Seed, a true indication that Butler recognises the need for nurturing, particularly given he himself came from such grassroots beginnings.
“It’s all I know … and I’m really proud of where I’ve come from, how I naturally grew from that place; it’s where I paid my dues,” he tells. John Butler is still paying his dues: “I feel like I’ve grown … but I feel like my best work is still ahead of me,” he smiles. “I’m really excited about that”. and as such, he’s still exploring, still growing as an artist, still exciting his legions of fans, not to mention himself.
Although Butler is still young, it’s universally recognised that he’s on the path trodden before by the ‘greats’ of Australian music – Paul Kelly, Archie Roach, Jeff Lang, amongst others. This is a canon of artists revered the world over, and Butler, given his past, seems destined to join them—from little things, big things grow, as Paul Kelly sang, an adage which in this instance, rings clear as a bell.
Samuel J. Fell

Balcony Broadcast – 23rd Feb 2012

Please find the link below to the new video of Beccy Cole – ‘Waitress’

-          Beccy won two Golden Guitars at this year’s Tamworth Country Music Awards.
-          One of these awards was for  ‘Female Artists of The Year’ for the song ‘Waitress’.
-          Beccy will embark on the ‘Songs & Pictures’  national tour February  to August ( 50 + dates)
-          The album debuted at #19 on the National Album chart and top 5 on the Country Chart.
-          The First single ‘Shiny Things’ peaked at #1 on the country music radio charts and #1 on CMC’s top 50 countdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__Ydu-z78wk

DENIS WALTER AND GRETA BRADMAN

TO SUPPORT IL DIVO IN MELBOURNE

Friday 27 January 2012 – Live Nation are thrilled to announce that popular entertainer Denis Walter and soprano sensation Greta Bradman will support international superstars Il Divo at their upcoming show in Melbourne at the iconic Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketmaster.

Entertaining Australians for more than four decades, Denis Walter remains one of Australia’s most successful performers.  Denis burst onto the Australian entertainment scene in the early ‘70s and remains as popular as ever today, hosting 3AW’s high-rating afternoons program as well as performing at many corporate and charity events across the country. In November 2011 Denis released his 16^th album, Songs From A Southern Land – Volume One. This included Denis’ unique interpretation of Australian classics including Ship Song (Nick Cave), Wings Of An Eagle (Russell Morris), One Perfect Day (Little Heroes), Girls On The Avenue (Richard Clapton) and an acoustic version of Cold Chisel’s Forever Now.

Greta Bradman has recently emerged as one of the foremost sopranos of her generation. Greta is a beautiful young singer with a powerhouse voice and commanding stage presence, and has received rave reviews across Australia for her performances. Music runs deep in Greta’s family, with a jazz musician father and both grandfathers talented amateur musicians. Particularly close to Greta’s heart is a song she recorded written by her grandfather, the iconic Australian cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman. This was the only new recording featured in a compilation of songs selected from his own record collection for a double CD release Don Bradman: The Music He Loved (ABC Classics 2009). In addition to having two award-winning independent CDs, Greta received an ARIA nomination for her debut solo album with Sony Music, Forest of Dreams (2010) and was shortlisted as Best Newcomer in the 2010 ABC Limelight Magazine Awards. In 2011 Greta released her second album with Sony Music, Grace, to much critical acclaim.

The world’s most successful classical crossover group, Il Divo, won the hearts of media and fans alike during their November visit to Australia where they announced their upcoming national tour at Melbourne Spring Carnival. Their Australian tour kicks off on Valentine’s Day at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday 14 February 2012. Fans can look forward to all the emotion, beauty and power of Il Divo’s unique vocals and operatic arrangements as they take audiences on a journey that combines opera, pop and musical theatre.

“We’re so excited to be kicking off our 2012 tour in Australia. Valentine’s Day, performing at the Sydney Opera House, is going to be such a memorable start to a world tour … it really feels like coming home. It’s a country full of my favourite things: Tim Tams, Whale Beach, shopping on Chapel Street and one of the best zoos in the world. We can’t wait to have the time whilst on tour to enjoy it all!” – Sebastien Izambard (Il Divo)

With a new show designed by Creative Director, Brian Burke (Artistic Director of ‘La Reve’ & Celine Dion’s five-year run of ‘A New Day’ at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas) and the support of the Il Divo orchestra, the 2012 tour promises to incorporate a stunning visual and musical mix of fan favourites as well as premiering songs from their new album Wicked Game.

The record-breaking quartet – Swiss tenor Urs Buhler, baritone Carlos Marin from Spain, French pop artist Sebastien Izambard and tenor David Miller from the USA first came together in 2003, the culmination of an exhaustive search by music producer Simon Cowell to find four singers of distinctive individual gifts who could, as a group, create musical magic. The results have been stunning – with more than 25 million album sales, 150 gold and platinum discs, more than 2 million concert tickets sold and the only crossover classical album Ancora ever to enter the US Billboard Top 200 at number 1.

Don’t miss your chance to experience the magic of Il Divo live in 2012. Il Divo Wicked Game is out now through Sony Music Entertainment. Greta Bradman Grace is out now through Sony Music Entertainment. Denis Walter Songs From A Southern Land – Volume One available now.

FOR FULL TOUR & TICKET INFORMATION VISIT WWW.ILDIVO.COM

« Previous Page — Next Page »