Jazz BANG

Music

Jazz BANG is a jazz music festival thinly veiled as a jazz dance event. This year our Musical Directors have carefully selected the finest and most inspiring musicians Sydney and NSW have to offer. Each night Andrew builds a new band with his rhythm section as the foundation, showcasing a different swinging style and feel for each party.
If we're visiting St Louis and LA in our classes, our parties are all about our home town: Sydney.

Tickets to all parties are available at the door, or you can go hardcore with a party pass.

• Bands:
  • Friday band
  • Saturday band
  • Sunday band
• DJs
• Musical Directors
  • Sam Carroll
  • Andrew Dickeson

Andrew Dickeson's Jazz Family Band

8.00pm, Saturday 4 May, Belmore Bowling Club, 1A Leylands Parade, Belmore (MAP), $40 at the door or included with Everything Pass.

Andrew Dickeson's Jazz Family Band returns to Sydney, trailing a wake of rave reviews and ecstatic testimonials. This group wowed us at the Little Big Weekend in 2017, and Jazz BANG last year, and this year they nail the whole thing down and push it out to sea.

What sort of music?
Sam asked Andrew: "Can we have lots of party music with exciting energy and some fast bits with vibraphone that feels like balboa and also Moonglow and did I say party music?"
And Andrew said "Yes."

Drums: Andrew Dickeson
Bass: Ash Turner
Piano: Peter Locke
Saxophone/clarinet/vocal: Brad Child
Trumpet: Al Davey
Vibes: Glenn Henrich

Marie Wilson owns the Blue Rhythm Band

8.30pm Sunday 5 May, Ruby's Dance Hall, 14 Cadogan St, Marrickville (MAP), $35 at the door or included with Everything Pass.

It's the end of the weekend. We have learnt everything. We have drunk all the coffee, eaten all the cake, bathed in all the breweries. Now we just want to relax, to party like it's 1938.

Sam asked Andrew: "Can we get another vocalist, someone who's been around for ages and really know how to sing a swing song and make us dance?"
And Andrew said, "Yes."

Marie Wilson is serious jazz. She's been singing in Australia since the 1960s, and she has serious chops. We don't often get to hear her play for dancers (we never get to hear her place for dancers), but Andrew has tempted her up from the South Coast. So everyone listen up: the dame is here. And she is prepared to party.

Drums: Andrew Dickeson
Bass: Ash Turner
Piano: Peter Locke
Saxophone/clarinet/vocal: Brad Child
Vocal: Marie Wilson

DJs

There isn't much room for DJs in the Jazz BANG program. So we only take the best.

Details to come...

Musical directors

Sam Carroll

Sam is a deeply passionate jazz fan who's been collecting jazz music recordings since the 1990s. It was jazz that brought her to lindy hop, and lindy hop that brought her to DJing in 2005.

Sam has since become one of the most sought-after DJs in Australia, and DJs regularly at some of the biggest overseas events (including Lindy Focus, Herräng, Seoul Lindyfest).
She's also been running dance events and managing bands since 2001. She takes great pride in presenting bands who not only know what they're doing at a dance gig, but love what they're doing.

Andrew Dickeson

Andrew Dickeson is one of the best known and best respected jazz drummers in Australia and Asia. He teaches jazz history at the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, and he leads and plays in various bands throughout our region. Most recently he's become a band leader specialising in straight ahead swinging bands for dancers. His core dance band, the Blue Rhythm Band is so popular with dancers it risks being over-exposed.
He will take unreasonable requests and build you the best band you've ever booked.

Sam and Andrew

Are jazz buddies. They share music, argue about which Basie recordings are best (Andrew: Savory, Sam: Atomic band at the Crescendo), and live in the same neighbourhood. They also share a great passion for jazz, and for running a very tight ship. Safe gigs and good company give a band the solid foundation they need to do inspired creative work.

Sam and Andrew have been collaborating on live band projects for dancers since the Little Big Weekend in 2014. They are good friends, even though Sam can't believe Andrew doesn't dance, and Andrew can't believe Sam still hasn't listened to the Savory recordings.