Glenelg Jazz Festival - Percusson

Normally the Bay moves to a laidback beat.. with the gentle ebb and flow of the waves and the slow rattle of its historic tram.. but come late October it's a very cool sound that heralds the approaching summer... like the big band sound of Goose.. a hit at last year's jazz Festival.

And during the day legendary gospel singer, Lillian Boutee will bring in a whole new army of gospel converts to Elder Hall and the Festival's main tent.

But there are a few locals who are determined to put their own stamp on their festival and add a little Latin magic at the same time.

That's why University of Adelaide Music graduate Mark Ferguson has teamed up with fellow composers and musos in the Scott Theatre.

"The trombone solo will only be thirty two bars."

And in an era when many percussionists have fallen prey to drum machines and a synthesised beat... these musicians have teamed up with the John Reynolds Drum Corp to showcase Adelaide's local talent.

"And we've written a whole bunch of new stuff and rearranged some old stuff that we used to have".

"So people will hear a lot of new percussion stuff at the Glenelg Jazz Festival?"

"Yer yer. A whole bunch of it will be new stuff and a lot of it is stuff that was around before.. but we've just rewritten it entirely like a suite that I wrote for my honours degree which was for strings and now is for percussion."

"As it should be".

"This is a bit of percussionists strikes back sort of thing isn't it?".

"Absolutely".

"In fact they've been eased out of bands but now they're back."

"They're absolutely back and they're loud and proud".

And Mark is true to his word. Armed with samba whistle I recently stood in on a rehearsal of one of their pieces from on overall suite entitled "Percussions".

These samba friends known as percussion will hold two performances on the main Bartercard stage on the evening of Saturday October the 21st. The Festival runs from Friday October 20 through to Sunday the 22nd. For bookings contact Bass on 131 246.

To go into the draw to win free tickets to the festival just do the following:

To enter the competition to win a Grand Weekend at the 2000 Bartercard Glenelg Jazz Festival, make sure that you look at your local Messenger Newspaper this week, complete the coupon and send in by Friday 13th October.

Good luck!

For more information of the Festival visit their web site at www.glenelgjazz.onau.net