Renowned Australian jazz vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Vince Jones finishes his current run of national dates at the Nambour Winter Jazz Festival, where he’ll warm audiences with his supper club dinner and show.
In its third year, Nambour Winter Jazz Festival present an exciting day of jazz and Vince says he excited to be performing on such a quality roster of live music.
“The key word there is live music,” Vince says.
“I think people have forgotten how good live music is and how important it is for the soul. It’s great to have live artists playing at festivals; it’s a magic experience and it touches people in the heart when they hear live music.
“With jazz, part of it is improvisation and virtually throwing caution to the wind in the music. When you’re watching it live you’ll never get a recorded piece of music; live is always better.”
For the festival, Vince will be presenting his supper club show at Nambour RSL, where he’ll perform from his extensive catalogue of enriching original tunes as well as beloved classics and standards. “It’s music from the past,” he says.
“I’ve made quite a few albums and of course there’s new songs plus a really good band for them to hear and listen to. I think the main thing is the catalogue of songs I’ve got from over the years. So there’ll be something new and something old.”
Vince will be performing as part of his quartet, which also features Matt McMahon on piano, Karl Dunnicliff on bass and James Hauptman on drums.
Over his career, Vince has recorded 17 albums – including live and best-of releases – beginning with 1981’s debut ‘Watch What Happens’. From then, Vince recorded an album every year until 1988’s ‘It All Ends In Tears’.
“I was doing gigs around town and a fellow who had a children’s record label came up to me at a gig and said ‘would you like to record on my label?’” Vince explains about making his first album.
“I’d never actually made an album until that one so in the ‘70s I was doing a lot of gigs but had never recorded anything. He said ‘come record on my label and I’ll release the album to EMI or propose they take it on', and that was it. For six years I made an album every year with EMI.”
Vince’s last album ‘Provenance’ came out in 2015, which saw him return to his roots by performing again with long-time collaborator Paul Grabowsky. Vince has just finished another album that he says should be out either later this year or early next year.
Active in jazz for over 30 years, Vince says he has accumulated many proud achievements but none greater than being able to retain his integrity as a musician. “I never specifically went out and recorded music that was going to be successful,” he says.
“For me it was all about making music that I really enjoyed singing and playing. Also I didn’t have to do commercial music; I didn’t have to make hits. I was so fortunate to be in that position.”
Vince Jones Australia Tour 2018
Fri 29 Jun - The Memo (Healesville)Sat 30 Jun - Memo Music Hall (Sydney)
Sun 1 Jul - Caravan Music Club (Melbourne)
Sat 21 Jul - Nambour Winter Jazz Festival
