Nestled in the Yarra Valley, only 90 minutes from Melbourne, Marysville will once again host their Jazz & Blues Weekend this October. Since its birth in 2015, the Marysville Jazz & Blues weekend has won the Marysville Community Event of the Year Award twice and has continued to grow each year.
The event not only provides a platform for local and international blues and jazz musicians to perform, it also features artist-run workshops as well as showcasing a selection of food and wine that the Yarra Valley has to offer. With only a small team working to put the weekend together, organisers Bev and Leigh Fraser have been hard at work, though they’re excited for this year’s event.
“An important part of this weekend is that it’s not far from Melbourne and it’s such a beautiful place that people can come spend the whole weekend,” says Bev. “Even if they didn’t want to spend the whole weekend listening to music there’s other things they can do. They can go for a quick little bushwalk in the morning or go to the wineries, there’s so much in this area.”
The three-day event will see 30 local and international jazz and blues acts taking to the stage, headlined by Russell Morris who will open the festival on Friday night.
“There’s Russell Morris, he’s a real sweetie and he said it would be an honour to be behind something that supports live music in our town, and live musicians,” says Bev. “Along with Russell Morris we’ve got some local people performing, there’s a huge array of musicians. We’ve got Mike Rudd’s Spectrum playing, Lloyd Spiegel, Geoff Achison and The Souldiggers, we have a fabulous group called Men In Suits, right down to orchestras and the Alexandra School Choir.
“We’ve got Charlie Bedford who’s an up and coming, amazing, young performer, guitarist and singer, he’s 16, Tracy Roberts and her group, it just goes on,” she continues. “How do you summarise that and say who your favourites are? It’s so diverse. We’ve got Anita Harris, a beautiful jazz singer, we have a local group called McBlues who add a Scottish feel, they’ve got bagpipes and they’re playing blues, it’s so unique.”
“What we’ve tried to do is have a great variety of jazz and blues and there’s no distinct goal posts that define any of the two,” adds Leigh. “The two are blended together in the middle in some of the acts, some are left field jazz and others are right field blues and everything in between.
“We’ve also been very conscious, very mindful, this year to involve youth as well,” continues Leigh. “We have a couple of youth performers who are starting their careers and cutting their teeth in the industry. One of the young performers is actually opening for Russell Morris so at the age of 17 what an awesome start to their musical career to support an act like that. That’s been one of our aims as well.”
It’s not only the lineup that caters to everyone, Bev and Leigh have ensured that the food and wine vendors are equally diverse and that the artist-run workshops touch on a range of subjects to suit any interest.
“We’ve got beautiful wineries in the area, the Yarra Valley is rich with fabulous food. It’s diverse in that you can get a little bit of everything. Basically from wine bars through to restaurants, a la carte meals, grab a quick burger and run sort of thing,” says Bev.
“Some of the workshops, they’re not necessarily aimed at musicians, the person doesn’t need to have knowledge of an instrument,” adds Leigh. “There’s some quite interesting subjects varying from interpreting jazz standards to making your own, stagecraft, there’s one on the Maton guitar.
“The story behind the new Maton guitar Blackwood series and the timber that guitar is made out of is actually grown in Marysville, so there’s quite a lot of interesting things as far as workshops go.”
