April is the month of Jazz which is why Seth McNall, the Chair of the London Jazz Festival organized the first ever music festival of Jazz in the forest city. The Richmond Tavern is one of the five venues that will host the festival. General Manager of the Richmond Tavern, Mark Dencev jumped at the opportunity to help McNall.
“I think what I really appreciate about this festival is that its very grassroots organized. You can tell that all the people involved are musicians and they’re involved in the business and they’re involved in the business of presenting music to their crowds. This isn’t like some corporate affiliation that’s trying to put on some big event to make money off tickets. It has nothing to do with that.” said Dencev.
What is different about this festival is that many of the musicians performing are local and have graduated or played at London’s Fanshawe College or Western University. This is true for Evan Chambers who graduated Western in 2023. He is a local Jazz percussionist and drummer for the Nathan Nykor Trio.
“You know, in terms of like Jazz is my favourite music to play definitely. I get to express my self the most while I’m playing and I like the atmosphere at the tavern as well. It’s very small the stage, you know you can see everybody well and yeah the music projects to them really well and it’s good to interact with the crowd. That’s one of my favourite parts.” said Chambers.
For some of these musicians it is the first time they perform Jazz. Like one of the members of the Nathan Nykor Trio that played at the Richmond Tavern. The bass performer of the trio, Charlie Kramers feels great about being a part of the festival.
“It’s kind of a scary thing Jazz. You know like I’m pretty new to it, so I’m not use to all the improvisation and just going up there and dealing with it and I’d say like that’s the biggest difference coming from like Indie, Rock kind of stuff. I would say yeah its scary, but it’s also good. It’s exhilarating I would say.” Kramers said.
The Jazz Festival started on April 5th and will go on until April 30th of 2024. All the performances will happen in London at 5 different venues across the month.
“It is pretty exciting, I’m really excited. I can’t believe that it’s going to be a whole month long. It’s been 4 days so far and I’m not tired at all. I’m just ecstatic. It’s just overwhelmingly great yeah.” McNall said.
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