Jazz trumpeter and UVic educator Patrick Boyle and his Hot Four bring the best of Louis Armstrong to The Oaks Restaurant and Tearoom for the next Blues for Eric benefit concert.
Scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, April 13, the show is a fundraiser for the Eric LeBlanc Memorial Scholarship, which benefits UVic music students in the school’s jazz program. The late Eric LeBlanc was a local radio star, author, educator and blues authority.
He would appreciate Boyle’s celebration of Armstrong’s groundbreaking, seminal jazz. Joined by jazz veterans Tom Acreman on clarinet and saxophone, Matt Pease on drums and Don Cox on tuba, Boyle will blow blues-drenched, early jazz classics like Armstrong’s “Tin Roof Blues,” “St. Louis Blues,” “West End Blues,” “Basin Street Blues,” “Potato Head Blues” and “Black and Blue.”
For jazz fans and the uninitiated, the benefit concert in the intimate, 100-seat Oak Bay Village setting is a chance to listen to the music from the 1920s and beyond that liberated jazz from its blues foundation, as brilliant Armstrong trumpet solos launched the improvisational form into the modern age. He was one of the greatest artists of all-time, and despite that his worldwide popularity remains underrated.
If you think all there is to Louis Armstrong’s music is “Hello Dolly” and “What A Wonderful World,” join the crowd for this chance to hear his genius played by a band steeped in the tradition.
Tickets are $20, cash only, at The Oaks, 2250 Oak Bay Ave. This show is expected to sell out, so get your tickets early, and arrive early to enjoy something to eat and drink and get a good seat. For tickets and more information call 250-590-3155.
editor@mondaymag.com
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