Sarah McDonald Quintet

A WARM NIGHT OF HOT SOUL JAZZ WITH THE SARAH MCDONALD QUINTET

DOORS: 7PM | SHOW: 7.30-10PM

Sarah McDonald evokes cool smoky jazz club atmosphere with expressive melifluous phrasing contrasting with rhythmic dexterity. She is a singer who has been as influenced by horn players and drummers as she has by the great vocalists. Having delved deeply into music, she draws from the greats of the history of jazz, blues and soul and selects choice standards, along with original, contemporary and more esoteric repertoire that she infuses with a soulful authenticity

Not content with just being the 'canary' and then sitting back while the ‘real musicians’ play, she owns her place on the band stand with the lads, refuses to sing stand standards and cherry picks her favourite tunes from the instrumental jazz canon and makes them her own by penning her own lyrics.

She returns to The Coolroom with her dream team comprised of Ben Hanlon on double bass, Kumar Shome on guitar, Ron Romero on tenor sax and Luke Andresen on drums to play some hot takes on soul jazz and hard bop and choice tunes from great Blue Note artists from the likes of Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.

"..deceptively laid back and self-assured, with an undercurrent of emotions waiting to sweep you by. When she sings “Rusted brandy in a diamond glass”, it’s the rust she focuses on, not the diamond. Tom Waits would approve...

“..There’s a lot of nostalgic glamour associated with the ’20s and ’30’s era. Singers who choose to sing this material often end up as replicas of the sultry divas of the past, dressing up in satin gowns and pearls and stale femininity. Not Sarah McDonald. She approaches her material with a tomboyish attitude, phrasing the classic jazz and obscure torch songs that comprise her set list with a punk sensitivity and a kind of modern-day angst delivered by this beautiful, soulful chili-infused chocolate voice of hers. When she opens her mouth, she showers her audience with raw emotion. No pretense, no polished femininity, no nonsense. It helps that she’s sexy as hell when she does it; and that she’s surrounded by a killer band... As these musicians spew fire from their instruments, people get up and dance to her singing, even if she sings Monk’s “I mean you” (not the most danceable song out there)." Nikos Fotakis, australianjazz.net