Archive - Thursday, 8 November 2001


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Top spot at jazz festival

A LOCAL jazz band has landed itself a top spot at a prestigious American music festival.

The Keith Little Hot Six has been chosen as the only band from the UK to play in the Sacramento Jazz Festival in California next May.

The band, which formed in 1998, fought off competition from 60 UK bands to take the highly sought after spot.

Now the band's seven members, two from Penarth, are practising hard to get their sound at top notch.

Pianist Keith Little, of Plassey Street, welcomed the news: "We're really looking forward to the event. It's going to be a great festival."

The band, including saxophonist Ceri Rees, also of Penarth, already has experience in top festivals, playing at Brecon Jazz, Nantes International Music Festival, the Oliver Cromwell Jazz Festival, the Keswick Jazz Festival and more.

They have also played concerts at the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Jersey Jazz tour, and in the recent Barrage and Spirit of Cardiff event at Cardiff Bay.

And if you want to see what they are like, before they jet off to America, you can see them at The Windsor, Penarth, on alternate Wednesdays at 9pm.

Keith Little said: "I decided to form a band specialising in the jazz styles of early swing music, Dixieland and shuffle, made famous by Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Roy Eldridge, Mugsy Spanier, Louis Prima and others.

"In only three-and-a-half years, our band has risen dramatically, from playing local venues to being asked to play across the whole of Britain in concerts and festivals, as well as to perform in festivals and tours overseas."

The band has one CD, Red, Hot and Blue, released in March 2000. A second, Hotter Than That, is currently under production with an estimated release date of February 2002.

* For more information phone 2030 1313 or e-mail keith.littlejazz@ntlworld.com