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| 'Hallelujah' - Jubilation Is Back In Town How do you celebrate your tenth birthday? Release a CD and throw a party - or make that four parties. Gospel supergroup Jubilation are doing four gigs Auckland-wide to celebrate the release of their first CD, Shout & Never Get Tired. Jubilation originals like Rick Bryant's 'Learn To Forgive' and Jean McAllister's 'First To Come Home' mix it with Tom Waits, Isaac Hayes and Don McGlashan classics – the songs hail from the 1840s right through to the 21st century. What they have in common is soul, and they come alive with the Jubilation a capella treatment - no instruments, just the naked human voice. The Four Corners tour is a celebration of Auckland as well as a CD launch - singing at four very different locations around Auckland brings the different parts of the city together in harmony. Gigs in Mangere, Titrangi, Devonport and the central city mean that South Auckland, the West, the North Shore and the CBD all get a taste, while the Eastern Suburbs play their part with the recording studio for the CD being St. Lukes in deepest Remuera. Having sung in front of large audiences around the country with standing-ovation performances at WOMAD, the Tauranga and Taupo Arts Festivals, the Festival of Colour in Wanaka and the Wellington Jazz festival, now is the time for Jubilation to bring it home. Pulling together 33 singers from all walks of life, Jubilation features a handful of New Zealand's most outstanding and celebrated vocalists. Rick Bryant, founding member of Mammal, the Jive Bombers, The Neighbours and the Windy City Strugglers, is an R & B legend on the local scene. Jackie Clarke of When The Cat's Been Spayed, the Ladykillers and The Darlings, Callie Blood of the Darlings and Jean McAllister of David Lange's favourite band The Drongoes also bring their fabulous voices to the party. Other well-known names in the choir are actors Jennifer Ward Lealand and Amanda Billing and writer/director Fiona Samuel, but most of Jubilation's singers moonlight as builders, political analysts, electricians, teachers, nurses… There's also a boat builder and a postie. The group's repertoire is similarly eclectic – from the soul and R & B style gospel of 'People Get Ready' and 'Operator' through the alt/country sound of 'Bright Morning Star' and 'Wayfaring Stranger' all the way to the glorious kiwi gospel of Don McGlashan's 'Bathe In The River'. Jubilation sang the backing vocals for Hollie Smith's stunning version of this song which graced the 'Number Two' film soundtrack and won the APRA Silver Scroll for best song in 2006. The release of SHOUT & NEVER GET TIRED is a milestone in Jubilation's ten year history, and the Four Corners tour is a great chance to hear the choir that METRO described as one of the reasons to be proud you live in Auckland. 'This choir is probably the most versatile selection of singers in New Zealand today and can only be described as spectacular!' - NZ Musician Oct/Nov 2006 write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Jazz News :: home page |