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Ten-piece band brings New Orleans-style jazz to Crofton

The Crofton Hotel Pub will fill with the sounds of traditional and contemporary New Orleans-style jazz as the N.O.L.A. NightHawks return

The Crofton Hotel Pub will be filled with the sounds of traditional and contemporary New Orleans-style jazz as the N.O.L.A. NightHawks return for an afternoon of Big Easy jazz Sunday, March 13.

Led by pianist and arranger Andrew Homzy, the 10-piece band mixes an unusual instrumentation of two trumpets, two trombones, clarinet, baritone sax and a four-piece rhythm section.

The NightHawks will be playing numerous blues favourites including Aunt Hagar’s Blues by W.C. Handy, and Barnyard Blues, which was Side B on the very first jazz recording made in 1917.

Pub regulars will remember the band’s debut in Crofton last March, and its return in October.

Homzy, who moved to Nanaimo in 2009, was a key figure on the Montreal jazz scene for more than 40 years, where his band played regularly at the Montreal Jazz Festival and whose performances were broadcast many times over Radio-Canada.

He was nominated for a Grammy for his research into the music of legendary jazz bass pioneer Charles Mingus, writing comprehensive notes on his work and co-producing Mingus’s six-CD set, Passions of a Man: The Complete Atlantic Recordings 1956-1961.

The performance is part of the Jazz at Crofton series, which runs every Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m.

The pub is at 1534 Joan Ave.

Admission to this week’s concert is $15. Information: call 250-324-2245 or visit www.croftonhotel.ca.