Classics, groove and all that jazz

Andrew Bruce making his music mark

SIMON EDWARDS/Hutt News

KEYBOARD GROOVE: Andrew Bruce says classical music study delivered him a base of music technique but it???s jazz piano that has really opened up his creativity.

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Andrew Bruce says learning the techniques of jazz piano has helped him find his own style.

"It's wicked how you can learn a method that will teach you to say what you want to say in music."
At the end of the week the Hutt Valley High School 17-year-old travels to Queenstown for the ‘Jump Starting Emerging Talent' competition at the ASB Jazz Festival. Organisers look at scores of vocal, instrumental and band entries submitted on DVD and pick just 10 under-20-year-olds to vie for the title and prize money.

Andrew came to their notice after earning the trophy for ‘best keyboardist' at last year's Tauranga Montana Jazz Festival.

A win in Queenstown could help him with the looming costs entailed in his ambition to audition for study next year at Sydney's Conservatorium of Music, the Melbourne School or, as a "back up", the New Zealand School of Music.  He's shooting for study and performing in Australia because of the chance to interact in the "bigger fish pool of music over there".

At Queenstown he'll play a "reflective" piece he composed himself and calls Falling.  Andrew says he tends to be "quite slashy" when writing original music and songs; he's got to feel it's good to survive his cutting.  That means his repertoire of original material is not that extensive, "but what I've got I'm pretty pleased with".

His long-term ambition is to earn a living from performing and writing his own music.  While that might not be in the jazz style, he says it's jazz that "unlocked the ideas of style and improvisation".  Musicians such as Warren Maxwell of The Little Bushmen and members of Fat Freddy's Drop all came through jazz schools.

He was only four when he first expressed interest in learning to play the saxophone.  His parents thought piano would be more practical and for the following eight years he practised hard learning classical music.  He got to pick up his tenor sax at age 11, and it has been his "secondary instrument" since.  "I really enjoy it; it's a beautiful instrument."

While he had been mucking around a bit with improvisation and composing, Andrew says it wasn't until he got talking to guitar specialist teacher Leigh Jackson at Hutt Valley High School that jazz entered his life.  "He taught me to create; I'd never had that before."

Not that Andrew "discredits" classical.  That has been a "necessary" and pleasurable route in music education, "great for technique".  But he says jazz has really extended his breadth of harmonic knowledge and stylistic playing.

Earlier this year Andrew hooked up with mates he's known from other colleges (they've studied at Victoria's and Massey's NZ School of Music Acadmey) to form soul-funk collective Groove Generation.  The usual fare at Smokefreerockquest is loud rock or metal, but the 7-piece marched off with the Wellington region title.

With an ear for the likes of James Brown, Earth Wind & Fire and ‘Cool' and the Band, Groove Generation "puts on a high energy performance" and Andrew says the rockquest punters seemed to enjoy it. With the likes of Amy Winehouse giving resurgence to "that old school Motown sound", Groove Generation rides the trend but puts some soul and disco elements in the mix.

At the weekend, for the second year running, Andrew was off on a road trip and 3-day intensive workshop with the NZ Youth Jazz Orchestra.  This time a musician from Las Vegas came across to work with the orchestra, which yesterday and today was to perform at concerts in Palmerston North and Wanganui.  It's a chance for more time with his friends: the Groove Generation musicians are all members.  "The rhythm section of the orchestra are all friends from Wellington."

Andrew also keeps busy with rock/pop band Lunchbox Boys and, like his sister Emily, is also in the Wellington Youth Choir.

He's pleased with what Hutt Valley High School has offered him musically.  He had an idea of skipping Year 13 and getting straight onto degree study but after talking to HVHS's new HOD of music, Grace Davey, they worked out a programme that he believed offered him more scope.  As an example of the school's "flexibility", it gives Andrew two extra study spells to explore his music.

"It's been a great school for music for me," Andrew says.

- He's got the talent, but big travel and study costs are looming for Andrew Bruce.  Any sponsor willing to help can email Andrew@andrewbrucemusic.com