Mint Jazz

Four NMIT Contemporary Music tutors with an affection for jazz and anagrams; Mint are Creative Industries’ staff Doug Stenhouse (drums), Craig Agnew (guitar) and Liam Ryan (keyboards) and Fraser Campbell (Bass)

The band debuted in early March to an enthusiastic crowd of 400 at Woollaston Estates and followed up quickly with an invitation performance at the Nelson Jazz Club. Both outings were received warmly by Nelson jazz aficionados.

“To really cut it with a jazz audience you still need to be able to deliver jazz standards so we have also delved into the jazz canon and dragged up some tunes not heard so often. It’s a buzz to play an original and then dive down into some Coltrane or Miles and be reminded of the deep roots of jazz,” Ryan reflects. “And when we played those first couple of gigs it was fantastic to look up from the keyboard and see our students in the audience.”

Mint Jazz are performing at The Boathouse Friday June 1st. Go to the gig... or go to the band’s facebook page and “like” them! www.facebook.com/mintjazznz