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Sharpe jazz on tap

Singer Eryn Sharpe brings jazz, R&B trio to Mac Jazz series show Friday
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Jazz vocalist Eryn Sharpe appears with her trio Friday in the Jazz at the MAC series at the McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville.

JAZZ at the MAC returns this month with an appearance by the Eryn Sharpe Trio Friday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m.

The Eryn Sharpe Trio is a Victoria-based jazz and R&B band founded in 2013. The band consists of Eryn Sharpe (lead vocals), Leon Nagasaki (guitar), and Nick Mintenko (bass).

Sharpe and Nagasaki had been working together for a few years before the trio was formed, but it was the addition of Mintenko on bass that really helped their previous work click into place.

The band’s motto is “Music in the Moment” and with that in mind they strive to preserve the rawness and innovation of the legends of jazz and R&B in their own interpretations and compositions.

“Some voices have a truth to them that is undeniable,” said Nagasaki. When you hear one you can feel every atom in the room do a little shimmy and you think to yourself ‘now that’s just right,’” Nagasaki says on the band’s website. “I felt that shimmy the first time I heard Eryn Sharpe sing four years ago.”

Naturally, Sharpe can’t remember when she didn’t sing.  Neither can her parents — and they did what they could to nurture her gift throughout her childhood.

Sharpe grew up on Royal Conservatory exams and school musicals and, by her teen years, had wandered into the coffee shop folk music scene.

Nagasaki recalls playing guitar at a jazz jam in a small bistro when Sharpe came over from the folk night to try singing jazz.

“That night, we found we shared an aesthetic vision of what music can be and we’ve been working to make it real ever since,” he said.

“With the recent addition of Nick on bass, Eryn and I have felt our years of work click into place like never before.”

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for Friday’s concert. Tickets are $15, or $12 for OCAC Members, and are available in advance at the MAC during gallery hours (10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday), or at the door.

For more information, please contact the McMillan Arts Council at 250-248-8185 or visit www.mcmillanartscentre.com.

— Submitted by The MAC