Coming off a summer tour to promote their debut LP Monday Night, Jazz Party are taking over The Tote in May for one last celebratory hurrah.
Singer Loretta Miller says that the band feels good about the great shows they’ve played over the hot, summer months but are relieved now that they’re at the tail end of the tour. “It’s time to rest up,” she says. “I’m looking forward to getting to do some more writing and creating because we’ve been so busy we haven’t had time to do that.”
The idea to hold a Tote Takeover came about because Jazz Party were planning on taking a bit of a break from gigging to re-focus. They thought before they did that, they needed to throw a massive party and have one last night of fun. “We’ve been crazy busy. A lot of us are in a million bands and we find that we can definitely lose time to be creative and it’s really important to us to just have space and time to allow that to happen,” Miller says.
“There are a few bands around that we really love to play with, it’s almost like throwing a house party with a bunch of bands playing that you love and are your mates. It’s going to be a curated night of good times.
“My hope is that people won’t see it as just another Jazz Party show, but rather as a night of music that you can come and experience,” she says. “There will be all kinds of different things going on and different styles so I hope people come and see the whole thing and not just look at it like it’s just another Jazz Party gig.”
The band has stated that they feel most comfortable playing in a dive bar venue where everything is dark, loud and spontaneous and everyone’s there to have a good time. Miller believes that The Tote will suit them perfectly for this because the venue is a grungy rock’n’roll hall. Although it doesn’t seem like a natural place for a jazz band to play, she has always looked at Jazz Party as more of crazy, loose, rock’n’roll vibe approach to jazz anyway. “I think it’ll be fun, it’ll be loose,” she says. “We haven’t played a Melbourne bandroom gig in ages so I’m looking forward to doing that again, getting off the festival stage and being a little bit freer. It’s our own show so we can do whatever we want. Just be loose, be spontaneous, hopefully everyone will go there with us.”
The Tote Takeover will also be another chance to celebrate the release of ‘Magic Man’ as a new single from the LP. Miller says that the band never planned to release it as a single originally but it got such a great reception that it seemed natural to give it a go and push it out as a single. “It’s a great one to perform,” Miller says. “It’s very powerful and intense. It’s a fun song, one of my favourites to do at the moment.”
Once this is all over, Miller says Jazz Party is ready to lay low for a while and keep creating new music and see where it takes them as a band. “The aim is to always keep creating, I think that’s the most important thing,” she says. “I think we’ve done a great job at playing the same songs for a very long time and keeping them feeling alive. People have seen our gigs over and over and we play a lot of the same material and they keep coming back and we all still enjoy it. Obviously for us, we would like to just have new material. We’re going to see where it grows and where it goes and I think the audience would love that. We’ll just see where it takes us.”
