Prime Time Big Band

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Sold out! Prime Time Big Band with vocalist Deanne Matley

Sold out! Prime Time Big Band with vocalist Deanne Matley presents For Sentimental Reasons: An Ella Affair, Saturday, January 24, 8 pm at Calgary’s Ironwood Stage & Grill

Dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in North America for half a century. For Sentimental Reasons: An Ella Affair is a special concert of her music, performed by the instrumentally powerful 20-piece Prime Time Big Band, featuring one of Calgary’s most in-demand vocalists, Deanne Matley. The music and its performers are so popular, all seats for the event were reserved by fans weeks in advance.

PTBB Fitzgerald JazzYYC event page

Fitzgerald recorded about 2,000 songs, many with some of history’s greatest musicians. Bandleader Dave Jones has carefully chosen new charts of big band arrangements for this occasion. Among the well-known selections are such hits as The Very Thought of You, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love), Cheek to Cheek, A Tisket A Tasket, and the legendary Mack the Knife, most memorable for Fitzgerald forgetting the words. The concert also will include a destined-to-be-memorable duet by Matley and WCMA Heritage Award winner, trumpeter Al Muirhead, singing The Nearness of You.

Deanne Matley is already known on the Calgary music scene for her fine renderings of the timeless classics that first came to us via one of the world’s greatest jazz voices. She has performed Ella’s music on several occasions, both with Prime Time and with the group of seven top Calgary vocalists who present concerts themed on their favourite women in jazz. Matley is recognized for her ability to express a wide emotional range in her singing, in almost every genre. Her first CD Stealin’ Blue reached top 10 jazz play across Canada. Her three later recordings have found a growing fanbase worldwide.

Founded in 1994 by Dave Jones, Prime Time’s membership is made up of some of the best jazz musicians in western Canada. Almost all of the city’s most veteran jazz players–including Eric Friedenberg on saxophones and woodwinds, Al Muirhead on trumpet and flugelhorn, Brian Walley on trombone, Kai Poscente on bass and John de Waal on drums–play alongside more recently established pros.

For Sentimental Reasons: An Ella Affair

Saturday, January 24, 8 pm, Ironwood Stage & Grill, wait list reservations@ironwoodstage.ca and 403-269-5581, $27 cover charge.

Prime Time Big Band