Babyshakes rattle preconceptions
If there’s one way to prep for a Sal Valentine and the Babyshakes gig – it’s to bring your dancing shoes. Touted as ‘‘The AC/DC of jazz’’, the Auckland 10-piece will shake off any preconceptions about jazz being loungey and sophisticated at this year’s Wellington Jazz Festival and the New Zealand International Jazz and Blues Festival in Christchurch.
Since the release of their top-ten charting debut album in 2013, the Babyshakes have entertained at several festivals including Camp a Low Hum and Splore.
Their follow-up album, Live at No. 10 South Street, was recorded live in one day, capturing the band’s true talent and infectious live sound.
The rule of thumb for the band’s music and raucous live performance is to get people up on their feet, frontman Sal Valentine says.
‘‘We’re quite in-your-face – we’re not background music, that’s for sure, and we don’t do any covers.’’
Real name Ivan Luketina-Johnston, the 27-year-old remembers the moment he fell in love with Ray Charles, whose style of music heavily influenced the band’s inception.
Valentine was in his final year of jazz school at Auckland University in 2009, majoring in jazz percussion.
‘‘I was sitting on the floor at my friend’s flat, it was about four in the morning and we’d indulged quite a bit. A friend of mine just had some Ray Charles on his iPod and I was like, ‘what is this?’ I didn’t expect him to have that kind of thing on his iPod.
‘‘A song named Mary Ann by Ray Charles came on, and it just made me feel like a king. Listening to that song is like the musical equivalent of riding around in a limo with heaps of gold jewellery on. Just riding round Vegas or something with heaps of cash, you feel like a millionaire.’’
It spawned Valentine’s love affair with early soul – a blend of jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues and gospel which he still finds ‘‘just so f...ing sassy’’.
‘‘I wanted to write like that, I wanted to play like that. A lot of my other friends were into modern music and I thought, if I love music this much, then surely I can show other people how great this is.’’
He wrangled together fellow jazz school students and began writing and composing the music, which he still does today.
‘‘Initially, our songs were all about partying, getting loose, and heartbreak, but on a very basic level. ‘I’m heartbroken, this person has done me wrong, I’m going to do something about it’ – that’s kind of the A to B of blues songs in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
‘‘But what I’m doing now, and what’s going to be on the next album, is a lot more honest, it’s a little more poetic and examining some of the more difficult times I’ve been through.’’