Perth Voice Interactive

MUSIC lovers are counting down the days to Perth’s newest jazz festival – King Street Corner Pocket.

The boutique festival will be held in venues in and around King Street from July 5-7, and is named after the Count Basie song Corner Pocket.

“And this is a corner pocket of Perth,” says Simon Keen, general manager of the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Venues like Kailis Jewellery, the Intercontinental Hotel, His Majesty’s and The Sewing Room – which normally don’t host jazz gigs – will swing like mad with 40 short shows over three nights.

“Each concert will be 30 to 40 minutes long,” Keen says. “That’s why it will be so exciting.”

The festival coincides with WAYJO’s 35th anniversary and will feature upcoming musos and seasoned performers including Alana Macpherson and Priscilla Gardiner, Perth Cabaret Collective, Jamie Oehlers Quartet and the Jazz Thom Freeman Quintet.

Tickets are $15 or you can buy a special “pocket pass” of 10 shows for $125.

There’ll be three daily performances at 6pm, 7.30pm and 9pm.

“You can go at six and come out and have a drink and a meal and go on to the nine o’clock show,” Keen says.

Established in 1983, not-for-profit WAJYO is the premier big band in WA and one of the top youth jazz orchestras in Australia.

To buy tickets for King Street Corner Pocket go to http://www.ptt.wa.gov.au and click on events.

by JENNY D’ANGER