Fat Jazz

FAT Jazz is a group I am very proud to be a part of.

As I tell audi­ences, FAT does not refer to our girth. It is an acronym for Friends and Teach­ers. The band was formed ori­gin­ally in 1985 by a group of loc­al music teach­ers, who not only loved teach­ing music, but also wanted to share their love of play­ing music. The Friends come in to fill the gaps. The band has gone through mul­tiple evol­u­tions, musi­cians mov­ing on and being replaced by new ones.

We play for all kinds of events, like din­ner dances, Jazz & Java nights, Swing Dance clubs; Fest­ivals like the PoCo May­Day Fest­iv­al or the Har­vest Fest­iv­al, or Port Moody’s Golden Spike Days. [The photo above is of the band play­ing at Golden Spike Days in 2009. It was taken by Mel Buenaventura]

We love play­ing for schools, in a ment­or­ship role, show­ing the kids that they can carry on mak­ing music through­out their lives, even if their ambi­tion is not to be a pro­fes­sion­al musi­cian. Besides all the teach­ers in the band, we have a doc­tor, an events DJ, a music store own­er, an elec­tri­cian, etc. etc. And of course ME: a writer. The kids and par­ents have a great time, and are some of the best audi­ences we ever have.

The band is a ter­rif­ic group of friends, and we have a really good time together.

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