Simon Tedeschi and George Washingmachine – With Six Piece Jazz Band

Extraordinary concert pianist, Simon Tedeschi, is one of Australia’s best-loved classical musicians, performing everything from Mozart and Chopin to Debussy and Prokofiev for orchestras, festivals, and venues around the world, from Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall.

With a long-harboured love of jazz, and three celebrated albums of Gershwin’s music to his name, tonight Tedeschi teams up with jazz vocalist and violinist, George Washingmachine, and a cracking six piece jazz band – for Gershwin favourites and classic jazz standards by Cole Porter, Count Basie, Ray Noble and more.

A common question about Gershwin’s music is, ‘is it jazz’? Many would say that jazz has to be improvised. But even then, jazz is often defined by its groove and a grounding in the blues, that uniquely American sound and form teetering between happiness and sadness. Based on this alone, it would seem that George Gershwin’s music is more jazzy than jazz, as his music is also the legacy of Russian classical music, Eastern European Klezmer and French impressionism.