Jazzeoke just the thing for amateur singers’ fling with big band swing

When David Groome first met his now wife, Helen, online, she picked up from their chats that he had a love of singing.

“I would send her snippets of me singing, and she’d be like, ‘Oh I love that,’” he says.

“Music seemed to be something that we really clicked on, and the fact that she liked my singing made me feel pretty good.”

He adores jazz and big band music. But he “didn’t have the guts”, he says, to sign up to Jazzeoke, a form of karaoke backed by a live big band until his wife insisted. “She said, ‘Just do it!’”

And for his first performance last Wednesday, with the 30-piece Mordialloc Jazz Orchestra, aka MoJO, Groome sang It Had To Be You, composed by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn, and sung by stars such as Frank Sinatra.

Groome serenaded his wife, who was sitting in the front row.

He and 24 others, some wearing beautiful gowns, others in jeans, faced a supportive crowd at The Count’s jazz club at the Monash University Performing Arts Centres.

Groome, 52, an aged care worker, had previously sung in public only in school musicals and at his wedding.

He had seen a Jazzeoke session at Kingston Town Hall in Moorabbin, where they’re usually held monthly.

“I’ve always loved jazz, I’ve always loved big bands,” Groome says. “I love the old crooners and I grew up listening to Harry Connick Jr, and I thought, ‘That would be so cool.’”

After his suave debut, he was excited. “I loved it. It’s good fun, once you get past the nerves.

“I’ll definitely be doing it again.”

Jazzeoke, which started 10 years ago when audience members would sing at MoJO’s gigs, has become an institution.

MoJO musical director Peter Foley says many singers rehearse briefly at band practice. Others ask to sing on the night.

The band, whose members are volunteers, has a repertoire of 150 songs.

Foley, a band trombonist for more than 50 years, says while some singers exude confidence, others shake with fear. He’ll tell them, “You’re going great.”

The point is to have a go, he says.

Two young men living with intellectual disabilities once sang My Way, in their own way, “and there was not a dry eye in the house”, Foley says.

Paul Williams, an 80-year-old cancer survivor, relies on a walking frame off-stage, but on stage at Jazzeoke, he’s as sparky as a young dancer.

“I haven’t got a great voice,” he says. But, dressed in a suit and black leather gloves, Williams sang the jazz standard, All Of Me, with dazzling charm.

He even scatted part of the song, like Louis Armstrong.

Williams, a retired bassoonist who formerly played with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, backing stars such as Luciano Pavarotti, says he was gravely ill four years ago. “My children prepared my funeral,” he says.

Cancer and chemotherapy damaged his limbs and he had to quit playing instruments.

But discovering karaoke has been a boon, and he’s performed at Jazzeoke five times.

Felicity Langford, 16, sings a spirited Something Stupid, made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra, like an accomplished chanteuse, having also done Jazzeoke five times.

“It’s always a bit scary, but I think I did all right,” she says.

Her parents, Laurie and Andrew, look on with pride.

When asked if she could have sung with a live jazz band at age 16, Laurie says, “Lord no”, while Andrew says, “I’d be hiding out at the back of the stage.”

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