21st Century Blues April 28, 2012

Father-daughter jazz duo Dick & Christa Hughes party like it's 1929. Unleashing their inner rhythm at Riverside Theatres on Saturday, 28 April at 7:30pm, 21st Century Blues showcases authentic jazz, blues and vaudeville - old and new.

Joined by talented trombonist Grant Arthur, 21st Century Blues features songs from Dick & Christa Hughes’ ARIA nominated album of the same name, which includes some gut-bucket blues, traditional Dixieland thrown in with contemporary pop and classic rock played in a charming old-school style.

Christa Hughes is well known to Sydney audiences as a blues belter, vaudeville vamp, rock 'n' roll hell cat and cabaret chanteuse. Her cabaret show includes her one-woman show Beer Drinking Woman and the Sydney Opera House-commissioned post-postmodern cabaret Sleepless Beauty. Hughes also known as KK Juggy was the lead vocalist of Australian alternative rock band, Machine Gun Fellatio and toured as the ring mistress of highly regarded circus troupe Circus Oz for three years. Dick Hughes is Australia's best-loved jazz pianist, the Godfather of Stride in Sydney, and the first solo jazz pianist to ever play at Sydney Opera House. Together, their first public performance was at the iconic Sydney jazz venue Soup Plus in the 1980's, before they took up weekly residency at the Shakespeare Hotel in Surry Hills.

It's 21st Century Blues alright. It summons up that original spirit many have forgotten about, the force that made this music so edgy and radical when it first came out.