Diane Lines, pianist extraordinaire, is a woman on a mission.
As a child, she was fascinated by the high octane barrelhouse/boogie-woogie piano sounds of music legends such as Louis Jordan and Joe Turner. Now an accomplished and widely respected pianist and educator, her “take it to the people” show Jump! celebrates this dynamic musical form and its continuing influence on the evolution of popular music.
She appears courtesy of the Pender Harbour Music Society on Saturday, Oct. 18 at the Pender Harbour School of Music in Madeira Park at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25, available from Harbour Insurance, John Henry’s Marina, Sechelt Visitor’s Centre and Gaia’s Fair Trade.
Boogie-woogie started in the late 19th century in the southern United States and spread northward through music halls and bars. By the 1930s, the music and piano style found its way into mainstream entertainment when it was played to great acclaim by renowned big bands such as Tommy Dorsey’s. This was eight-to-the-bar dance music first and foremost as it’s almost impossible to sit still while listening to it. After the Second World War, boogie-woogie morphed into the driving piano sounds of early rock and roll artists such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and Little Richard.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, artists such as Long John Baldry kept blues and boogie-woogie alive on the Canadian concert stage and today the baton is carried by equally passionate proponents such as Diane Lines and her band for Jump!: Tony Chamberlain, percussion; Bill Abbott, tenor saxophone; Tim Porter, guitar; and Jen Hodge, bass.
