(Click on picture to enlarge)

2007 Moruya Jazz Festival
What a wonderful festival. The weather was perfect. The whole town was buzzing with excitement all weekend as jazz fans mingled with locals in the streets and at five different venues throughout the town.

The street parade was voted the best ever. Led by Festival President Roger Bayley, Cr Fergus Thomson, and Rex Ambassador Max Kingston, it entertained and delighted adults and children alike. More bands than ever joined the parade including the Moruya Town Band. Familiar faces included the Eurobodalla Children’s Choir and Sing Australia.

Onlookers were treated to a great display of vintage, veteran and other, well loved cars, motor cycles and tractors as well as a local surf boat and a dragon boat which really stretched the imagination.

The Moruya Red hatters, elegantly seated on the back of a truck drew admiring looks from the crowd as they displayed their colourful red and purple regalia.

The annual Country Energy Picnic in the Park which drew huge crowds, featured music by a number of school bands who just seem to get better and better. The festival was once again opened by Cl Fergus Thomson who has always been an avid supporter. A highlight was the draw of the raffle for prepaid ticket purchasers, by Rex Ambassador Max Kingston who flew to Moruya especially for the event. Two return Moruya –Sydney tickets donated by Regional Express were won by Sandra Meyers.

Awesome, Incredible, Amazing was how the workshops for young musicians conducted by Al Davey and his band were described by participants and many requests were made to hold them again this year.

The fun continued throughout the weekend. A boon to tired feet was the jazz shuttle, provided by Marshalls Buses, which ferried patrons between the Golf Club and other venues, encouraging much more movement between venues. Hopefully this will become a feature of future festivals.

Not even a power failure which left the whole town without electricity could stop the traditional Sunday afternoon session in the Monarch Beer Garden and our musos showed what they were made of by pressing on regardless!

Jazz fans appreciated the forward advertising of this year’s festival (October 17 18 19) and many have already booked their accommodation.

Many thanks to all the bands who participated and of course to all our patrons. We are currently trying to organise a photo website-watch this site for details.

We look forward to welcoming you all to Moruya again this year.

Mike Hallam's Hot Six (click here for a tribute)

Mike Hallam has been patron of our festival since its inception and we look forward to welcoming him once again in this our 12th year. Mike was co-founder of the Harbour City Jazz Band, and spent four years with the Ray Price Quintet before forming his own band Mike Hallam’s Hot Six. He has played at many Australian jazz festivals as well as festivals in Canada, the United States, Britain, Thailand and New Zealand.
Our sincere thanks go to Mike for his continuing support of our festival.

Al Davey & the monStars (click for website)

Al and his monStars joined us for the seconf time last year and proved a great success with our audiences. The band plays straight ahead Groove Jazz of the highest quality, ideal for listening and dancing. All members are highly respected and highly sought after in the Sydney Jazz scene, but, according to Al, the essence of the monStars is that the band is greater than the sum of its parts. We look forward to welcoming Al and the boys back

Catherine Hunter (click for website)

This was Catherine’s first appearance at the Moruya Jazz Festival and featured her own quintet. Catherine has played with jazz greats including James Morrison, Don Burrows and John Morrisson. She has headlined jazz festivals as diverse as Norfolk Island’s Jazz on the Rock, Hunter Valley Jazz in the Vines and Darwin’s Sunset Jazz. We where thrilled that Catherine decided to add Jazz at Moruya to this impressive list.

Psycho Zydeco (click for website)

By popular request Psycho Zydeco is returning to the Moruya Jazz Festival this year. Those of you who did not hear them last year have a treat in store, and those who did are sure to be there early to avoid missing out!
Not your run of the mill band, Psycho Zydeco is a spicy gumbo of squeezebox, rubboard, triangle, sax, guitar and drums, producing a potent Australian blend of Zydeco, Cajun and Swamp Blues. They proved to be immensely popular with audiences of all ages last year.

Festival Committee

The Moruya Jazz Festival Committee is busily arranging an even bigger and more successful wonderful weekend of jazz for locals and visitors for 2008. We're proud to announce extraordinary growth in this our 12th annual festival.

Again, there will be a huge variety of Jazz artists and styles for your enjoyment. As well as the special events and free public performances, there will also be Jazz artists featuring at a number of clubs and pubs around the town.

Moruya, located on the NSW South Coast between Batemans Bay and Narooma, is just over three hours from Sydney and two from Canberra.

For tourist information, including accommodation in the
Moruya and surrounding area, click here.

The 2008 festival office will be located in the Moruya Bookshop in Church Street, between the Monarch Hotel and the Post Office, opposite the southern entrance to the markets.

The Festival Office hours will be
Friday 10am - 9pm
Saturday 8am - 8pm
Sunday 10am - 2pm

Unfortunately the office has no credit card facilities. However there are three ATM machiines in Vulcan St.

Jazz Shuttle
Marshalls, our local bus company are providing a jazz shuttle between venues on Friday and Saturday evening. The bus will leave from Church St, near the Monarch on the hour and from the Golf Club on the half hour from 6pm until 11pm. Stops will be made at Allens for the CWA Hall, and the Air Raid Tavern. Cost is $2 a trip. Please patronise this service so that it becomes a fixture of our festival.

Catherine Hunter

Psycho Zydeco

Al Davey & the monStars

ANU School of Music's Jazz Department

Strange Weather Gospel Choir

Mike Hallam's Hot Six