By Tim Collins
Having just won their first JUNO award, B.C.-based Blue Moon Marquee is now poised to move on to even greater success.
Although they won their JUNO for Blues Album of the Year (and were also nominated for Contemporary Indigenous Artist/Group of the Year), describing them as a blues band wouldn’t be accurate. Blue Moon Marquee has its own unique take on American blues and folk, jazz manouche, jump jive, Indigenous soul, jump blues and pretty much anything that swings, jumps or grooves.
Vocalist and guitarist A.W. Cardinal and vocalist, bassist and drummer Jasmine Colette together have forged their music playing for crowds at jazz clubs, Lindy Hop dance halls, folk venues, blues haunts, hospitals, prisons, markets, motorcycle joints, dive bars and prestigious festival main stages.
“Our music defies easy definition. We’ve had people call it indie blues, but I don’t really like being defined by any genre. It tends to make people pre-judge your music,” said Colette. “I’ve had people come up to me after a show and tell me that they’d heard we were a blues group and that they didn’t really like blues, but they really liked us. Those preconceptions can be really misleading.”
“We describe our music as genre-bending and we go by the belief that genre doesn’t really matter. If the music is good, then it’s good. That’s something that Ray Charles once said when he was questioned about singing country songs – and it’s true,” said Colette.
It’s a belief and a style that seems to work for the group. Their first album, Lonesome Ghosts, was released to critical acclaim in 2014, followed by Last Dollar that same year. Their latest album, Scream, Holler & Howl (2022) earned them the JUNO award.
The duo also recently toured Australia, the USA, all of Canada and did five tours of Europe. When Monday Mag spoke with Colette, the duo had just returned from New Orleans where they recorded with musicians for one of four albums that they currently have in production.
“We have a lot on the burner right now, that’s for sure. One of them is sort of Americana, and another is sort of a continuation of Scream, Holler & Howl. We also have an early delta blues collection in collaboration with Indigenous singing and drumming,” Colette said.
On June 21, Blue Moon Marquee is set to open at the Royal Theatre for the legendary Booker T’s Stax Revue at the TD Victoria International JazzFest, a show Victorians don’t want to miss.
The duo will be back in B.C. later in the summer as part of an exhaustive tour crisscrossing the country. Learn more at bluemoonmarquee.com.
