READERS have noticed how often bands emanating from the ANU  School of Music have been using been using the words “last”, “the final,” or as in this case, “farewell” concert in advertising their gigs. 

Jazz saxophonist, Joe McEvilly, a student of one of the last remaining faculty at the School, John Mackey, has written to tell us about the new jazz-funk band called “Movement 9,” playing at just such a farewell gig on Wednesday.

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that this could be a rare opportunity for what he describes as “the Canberra community that fought so hard for the School of Music.”

As well as a brilliant lineup in the “all-star student group,” “CityNews” has been told that some of the schools top retiring staff (and that’s most of them) will be getting up on stage for “one last jam.”

“It’s going to be a celebration and a commemoration of everything the School has given us over the past years,” he says. “We want to make this a gig to remember.”

McEvilly is the leader and composer for the group, and will be joined in the Band Room by eight other ANU students and “scarily talented” alumni. With three saxophones, two trumpets, trombone and a rhythm section, it’s bound to be a noisy farewell, but we are assured it’s also “capable of sensitivity.”

Movement 9 made their debut performance at Floriade, after which they were approached to play at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival.

McEvilly’s tunes are inspired by Latin music, funk, and the swing era, but also by modern influences, partly inspired by retiring Schoolof Music legend Miroslav Bukovsky. “My focus is definitely on melody,” he says, “I want to write music that makes you sing along.”

As for cuts at the School of Music, that, he says, only sharpened the band’s focus. “Several of the guys are moving away next year…We know this is our last chance to play together like this. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime situation.”

“Movement 9,” in the Band Room, Peter Karmel Building, ANU, 7.30pm, Wednesday, October 31. Parking available. Tickets at the door, $15/free for ANU students.