Royals 6

As for the soloists, Sebastian Scala played steel drum.  Colby Dean was a country guitar/vocals with Akubra or similar.  Gemma Rose was a piano-woman bar soloist, treating feminist anthems and more to a whisky bar world.  On board musical director and pianist Jane Milliken played at least one solo set.  Argentinian House band guitarist Gabriel Colman played latin.  DJ Trademark turned up later at night for DJ sets, and occasionally for feature dance sets, not least ABBA.  A few offboard performers included Alipati and Mitiele who performed for the pleasure of tourists in a particularly upmarket Suva establishment.  There were some other performers on board.  I missed a few but did catch Elizabeth Hytton mezzo-soprano running for the local Voice competition who had appeared on the Australian national Voice TV show (which I have never seen but it hard to totally avoid, Daniel Thompson who led a House Band country quartet in an interesting tribute to Johnny Cash and comedian Jarred Fell.

Royals 4

There’s always a list of performers on a ship for entertainment in various lounges.  Soloists and duets and pop and occasional classical players.  But the king hitters are the House Band.  They are individually selected; they perform behind the shows; they read the dots; they do gigs in the most salubrious bars on board.  And they may come from anywhere: this time guitarist was form Buenos Aires and they bassist I spoke to had an English accent, I guess.  I had heard them behind Sweet Soul Music reading complex charts with various funky grooves melding into each other and then as a quartet backing a Johnny Cash tribute playing playing country grooves then as a jazz band with a trio front end playing Miles and more.  Presumably they’d played a few other shows I’d missed and there was another Samba gig that I’d also missed.  I did catch their Canadian pianist / musical director playing solo piano in the atrium (the Piazza), the central core indoor performance area on the ship.  I was stunned by the clarity of the take on So what, thumb bass part, restrained and extended minimal drum part, some exemplary solos, a haunting harmon muted trumpet giving just the restraint that defines the tune.  We all play this tune, but it tends to take off.  This was a stunning performance in my mind, recognising the nature Kind of blue, perhaps revisiting the very solos, but I’d have to listen again to confirm.  Close enough.  The front line were trumpet/flugel, trombone, tenor so not quite Kind of Blue but close enough and the feel got it to a tee.  Fabulous.  They played otherwise around the ship, including a poorly attended samba set that I failed to catch.  I love these house bands. 

The Royal Princess House band comprised Jane Milliken (piano, musical director), Alex Arcus (tenor, alto, flute), Chris Harris (trumpet, flugelhorn), Alex Sadkov (trombone), Gabriel Colman (guitar), Lewis Brown (bass) and Gio Rossi (drums).

This is CJBlog post no. 2,900