One of the best videos we’ve seen in a long time…
Sometimes feigning confidence is half the battle, and this video is certainly one of those occasions that proves it.
It was recorded a couple of years ago by Alan Darcy at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka, Zambia, but has recently been shared again on social media.
Alan, a saxophone player, was in Zambia with a group of Cavan musicians who had been asked to play a number of trad gigs for the St Patrick’s day celebrations within the Irish community over in Zambia.
Among the group of Irish musicians was a joker by the name of Daragh Slacke, also from Cavan. While Daragh is a hell of a guitar player, he always had a soft spot for Alan’s saxophone, even though he didn’t have an iota how to play the bloody thing.
But that didn’t stop him at the hotel they were staying at in Lusaka. Daragh convinced the jazz band playing there to let him join them on stage and play a couple of jazz solos.
The result can be seen below…
The irony of the situation was the people listening and the band believed he was playing western jazz, as free form jazz can sometimes sound very chaotic.
In fairness, even though it sounds awful, Daragh acts like everything is completely fine and running smoothly.
Daragh explained that African jazz is a very unique kind of jazz, and it’s in “a bag of its own”. Also, as in Zambia they have limited access to media, they would not be well informed on what foreign jazz would sound like.
If you want to hear more about the story, Daragh was speaking on The Ken D & Raybo Podcast recently where he explained how the whole thing came about.
In the episode, they’re also joined by Josh McClorey from The Strypes and it’s well worth checking out the explanation of the story from the 21:50 mark above.
Cheers to Ray McAndrew for sending this our way. Got a story for JOE, get in touch with us here.
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