Tomato Kiss Band headlines jazzboat festival

ARTS: The highlight of this weekend's Wanganui Jazz Club's Jazzboat Festival will be the gala concert featuring the Tomato Kiss Band.
The band performance will see Mike Booth, Craig Walters, Paul Dyne and Roger Sellers playing together for the first time since the 1980s.
They will perform with guitarist Josh Hindman.
Tomato Kiss was formed in the mid 1980s with Leigh Jackson and took up residency at the Oak's Brassiere in central Wellington.
It performed extensively around Wellington and did some short tours and radio programmes.
It broke up when Walters and Booth left Wellington to study and pursue their musical careers overseas.
Walters, who studied with Jerry Coker at the University of Tennessee in 1982 and also at Berkley College of Music, moved to Sydney in 1985 where he has lived and worked professionally ever since.
He has performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival and toured extensively in Asia, USA, the UK, Poland and the USA.
Walters also recorded his own quartet First Light which has performed at Manly Jazz Festival, Wangaratta Jazz Festival and Bellingen Jazz Festival.
Since 1993 he has been teaching saxophone at the Australian Institute of Music.
In 2001 he performed at the Christchurch Festival of the Arts with the Don Rader Quintet.
He has also run workshops at the Christchurch School of Jazz and at the Massey University Jazz course in Wellington.
Booth, a professional musician for over 25 years, has been based in Holland since 1990.
He is best known there as a member of the Netherlands pop group de Dijk.
He is one half of the Hot Haarlemerdijk Horns with De Dijk and has shared gold and platinum success and the honour of Edison and Golden Harp awards.
Highlights of 2003 were recordings and appearances with Kresip and Kane.
As a freelance trumpeter Booth has gained experience in a wide range of styles.
First playing in dance groups as a school student he began his professional career in 1975 going to Australia with a funk/rock band (Collision) and touring there with international acts such as Dionne Warwick, Tina Turner and Isaac Hayes.
Returning to New Zealand he joined the RFBB (Jazz Big Band) going to Montreux Jazz Festival in 1980 and 1981.
He has worked regularly in New Zealand on television, radio and jingle recordings and toured with many bands, shows and musical acts.
He has also played with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and regional orchestras and performed with a brass quintet for two years (Brass Edition).
Booth, with his jazz quintet has made several jazz radio programmes for Radio New Zealand and a duet album in 1986 Walking Together (Jayrem NZ).
Primarily interested in jazz since arriving in Holland groups he has played with there include: North Holland Symphony Orchestra, Glen Miller Orchestra and the Dutch Jazz Orchestra, to mention just a few.
An experienced teacher and clinician Booth has tutored at various New Zealand national jazz clinics and taught trumpet at the Wellington Polytechnic College (Massey University).
He was a trumpet tutor at the Rotterdam Conservatory from 1993 to 2001 and has been light music trumpet tutor and big band director at the Alkmaar Conservatory since 1996.
In 2002 he became musical director of the Westcoast Big Band.
Paul Dyne, double bass, is a senior lecturer in music (jazz) at the Wellington Conservatorium of Music, Massey University, Wellington, and was head of jazz there from 1989 to 2002.
He lived in Montreal, Canada from 1970 - 1980 and played there with a number of top Canadian musicians (Peter Leitch, Billy Robinson, Claude Ranger, etc) and performed with US jazz legends Sonny Stitt, alto sax and Pepper Adams, baritone sax.
Since returning to New Zealand in 1980 he has played on over 150 radio programmes, has recorded over 35 CDs and albums and has backed over 100 visiting international artists, mostly with colleague Roger Sellers on drums.
Recently he played on the recordings of three CDs of original material, with Johnny Lippiett, with Nick van Dijk, and has played in concert with Joy Yates and Dave MacRae, and with Mike Nock.
Dyne also plays in a trio with Josh Hindmarsh and Roger Sellers (drums).
The gala concert will also feature the Kevin Clarke Trio with vocalist Hannah Griffin and a separate performance by the Los Gringos.
This group, formed by Clarke as part of a thesis research topic on Afro-Cuban music, has become renowned for its musicianship.
It has received standing ovations at jazz festivals and also performed at Government House with the Wellington Sinfonia at the Afternoon in Seville show, as well as annually at the Martinborough Wine and Food Festival.