When jazz supremo James Morrison comes to town on Saturday April 6, Bellingen High School music teacher Ann Phelan will be able to lay down a load of guilt that she's been carrying for about six years.
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"When I was working in Armidale I had him come and do a few in-school things," she said. "And I kept saying to the kids down here, I'm going to ring up James Morrison and invite him up. But I never actually got around to it, and I kept feeling really, really guilty."
Eventually the worry that she'd been neglecting the wind and brass players plus a well-timed email from jazz performers Jacki Cooper and John Morrison spurred her into action.
"I thought, I'll get them to come. Then I thought, yeah, I'll get them to come but I'll get James to come too!"
To her delight, the invitation was accepted and the Bellingen High Jazz Band will have a full day of workshops with the three musicians, followed by a concert at 7pm in Stockton Hall.
Annie said the show is sure to be hugely enjoyable.
"The kids are putting a lot of energy into preparing their pieces and James will come in and play over them and with them and all around them. He's a fantastic entertainer. He's not just a wonderful musician, he's a great entertainer."
She said people can also expect to see John Morrison, who is James' brother, doing some of his "crazy drumming stints" around the room.
"He doesn't sit still. He starts playing drums, then he leaves the drums and everything else becomes a drum."
Concert items will include a mixture of instrumental and vocal pieces, such as 'Sing, Sing, Sing'; 'Georgia on my Mind' and 'Caravan'.
A choral workshop run by Jacki Cooper will focus on jazz singing, and the group of students involved in that will perform a song at the concert.
Remorse about the jazz players who'd left school without the long-promised experience of a James Morrison visit prompted Annie to issue invitations for them to come along and participate.
"So we've got people like Josh Thompson, who's studying jazz at Monash University, and Oscar Eager who's studying at the Sydney Conservatorium, and Blaise Borrer, who is teaching music in Sydney. And Corey Cutler is going to come down from UNE - they're all going to come back and join us."
Tickets are $40/$25 concession and are only available from the school office, which can be contacted on 6655 1315.
Annie is hoping for a full house to recoup the considerable expense of bringing the three musical educators to Bellingen and expressed her gratitude to Camp Creative for a grant that they have provided.