RTE’s Ryan Tubridy described him as a cross between Jools Holland and Michael Buble when he made his debut Irish appearance on The Late Late Show last May. Michael Kaeshammer sold out two shows at Galway Arts Festival recently and now he is bringing his mix of jazz, boogie woogie and pop to Limerick for one night only this weekend.
MICHAEL Kaeshammer’s piano playing is intricate and polished but the man and his music is instantly welcoming and likeable.
See his videos online for ‘Kisses in Zanzibar’ and ‘Rendezvous’ to get an idea of his piano virtuosity, vocal ability and charisma. But seeing Kaeshammer live is by far the best way to experience his music, “I think the audience is a part of the band”, he explains. A night with Michael and his band isn’t the kind of show where you just sit, watch and applaud politely every now and then.Their goal isn’t to intimidate you with the scholarly depth of their music, it’s to entertain, inform and include you. “For me the performance is as much about the energy coming off the stage as the energy coming from the audience. It’s about being myself, writing from the heart and showing my love for life.”
From studying classical piano for seven years in his homeland Germany, a 13-year-old Michael Kaeshammer discovered boogie-woogie and stride piano. He attracted attention almost immediately after he moved to Canada in 1995, performing at blues and jazz festivals. He has since released seven albums, toured the US, Europe and China.
So while his classmates were listening to U2 and Guns and Roses Michael was discovering jazz and boogie woogie, “I had a double musical life”, he laughs, “my dad and his friends had record collections and it was all it was all jazz and New Orleans funk and with people in school I was listening to Guns and Roses, it was a good thing, I think you have to be open minded and that is a rare thing sometimes for jazz musicians who say this is the way jazz should be played or it is not jazz enough.”
Though technically gifted, Kaeshammer does not see himself as strictly a jazz musician, “I don’t even see myself as a jazz artist because the songs I am playing, I just see them as songs but what comes out is jazz because that is what I am used to.
When I started out I listened to the early jazz stuff from 30s 40s and 50s, that’s what I grew up listening to and playing, I always loved that kind of jazz, it was party music basically, people were dancing to it. It was pop music at the time and something happened along the way where jazz has become this background music. If someone is not a jazz fan and you say you play jazz then, sometimes, they have already made up their mind about it.”
For Kaeshammer the live show with his touring band on bass and drums is where the real business is done and the biggest influence on his approach comes from his experiences playing in New Orleans. “I talk about it in the show, how that whole city is alive and makes that connection with the audience. You really have to bring your A-Game to New Orleans, if you don’t people just take off and check out other music, its a great way to learn.
A lot of the music I grew up with came from there The Meters, Professor Longhair, Armstrong. First time I went down there I remember just walking around the French Quarter seeing street names like Bourbon Street, this is what Louis Armstrong was singing about , I’m here, it was surreal for me at the time. That city is all about food, music and people, the whole tourism there is based on that and I love that. A lot of people there wouldn’t see themselves as southern US, they would see themselves as northern Caribbean because there is so many influences coming in from that music too along with the jazz and blues and classical stuff.
Michael Kaeshammer and band play Dolan’s this Friday August 17.
