Kim Sanders & Friends:

High-altitude World Music at the Gearin

Kim Sanders & Friends return to the Gearin Hotel in Katoomba on Sunday December 6 for a performance of high-altitude World music.

The gig will include ska, Persian reggae and South African township jive as well as the band’s usual eclectic mix of  demented Balkan Gypsy dance grooves, Turkish Sufi meditations, Latin jazz and strange bent originals.

World Music veteran Sanders has studied with Sufi ney-masters in Turkey, played with Gypsy wedding-bands in Macedonia, in mosquito-infested nightclubs in Gambia, seedy tavernas in Greece, concert-halls in Turkey, Bulgaria  and Indonesia and tea-houses in China. He’s even played with Normie Rowe at Penrith Leagues Club – now that’s street cred!

Hong-Kong-born bassist Mark Szeto will be chunking out the bottom end.  “Mark will be playing fretless electric on this gig – we’re gonna funkify it a little”, says Kim. “The music will be a bit different with fretless. The band works with a pool of musicians, and each one brings something different so the music is always fresh.  But because we have played together so much in so many different contexts, we can improvise freely and the music can take unexpected turns without anyone falling off!   Mark is new blood, of course – this is his second gig with the band”. Mark has played with Monsieur Camembert, the Sydney Opera House Orchestra and joined Kim and Llew on Wizards of Odd tour in Sth Australia earlier this year.

Multi-instrumentalist Llew Kiek is best known for his work in Australia and Europe with world-jazz band  Mara! Llew and Kim have been playing together for more than twenty-five years in bands including Tansey’s Fancy, Silvia Entcheva Trio and Nakisa. He also plays on Kim Sanders & Friends latest CD “Bent Grooves”.

Percussionist Peter Kennard will be laying down the intricate beats on darabukka, dhaf, strange-looking drums and jingly things. “Peter’s the best in Australia on frame drums” says Kim “and also plays a pretty mean darabukka”.  Peter recently toured Australia with Gypsy guitarist Lulo Reinhardt. He has played with Ashok Roy, Sirocco, the Flying Fruitfly Circus and is a veteran of Kim’s legendary world/Gypsy band Brassov. He also collaborated with Kim on his acclaimed CD ‘Trance’n’Dancin’.

Kim Sanders: ney (Sufi flute), kaval (Bulgarian wooden flute), mey (Turkish double reed), Bulgarian and Turkish gaidas (bagpipes), tenor sax

Llew Kiek: bouzouki, baglama, oud

Mark Szeto: fretless electric bass

Peter Kennard: darabukka, dhaf, percussion

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“New and genuinely exciting” – Chris Williams, fROOTS Magazine (UK)

Kim Sanders and his friends show to be masters in Roots-jazz-fusion music.” – Eelco Schilder, Folkworld

“[His] his musical imagination unfolds with a marvellous fluidity, like a river being fed by many tributaries, with the main flow mingling beautiful, often melancholy melodies with evocative rhythms and exotic textures”

- John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald

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2.30 pm, Sunday December 6

Gearin Hotel
273 Great Western Hwy, Katoomba (near the station)

$20/15 conc
Lunch available 12 – 3 pm

Info and bookings: (02) 4782 4395