Saxophonist Denys Baptiste tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON why he likes to see audiences get out of their seats and dance.

THE York Dune Jazz Festival is all about teamwork.

Saxophonist Soweto Kinch and trumpeter Abram Wilson will play in all three concerts tonight and tomorrow at York Theatre Royal; Denys Baptiste, Zara McFarlane and Gary Crosby will participate in two. Andrew McCormack, Harry Brown, Rod Youngs, Alex Wilson, Robin Banerjee, Satin Singh and vocalist Wesley Lucas all have their part to play in a festival presented by Yapham jazz promoter David Porter's J-Night organisation and Dune Records.

"We normally travel in a coach... although a few do come to the gigs by themselves!" says tenor saxophonist Denys Baptiste. "To me, it does feel like a family. Since I've been working with these musicians it's very much been a family. There's never been any tension, and a lot of that's to do with many of us being involved together for a long time with the older ones helping the younger ones."

Denys will be in the band line-up for this evening's opening concert, A Tribute To Billie Holiday, and tomorrow night's finale, Jazz Jamaica Motown Reloaded! Alongside him on both evenings will be double bassist Gary Crosby, the driving force behind the Jazz Warriors, Nu Troup, Tomorrow's Warriors and now Jazz Jamaica.

"I was one of the original Tomorrow's Warriors, in 1990-1991. I met Gary through pianist Adrian Reid and alto sax player Brian Edwards, when the Jazz Warriors were already a proven group and Gary was trying to do something different by drawing on new and upcoming talent," Londoner Denys recalls.

"His aim was to give young musicians the chance to learn and rehearse and play jam sessions together, and we spent every Saturday afternoon playing lunchtime gigs at the Jazz Caf in Camden.

"He then asked me to join his Nu Troup group - I was the last member to join - and that was a great band to be involved in, learning all the repertoire of bebop tunes. It was very much a family thing: learning to improve together and learning technical things too."

Denys spent eight or nine years in that band set-up, up to 1998, as Crosby nurtured the family spirit that has continued in his Jazz Jamaica ska and Motown projects.

"That's what's really nice about Jazz Jamaica. Gary is trying to get across that we can do all that jazz but show our capabilities in a healthy way - and it's good to see audiences dance! So often you do jazz gigs where you just get polite clapping, and while that's nice, you feel you want to play even better when you get a bigger reaction," Denys says.

If Gary Crosby is a major influence in modern British jazz then so too is Dune Records, the Harrow label for whom Denys records his albums. "Dune is still a relatively small label but it has the right philosophy. I used to drive the van and everyone piled in to do what was necessary to make it work.

"Dune reflects all the aspects that matter: the history is important but so is the need to challenge boundaries and progress," says Denys.

"You have the history there with the Billie Holiday tribute, but we're not just trying to represent her music but also put across her spirit. Billie Holiday was not as technically accomplished as Sarah Vaughn or her contemporaries but there's no one who can pour so much emotion into a song.

"Zara McFarlane has that same feel to how she interprets those songs in A Tribute To Billie Holiday. It's more about trying to get inside the song."

Zara is one of the new talents to be taken under the Dune wing, and the chance to perform with the likes of Baptiste, Kinch, Crosby and Wilson, singing Billie Holiday's songs is a dream come true. "I love Billie Holiday and the way she sings, because she is so emotional. I like singers who put their emotions into their music, and I love the way Billie tells stories through her music" she says.

Zara, from Dagenham, has been singing since she was 12 and has a teenage TV clip that still makes her smile. "I've sung jazz professionally for a year - I'm 22 now - but I used to do ballads and soulful things, putting myself up for lots of competitions. That's when I got on Stars In Their Eyes to sing as Lauryn Hill doing Killing Me Softly... I was 14, and that was before they did the children's shows," she says.

Zara began singing as a hobby but then studied at the BRIT School of Performing Arts in Croydon and Vocal Tech school in Acton, progressing to sing jazz standards and musical theatre numbers in restaurants. "It was through Dune that I've really got into jazz. Janine Irons, the label manager, came down one afternoon to the Jazz Caf, just hanging out, and she happened to see me singing and asked me to call her the next day," she says.

She was invited to start singing with the previously instrumental Tomorrow's Warriors, and from there she has progressed to the Billie Holiday tribute show and Jazz Jamaica Motown Reloaded (in which she will perform My Guy and My Cherie Amour). "I wasn't going to turn this down! I see it as an opportunity, rather than pressure, and if people are expecting me to impersonate Billie Holiday, they'll be disappointed. I don't believe it's about impersonating her; I want to stay true to the emotion," says Zara.

She could not have defined the spirit of jazz any better.

York Dune Jazz Festival, York Theatre Royal; A Tribute To Billie Holiday with Zara McFarlane, tonight, 7.30pm; Soweto Kinch Band, tomorrow, 5.30pm; Jazz Jamaica Motown Reloaded!, tomorrow, 8.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 16:32 Thursday, July 28, 2005