Skip to content

Funky, festive Christmas classics

The B3 Kings will be playing at the ACT Arts Centre in Maple Ridge.
96601mapleridgeB3Kings1w
The B3 Kings will be bringing their festive jazzy sounds to the ACT in Maple Ridge.

The funky, festive sounds of the B3 Kings are coming to the ACT.

With Chris Gestrin on organ, Bill Coon on guitar, Denzal Sinclaire on vocals and drums, and Cory Weeds on saxophone, these international jazz sensations will delight you with a performance of Christmas classics like you have never heard before.

Sinclaire is a Canadian vocalist praised by jazz icon Diana Krall and the famous American jazz singer and songwriter Cassandra Wilson.

In 2015, he was the guest artist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and its Big Band ‘For the Holidays Tour’.

Gestrin is behind the band’s funky sounds and creative arrangements of the Christmas classics.

Weeds is one of Canada’s most important jazz impresarios and Coon brings a wonderful jazz sensibility that completes the quartet.

Organ jazz had its beginnings with Fats Waller, the son of a Baptist minister born in 1904, and who played the church organ before playing the piano.

During the silent film era, he was a theatre organist in New York. Waller taught Count Basie how to play the organ and probably had the first recording featuring an electric Hammond organ.

A Hammond B-3 organ can sounds like a carnival, big band, horn section, small jazz combo, funk group, a percussion section and flute all at once.

The B3 Kings will be performing at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 11 at the ACT, 11944 Haney Place in Maple Ridge.

Tickets are $34 for adults, $30 for seniors and $15 for youth.• For more information, call 604-476-2787 or go to theactmapleridge.org.