Female big band to visit Dunedin

Otago Daily Times

23-07-2025

After years of being the only woman in the big bands she performed in, Lana Law has embraced the idea of an all-female big band. She tells Rebecca Fox about her passion for big band music.
At a diminutive 5ft, there is not much of Lana Law to see when she plays the baritone saxophone.
What she lacks in size, she likes to make up for in sound, loving the "really honky", grunty, big sound a baritone saxophone produces.
It has been that way since she convinced her music teacher to dig out the saxophone from a storage cupboard at high school.
Though when she first saw it, her reaction was "holy moly".
"The baritone saxophone stands a metre high so it comes up to just above my belly button if I was to stand it on the ground, so when I play it takes up quite a lot of me."
She was not deterred by its size or the fact most people learn saxophone on alto or tenor instruments first.
"I played baritone sax through high school and the rest they say is history."
Law discovered big band music when a music teacher, who played in a band, took her along to a rehearsal.
"That was pretty much it. Something about the brass, something about the groove, usually the swing, that you can't just keep still listening to it. So when I'm playing, I can't keep still either."
It sealed her fate — from then on she played in big bands, and she went on to study the saxophone at Victoria University in Wellington.
After graduating, she wanted to travel and got a job playing in bands on cruise ships for the next four years.
"I was playing in a 10-piece band then, it's a cut-down size one, but I was always the only female in the band."
The band was mostly American and Canadian male musicians with the "Kiwi girl" on baritone saxophone.
Back home in Christchurch, Law established a teaching career and began playing in different bands.
One day, she and another female musician wondered if it would be possible to create a band of female musicians from Christchurch.
"And ta-dah, we did."
That was nearly 10 years ago. They rattled off a few names, sent out a few messages and in next to no time had volunteers for an 18-piece band made up of saxophones, trumpets, trombones and a rhythm section.
"Next minute we had our first rehearsal, in January 2016."
About 80% of the band are regulars from those first concerts, with other players coming and going depending on what is going on in their lives.
"We have a base of probably about double the size of the band."
Many of the members are music teachers in Christchurch, a lot are mothers and some are students.
"It's just a really nice environment and full of very responsive female musicians and it's just a joy to work with them all."
Due to their busy lives, they do not have a regular rehearsal schedule, instead coming together when they need to, often on a Sunday night. Keeping on point and doing what needs to be done is essential in those rehearsals.
The band plays a variety of music and has put together a series of themed concerts over the years.
Its first "themed" concert in 2016 was a tribute to Natalie Cole. For the band's first concert in Dunedin, it will perform "The Ages", which honours women who have changed music in the last 100 years.
"It's kind of a historical journey through various female arrangers, composers and performers right through from the '30s up until now."
Putting together the concert was a bit of a challenge as not all of the music had been arranged for big bands and some was hard to find.
"We like to do our research and we like to see what is out there."
One of the attractions of the band is that it plays different music to what Christchurch's other big bands play.
"It's nice and refreshing. Some I grew up playing in when I was in high school and things like that. So it's nice to see the different styles that each band does. Each have their own niche."
It has become so popular male musicians have wanted to join.
"I'm like 'well, you're missing a few things'. And they're like, 'but we can put on a wig, we can wear a skirt'."
Big bands also enable musicians of all skill levels to take part.
"Players who like playing in a group situation, you've got five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, so you might not be a flashy trumpet player, for instance, but you can help your section by being a strong third or fourth player, and that goes for any of the instruments."
Law leads the band from the alto saxophone as it is easier, leaving the baritone saxophone to another musician, although they reckon she still selects music with some "really cool bari lines it it".
Overall, audiences enjoy listening to the band and watching them as they interact with each other as they play.
"We've had so much fun and we make such a great sound. It's just a good time but we make sure the music's good because it has to be."
The band is not a quiet bunch.
"You know if someone does a great solo or there's a line that happens and it sounds really good, you're like 'yeah' and everyone will go 'yeah'."
One expects a big sound to come out of a "big band", but there is also a range of dynamics a band can express.
"To take you on that emotional journey through the tune so you can feel all the feels in one tune."
There are a couple of tunes that give Law "goosebumps" when the band plays them — (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and Here's to Life .
"Those two tunes are ballads, right, so they're kind of slowish but very expressive, whereas we've got other tunes like Let the Good Times Roll , really punchy tunes. So they'll still have the dynamics."
Her day job is as an itinerant and private music teacher. So she gigs in the evenings and at weekends.
"It's nice to do something that you enjoy, it's something fun that I get to do all day, every day."
She also squeezes in two school big bands, which she is taking to Blenheim for the Southern Jam Festival in August, and she is music director of the Christchurch Youth Jazz Orchestra, which plays in the big band festival at Labour Weekend.
While down in Dunedin, she will be adjudicating the Dunedin Youth Jazz Festival. It is a role she enjoys, having co-adjudicated the National Youth Jazz Competition alongside the late Rodger Fox.
But one of her top priorities while in Dunedin will be to get a photo of the band in front of the railway station.
"That's a must-do, isn't it?" TO SEE
All Girl Big Band, "The Ages Show", Hanover Hall, Dunedin, July 26, 7.30pm