Sweet Meg & The Wayfarers bring jazz to Hudson Valley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Lauren Alford

Staff Writer

Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers performed a combination of gutbucket blues, Parisian cabaret and Dixieland jazz with vintage flare on Friday, Feb. 15 in the Bulmer Telecommunications Center auditorium.

The band put their own spin on hits from artists including Billie Holiday, James Moody and Patty Kline. Their efforts didn’t go unnoticed by Hudson Valley Community College students, many who were jazz fans.

“Different musicians doing covers of stuff like that, especially Billie Holiday… I think it was really cool,” Kaloni Borno, a digital media major, said.

“It was really 1950s, 1960s,” Amnah Eltohami, an individual studies major, said. “I really loved it,” she said. Both students said they were planning to check out more of Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers’ music after the performance.

The show was one stop on the band’s ongoing tour that includes concerts in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Paris, France. It was also Hudson Valley Community College’s first partnership with Jonathan Greene, Programming Curator of the Saratoga Springs Flurry Festival.

The Flurry Festival, formerly known as the Dance Flurry, is a festival of traditional dance and music. The event was created to give local musicians and artists an outlet.

According to the Flurry Festival website, Greene is an experienced multi-instrumentalist and event planner. The genres he plays overlap with Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers.

The band is comprised of two permanent founding members and a rotating list of hired freelance musicians. According to founding vocalist Megg Farrell, also known as Sweet Megg, New York’s bustling music scene made it very difficult to get permanent members.

“People are so busy and everyone works so much,” Farrell said.

For Friday’s performance, the musicians playing with Farrell were bassist Rob Adkins, pianist Jon Weber, founding saxophonist and clarinetist Ryan Weisheit and percussionist Alex Raderman.  

Raderman also prefers the band’s rotational arrangement. “It’s fun to be able to drop in and do different sounds with different sceneries that you don’t necessarily get to do regularly,” he explained.  

As stated on the Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers Facebook page, the band is inspired by Jazz giants Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sonny Rollins. Farrell added that pianist Jon Weber helped widen her sound as well. “That opened up my voice to being more comfortable with spreading out in the melody and singing more ballads,” she said.

The band released their self-titled album, Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers, in 2017. The band is trying to release new content this year. Farrell wants to try a few new sounds and styles in her upcoming work.

The concert setlist had a mix of ballads and uptempo songs, with a number of Billie Holiday songs. The jazz singer is a favorite of Farrell. “I really want to do a Billie Holiday record with Jon,” she said.

Members of the community outside of the campus attended the event as well. Wendy Beckham, who works for the Rensselaer County Department of Public Health, saw the event on Hudson Valley Community College’s Cultural Affairs Facebook page and decided to attend.

She enjoyed the performance, as jazz is one of her favorite styles of music. “I think it was amazing,” she said.

Check out the Cultural Affairs website, www.hvcc.edu/campuslife/culture.html, for more information about upcoming events.