JAZZ AT DE TOUR HISTORY

Jazz At De Tour began in late 90’s in Minneapolis, Minesota.  Originally, it consisted of four young classic jazz musiacians – Mario McConaughey, genious basist – James Blanc, Rory Thomson and Thomas Olsen who was playing the drums. From the first days of the band’s activity it was obvious that they’re gonna touch the sky! That quartet was a real freak of nature – they were briliant! Only in the first year of their art activity they won all three most prstigious jazz music festivals in Minesota and in December 1998 were invited to the New York Jazz Jamboree Festival which was the most important event of the year for all American Jazz musicians of that time. There, Darren Waterhouse – director of Universal Music Studio shown an interest in this four young twenty-year-old incredible jazzmans and invited them to a collaboration.

From then, Jazz At De Tour‘s career stepped up even more and since then there was no end of invitations from all over the world. Every prstigious festival in Europe must have Jazz At De Tour at their stage. And yes, it is reported that 1998-2002 was the most exhausting and tyring period for Mrio, James, Rory and Thomas. Unfortunately, the hard time had its fair share of Rory’s health deterioration. Additionally, he was going through very difficult times regarding family life. Thomson started looking for help in drugs and despite many friends wanting to help him, Thomson chose to leave. His funeral was held 25 June 2001 in his homeplace – Duluth, Minsota. After that, Jazz At De Tour decided to stop operating. The death of the drummer was a huge upheval for the res. It seemed that nothing can bring McConaughhey, Blanc and Olsen together again but everything has changed one year later when they were asked to performance together at Thomson memorial Concert. It was a huge event and newspapers were beating on „the great Jazz At De Tour comeback”. Reading it, the members of Jazz At De Tour started wondering whether they ready to performance together without Thomson. Finding a new drummer was not a problem since there were lots of young tallented musians looking for their chance at different festivals in USA. They decided to invite this great individual – Jimmie Cullum to colaborate and tlater hey didn’t regret.

The new line-up was perfect! Jazz At De Tour started giving concerts again. Then, the band was invited to India for the very first time and it turned out to be a turning point of the bands’ career! They came to India and they were so enamoured with the place, totally different culture and all the aspects of the differences that they decided to keep travelling and performanig further and further. Today, it is hard to find a place in the world that Jazz At De Tour haven’t been yet. Though they have sightseen more than half the world they are still hungry for more.