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18th Aug 2018

Man convinces African jazz band he can play the saxophone. He really, really can’t

Alan Loughnane

One of the best videos we’ve seen in a long time…

Sometimes feigning confidence is half the battle, and this video is certainly one of those occasions that proves it.

It was recorded a couple of years ago by Alan Darcy at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka, Zambia, but has recently been shared again on social media.

Alan, a saxophone player, was in Zambia with a group of Irish musicians who had been asked to play a number of gigs for the St Patrick’s day celebrations going on there.

Among the group was a joker by the name of Daragh Slacke. While Daragh is a hell of a guitar player, he always had a soft spot for Alan’s saxophone, even though he didn’t have an iota how to play the bloody thing.

But that didn’t stop him at the hotel they were staying at in Lusaka. Daragh convinced the jazz band playing there to let him join them on stage and play a couple of jazz solos.

The result can be seen below…

The irony of the situation was the people listening and the band believed he was playing western jazz, as free-form jazz can sometimes sound very chaotic.

In fairness, even though it sounds awful, Daragh acts like everything is completely fine and running smoothly.

Daragh explained that African jazz is a very unique kind of jazz, and it’s in “a bag of its own”.