We Three Queens, Studio Theatre at Kay Meek Centre, Tuesday, Dec. 14 and 15 at 7:30 p.m. For more information visit kaymeek.com.
When they’re at their jingly, jangling worst, Christmas songs can cling to the brain like slush to winter boots.
There’s a scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special when Lucy asks to hear “Jingle Bells.” Schroeder obliges with a lovely rendition of the song on his piano only to be told he’s wrong. She means “Jingle Bells.” He plays it again, simpler; worse.
No, Lucy insists: “Jingle Bells.”
Schroeder hammers one key, banging out the unmelodic but unmistakable song.
“That’s it!” Lucy cheers.
For the Schroeders of the world, We Three Queens are here.
Asked why music-lovers should attend their upcoming cabaret show at Kay Meek, singer Karin Plato suggests the band could be an antidote to the season’s ubiquitous earworms.
“They should come especially if they think, ‘Ah, I’m sick of Christmas music,’” she says.
We Three Queens have managed to cram a broad cross-section of music under the “Christmas umbrella,” Plato says.
Singer Kate Hammett-Vaughan usually performs “Santa Baby,” Plato says, explaining her bandmate has a “sultry playfulness” and coquettishness “that’s certainly not in my personality.”
The group’s gospel showstoppers come courtesy of Jennifer Scott, who’s known for her range and register within the group.
While Plato defines herself as a loud talker, she opts for “Sleigh Ride,” as well as quieter tunes that “suggest the spirit of swing and jazz.”
We Three Queens is sometimes billed as a trio but Plato is very clear: this is a band with three singers, a pianist, bassist and drummer.
The three voices are “merely part” of the group, she says.
The audience will hear familiar tunes but their performances are replete with solos and experimentation.
There are also sacred songs that pass through We Three Queens and emerge with tinges of swing and samba.
The group at times feels like fan fiction for old songs.
Plato was thumbing through a book for Christmas songs for beginner pianists when she came across a Mexican lullaby called El Rorro, or The Babe.
“Oh, I wonder what would happen if I arranged this for us to sing,” she recalls thinking. “Maybe it will have a different life.”
Plato’s musical life began in a prairie town in Saskatchewan.
“I think most small towns . . . somewhere within the town, there’s a piano teacher,” she says.
Luckily for Plato, her piano teacher was a good one.
There were extra lessons when Plato needed them and extra music when she wanted.
“She made a big difference in my life,” Plato says, noting that they’re still friends.
It’s no coincidence that Plato, alongside her fellow Queens, is a piano/voice theory teacher based in Sorrento today.
“Lots of people get music lessons but that doesn’t mean that you always have someone who is a great teacher,” she says.
The trio of teachers fronting We Three Queens came together by chance, Plato explains.
They were all just sort of stuck together one year at the Sweet Basil Jazz Festival.
While they cross into many genres, jazz is the home they return to like sea turtles seeking their birthplace.
“That might be one of the reasons that we have come to some kind of understanding of what we might do with certain festive tunes,” Plato says of their musical commonality.
There will be swing and tight harmonies at the Kay Meek but there will also be something not yet written, not yet anticipated, some solo, some riff . . . something.
“It’s more than just the music,” she says. “They won’t have to worry about anything for a couple of hours. . . . They get to relax and enjoy some in-the-moment music-making.”