Yellowknife (Dec 03/04) - Whitehorse-based jazz group the Peters Drury quartet will visit Yellowknife twice this month during their farewell tour.

They perform tonight and tomorrow at NACC, then return next week for a taping of the CBC Radio Two show DiscDrive on Dec. 14.

"We're saturating the market," said co-founding member Graeme Peters, the quartet's drummer.

Come January, the four musicians will go their separate ways. The other founding member Caroline Drury will move to New York for voice training, while Peters heads to Toronto to study drums.

"It's not like we're breaking up because we can't stand each other," said Peters, on the phone from Vancouver during a flight layover.

"It's just a big excuse to do a reunion tour in a couple of years."

It's not the quartet's first visit to the NWT capital. But Peters bears Yellowknife no hard feelings, despite the fact he nearly froze the last time he was here.

"I went for a run and got lost," he said. "I was going around in circles, everything started looking the same.

"I had to climb up on this huge rock to try and see the city and then I ended up going through this swamp where there was a covering of ice and I'm like in a T-shirt and short pants.

"When I found my way back, it took me an hour in the shower to warm up."

You would think Peters, a native of Whitehorse, would be used to frigid temperatures. But, when the quartet left Whitehorse, Wednesday, to fly to Yellowknife via Vancouver and Edmonton ("Somehow it was way cheaper, like $900 a person," he said) the temperature in the Yukon capital was hovering near zero; in Yellowknife it was -20C.

"Ah, crap," said Peters, on learning the current Yellowknife weather.

Luis Girardo, the band's new pianist, is originally from Bogota, Colombia. Though they have just returned from a tour of the Yukon, Peters thought Girardo might still be shocked by the NWT.

"I have my Ragged Ass Road down vest, so I'm prepared," said Peters. "Luis is definitely not prepared."

The quartet's style has been described both as high energy jazz and as swing.

"It's just fun," said Peters. "There are lots of vocals, cool harmonies. We throw a little blues in there."

They perform a lot at schools, often combining a small show in the day for the kids with a more adult-oriented evening performance.

"We do everything from 1920s jazz to AC/DC, showing the progression of the music."

Their performances tonight and tomorrow will include jazzed-up holiday favourites from their new CD, Swing into Christmas, as well as their take on a few jazz standards and some Latin numbers "to warm up the atmosphere."

Peters was particularly excited that the Diamond Jenness Secondary School Handbell Choir will open for the quartet, as they've never had an opening act before.

The handbell choir will also perform a Christmas song with the jazz group.