A world class blues and jazz musician will be performing at a special holiday cocktail party at the Spinning Wheel Nightclub this weekend.

At the night club, 2008 Blues Music Award nominee Bruce Katz will perform on the Hammond B3 Organ along with Christopher Vitarello, Rod Fitzgerald Carey and Ralph Rosen.

They will play upstairs at the Spinning Wheel Night Club in the Gable Lounge tomorrow at 7 p.m. with hot and cold hors d'oeuvres.

"I am pleased just to have been nominated for the Blues Foundation Blues Music Awards," said Mr. Katz in a telephone interview. "It is an international award for piano player of the year.

"I was in Memphis, Tennessee last week for the awards ceremony. I didn't win but I was thrilled I was nominated which I had never been before. The award used to be called the W.C. Handy Award. It was changed to the Blues Music Award."

Mr. Katz lives in upstate New York near the town of Woodstock in the Catskill Mountains.

"There are tons of musicians, theatre people and all sorts of arts people living here," he said. "It makes for some interesting neighbours."

In addition to playing with his own band, The Bruce Katz Band, he also plays with the Gregg Allman and Friends band.

"I have been doing some side tours where I am playing piano," Mr. Katz said. "I play original music that is official classified as blues but it has a lot of jazz overtones, soul, New Orleans rhythms and jazz mixed into it."

The band plays almost entirely their own material with a couple of cover songs "here and there".

"In Bermuda, we will be playing our own music," Mr. Katz said. "People who like jazz will like us. People who like blues will like us. It is music you can move your body to, but it is for listening.

"Hopefully, people will come out and check it out. It is a little different than most things that are out there."

Mr. Katz currently has five solo albums out, going back about 15 years. The most recent one was called 'A Deeper Blue'. It came out four years ago. He has also recorded on many albums with other people, and he just recorded a live solo album in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that hasn't yet been released.

Mr. Katz started playing when he was just five years old.

"I did the classical thing for a long time," he said. "I started teaching myself blues and early jazz styles when I was ten years old.

"I got into jazz and blues accidentally. I heard Bessie Smith the great jazz singer from the 1920s."

He said nowadays jazz is being taught in schools, more and more, depending on where you are.

"Unfortunately, truly American music like jazz and blues often gets ignored," he said. "It tends to get more attention in Europe. I teach a blues history class at Berklee College of Music."

He said he tries to get across the bigger picture to his students.

"At a school like Berklee there is a lot of emphasis on technique and mastery," said Mr. Katz. "I try to get across the idea of communicating and the emotional message of music. You are not just trying to play or write something to show how flashy and proficient you are, but you are trying to communicate something."

He said over the last 15 years it has gotten harder for musicians to make a living, in general. One challenge is the rising cost of fuel.

"Even though I live in the Catskill Mountains, I still teach at Berklee in Boston, Massachusetts two days a week."

With all the commuting he does as a teacher and as a musician the rising cost of fuel has complicated things for him.

"It is a couple of hundred monthly," Mr. Katz said. "I do drive around in a big van and travel around the United States. It is a little more expensive to tour these days."

"I think it has been a little harder for music that isn't top big name acts all over the United States and all over the world," he said. "Live music venues are having a harder time of it these days.

"This is a combination of computers, and the younger generation preferring DJs. It is harder than it used to be. It used to be there were more places to play.

"If I went out on tour, I could jump around and play every night. Now the jumps are longer between cities."

He said it is particularly hard to find gigs on Monday and Tuesday nights.

"Places that used to offer live music seven days a week now only offer it three days a week," he said.

Nevertheless, Mr. Katz has performed all over the world. He was in Mexico this past winter at a blues festival. He plays in Europe frequently and has been to Brazil several times. This will be his first trip to Bermuda.

Tickets are available at People's Pharmacy, the Spinning Wheel Night Club or e-mail tcp@trueplayer.bm