Groove Company have been a fixture on the Charlottetown scene for a long time. Led by guitarist and singer Perry Williams, the band is a sextet with a three piece horn section, and they play arrangements of pop and rock hits from the last five decades. The song list reads like a greatest hits catalog. The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, The Police, The Zombies. All of it run through a jazz filter, with the horns featured as a section and at least one of them stepping out for a solo on every tune .
The lineup has stayed remarkably consistent over the years. Peter Bevan-Baker on trumpet, Doug Millington on trombone, Jon MacInnis on sax, Isaac Williams on bass, Alan White on drums, and Perry Williams out front on guitar and vocals . A few of those names will be familiar to anyone who follows PEI music. Bevan-Baker is also the leader of the provincial Green Party, which makes for a good piece of trivia at a show.
Around 2011
The band was already well established by the time the 2011 festival rolled around. They were playing regular gigs around town and had built a following for their live shows. The archive of the festival schedule from that year does not list them by name, so it is not clear exactly where or when they might have appeared during that week. It is possible they played a set that was not captured in the main listings, or they were involved in one of the side events that did not make it into the printed schedule .
What is clear is that they were part of the local music community that the festival drew on. The festival has always made room for Island players alongside the visiting headliners, and Groove Company were one of the bands that kept the scene going between festivals.
Since then
The band is still at it. They kicked off their seventeenth year in 2026 with a fundraiser for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation at the Trailside Music Hall, donating all of the band's proceeds . They also play regular shows around Charlottetown, including a long-running Thursday night residency at Baba's Lounge that has featured them alongside other Island jazz acts .
For a band that started as a way to have fun with some favourite songs, they have lasted longer than most. The arrangements are sharp, the playing is tight, and the crowd keeps coming back. That is about as good as it gets for a local band.
For the current festival, head to the schedule page or the main lineup page. This archive is kept for looking back.