Is jazz muso Nic Jeffries the most romantic guy in Adelaide?

If you’re a fan of The Voice you’ll remember jazz aficionado Nic Jeffries and his soulful performances. Here he talks about his greatest love of all.

Adelaide Youth Orchestra’s executive director Nic Jeffries was content to be on his own journey as a jazz muso … but a talented singer, from Adelaide, kept crossing his path …

I just thought ‘I’m never getting married’. Like, ‘I’ll never get married, I’ll never have kids’.

I was so career focused, I was just going to be touring overseas and playing jazz festivals around the world.

And then I met Skye, who’s from Adelaide.

I was in Sydney, hosting this thing called the Monday JAM, which is still going. One of the biggest venues we ran it out of was The Basement, down at Circular Quay, which, sadly, is gone. One night a friend of mine said to me, ‘you have got to hear this singer Skye’ and I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, everyone’s talking about somebody’.

When she got up to sing, I was like, ‘wow’.

Shortly after that I saw her on The Voice – that was in about 2012 … four years before I was on it. (Editor’s note: Google his performance of Bridge Over Troubled Water).

At that time we both had other partners, but my friend said, ‘Can I bring her to record at your studio?’.

Saxophonist, singer and music educator Nic Jeffries. Picture: Advertiser Library

Skye and Nic Jeffries Picture: Supplied

We met more officially then, but a couple of years later I was in a band and we got booked to play for a Christmas party for a beauty school.

Skye was the receptionist and the boss wanted her to sing The Prayer, the version Andrea Bocelli’s famous for,with my band.

I’m a jazz/soul singer and I had never sung anything like that before, but I am a person who will give anything a go once.

We did the duet and I remember thinking, ‘I really like this girl’.

We went out for a drink afterwards. At that point, we were both single, although neither of us probably knew that. Then we were doing this Monday JAM New Year’s Eve edition, and she had a sing. We went to an after-party together.

Afterwards I thought, ‘You know what, I really need to just call this girl and ask if she’s single and ask for a date’.

I had never done that before, never really called anybody to ask them on a date.

Nic and Skye Jeffries. Picture: Supplied

We went on our first official date for gelato in Newtown in Sydney.

My parents always said, ‘when you know, you’ll know’.

I thought, ‘oh, yeah, whatever, sounds like something out of a romance film …’ but, I was like, ‘this is the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with’.

Skye is so talented. She’s an incredible singer and songwriter, and there’s a mutual respect for each other’s strengths in a musical sense.

She comes from quite a classical background. Her father, Howard Parkinson, was principal bass trombone player for Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for 40 years and her brother Heath is a really wonderful French horn player.

He was playing with the symphony orchestra in Tasmania so we decided to take a holiday and I was like, ‘that’s where I’m going to propose … at the top of Mount Wellington’.

On the day I had the ring in my pocket and it was so cold that we were literally shaking. As in, ‘if I get this thing out, I’m going to drop it’.

We went to the restaurant Frank, in Hobart, and the proposal went really well.

Skye was thrilled, we had a few champagnes and were flying high.

It was a funny night, because we were going to see a friend of ours, Darren Percival, doing his Ray Charles show at Festival of Voices.

Darren Percival, of The Voice fame. Picture: David Kelly

I had messaged him to say, ‘I’m proposing to Skye tonight’ and it got to his big finale number, Hallelujah, I Love Her So. Everyone was dancing, and we’d had quite a few champagnes … Darren came down into the audience, quietened the band and handed me the mic.

I grabbed it and launched into a whole verse and a chorus.

The band came back up, and everyone was like, ‘this guy can actually sing’.

I went to hand the mic back to Darren … (but he didn’t take it), so I did another verse and another chorus … and after the show, he goes, ‘what happened? I thought you were going to propose?’.

I said, ‘Oh, no, we’d already done that’ and he said, ‘I’ve got to sing at your wedding’.

When we got married it was the most beautiful day, perfect weather, and we ended up having Darren with a choir of about 20 of our friends and a band.

Skye and Nic Jeffries on their wedding day. Picture: Supplied

We both love James Taylor and he sang Only One as Skye walked down the aisle and she’s already a beautiful girl inside and out but I just remember turning around and going, ‘my goodness’.

Darren also sang Your Smiling Face and we had other friends of ours jump in and sing like Diana Rouvas, who won the voice in 2019, who sang during the signing of the register.

Skye and Nic Jeffries. Picture: Supplied

Skye Jeffries and sons Harry and Jake. Picture: Supplied

Some other friends of ours from a band called Uncle Jed – they won Australia’s Got Talent back in 2018 – did an original song of Skye’s, we all just sort of jumped in … it was like a concert, such a fantastic day.

That day changed my life, because now we’ve got two beautiful boys – Harry, 7, and Jake, 2, – and we’ve moved to South Australia, and we have that, that wonderful opportunity to play music together and to do life together.

Nic and Skye have released a single, Hang On Baby, with their country soul band The Jeffries. It’s out on iTunes now

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