WATERLOO ON., Nov. 14, 2014 --- After celebrating his 50th birthday this past summer Stephen Zurakowsky found a new sound he will share at The Jazz Room on Friday. Nov. 21.
The veteran classical-jazz guitarist and composer has a special night of live music planned. It features 10 funky-jazz compositions he wrote, three solo tributes to the great Canadian guitarist Lenny Breau and a talented vocalist for some standards.
"I wrote 10 new compositions specially for this night," Zurakowsky says.
Joining Zurakowsky on stage Friday night --- Greg Prior on bass, Ryan Cassidy on tenor sax and flute, Paul MacLeod on piano abd Giapaola Scatozza on drums.
Special guest Jane Cowan will join the band to do some standards, "to offset all the originals that I will be doing," Zurakowsky says.
Zurakowsky is well known as the head of the Kitchener-Waterloo
Classical Guitar Society. He teaches classical guitar. He plays jazz
guitar with the Kitchener-based Big Band Theory. He's played the Music Room in a classical-jazz duet
with the guitarist James Brown.
"I started playing
in Big Band Theory three years ago, and that's what got my interest
back into jazz," Zurakowsky says. "I was enjoing reading in that band so
much because the charts are so difficult, and then I found my jazz
chops getting a little bit better."
After turning 50 Zucharsky sat down and started writing new music. He wanted to compose jazz ballads bordering atonalism. Instead, he brought home the funk.
"I feel like I am crossing over," Zurakowsky says. "It is edgy, 'cause that's sort of my classical background, but it's more melodic and it's really, really funky. That's why I got Giapaola to play drums, he's from Toronto and this is sort of his speciaty."
Previously, the soft-spoken classical guitarist released two solo recordings of original, moody music. Big City Quiet Moments and Four Trees in Winter. The beautiful, melancholic-austere sounds he attributes, in part, to his Ukrainian-Polish background.
"I am just changing. All of a sudden I felt like writing happy, fun music," Zurakowsky says. "Maybe that sounds kind of weird, but the melancholy of the Ukrainian music, I think I just came to the end of a phase. And then all of a sudden, boom, all these funky rhythyms started to come out. It was a lot of fun."
"I think when you are composing, you can't necessarily control what is coming out," he says. "It kind of just goes where it goes."
He wrote the 10 new compositions in about six to eight months. The transition from solo classical guitar to composing for, and playing in jazz bands, is emancipating.
"It feels more free because when you play classical guitar there is every tiny little sound, every detail, but when you are playing in a group all those details from each person add up to the whole, so that way it feels more freeing," Zurakowsky says. "And I like that spontaneous, improvising feel."
When Cassidy plays flute he can also Beat Box at the same time, so Zurakowsky wrote some music to feature that --- Hip Hop Blues, Funkelude and Prelude to the Jazz Groove.
"That beat boxing and flute playing is so cool."
Prior is the bass player for Big Band Theory. Zurakowsky and Jane Cowan have known each other for a long time.
"She's an incredible singer, again she is a cross between classical and jazz, so it is a good fit," Zurakowsky says.
"I will be doing some solo work that night, and they are all tributes to Lenny Breau," Zurakowsky says. "I think when I was in high school, and I heard that for the first time, one song, he combined so many genres like flamenco, jazz, blues and then classical right hand techniques, like tremulendo. I was so attracted to that."
Lenny Breau was a pioneering Canadian fusion guitarist. Sadly, most music fans today know nothing about his important contributions to the Canadian guitar scene. Zurakowsky's tributes Friday night will move from a Chet Atkins-style walking bass to flamenco and then a bee-bop sound.
"The tribute to Lenny Breau song is blues, blue grass, blues rock, and jazz blues. And then combining classical elements and putting them all together," " Zurakowsky says. "He was one of the world's greatest guitar players, and nobody knows who he is. He's Canadian"
The three tributes Zurakowsky plays Friday night will introduce Breau to people who never heard of him, and rekindle memories among fans of a certain age. Beau played the university-coffee-house circuit in the 1960s and 1970s around southern Ontario.
At 50, Zurakowsky seems to be starting a new phase of creativity, and he's exscited about it.
"It's great actually."
While well-known as a classical guitarist and composer, Zurakowsky's jazz roots go back more than 30 years, to when he studied music at the University of Toronto, 1987-1991. A legendary music proff there named Phil Nimmons, directed the school's big band. He needed a guitarist and persuaded Zucharsky to join.
"He took me under his wing and taught me how to arrange and play jazz," Zurakowsky says.
Nimmons, a virtuoso on the jazz clarinet, helped many classical musicians find their jazz groove.
"His original music is this cross between jazz and classical. So a big influence on my music was his music called The Atlantic Suite. That's a big song and I guess a big inspiration for me. It is a huge suite for big bands: Is it classical? Is it jazz? Is it contemporary music? Like, there is no category. So I wrote a piece thinking about my days with Phil, it is called the Canadian Landscape Jazz Suite. So I have dedicated that to him."
It was written for a quintet, but Zurakowsky played it recently in violin-guitar duet at St. Andrew's Church and it worked very well.
Classical musicians are good at reading music, but not so good at figuring out the chords for jazz. So when Zurakowsky auditioned for Nimmons big band at the University of Toronto it did not go particularly well. But the legendary teacher saw something in Zurakowsky, and brought him on board anyway.
"I said: Okay I will do it, but just don't ask me to solo or improvise. So the first chart he picks for the night is going really, really fast, I am barely keeping up trying to play the chords, and people are soloing and all of a sudden he says: 'Play a guitart solo.' A couple of notes came out, but I had no idea, it was just so fast. You have to think and hear so fast," Zurakosky says.
"So when we finished the chart he asked me to stand up in front of the band and scream. Like, I am so shy and quiet, right. So I stand up and he says: 'Scream!'. And I said: 'I can't, I can't.' So then I scream a little scream and he goes: 'No, no, like this.' And then he does this big, huge Tarzan scream, and says: 'That's what you have to feel when you improvise, and don't worry about all that other stuff. You have to have this really go-for-it attitude."
"As the months went on he would ask us to do that, stand up and scream," Zurakowsky says. "That's how I got into jazz."
.
Friday, 21 November 2014
Thursday, 13 November 2014
Childhood trips to Village Vanguard had huge impact
WATERLOO ON., NOV. 13, 2014 --- The musical journey that brings alto-sax sensation Tara Davidson to the stage of The Jazz Room started decades ago with trips the legendary Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village.
"My dad took us to New York a lot," Davidson says. "Lucky us, for sure."
Davidson is a leading alto-sax player, composer, recording artist, educator and performer. The Juno-nominated performer and composer plays The Jazz Room on Saturday in a show that will feature compositions from her latest CD, Tara Davidson Duets. But it all started with the influence of her dad, Ron Davidson, a trumpet player who headed a high school music department.
"We would go to the Village Vanguard and hear people, I was really young," Davidson says. "He always tells the story how I fell asleep on the table after he stayed all night to hear Illinois Jacquet."
Jacquet was a tenor sax player and jazz musician best known for his solo on "Flying Home." Davidson also heard Dizzy Gillespie at Carnegie Hall when she was young.
"I remember that," Davidson says. "I knew that was special and how amazing he was."
She still makes regular trips to the famous club on 7th Avenue in New York City to hear jazz, and take private lessons with Dick Oatts, the lead alto-sax player in the Village Vanguard Orchestra. Oatts taught at the Manhattan School of Music for years, and is now at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Davidson's dad helped her pick her instrument when she was 12. To this day, he seldom misses a show. Check out her webpage at TaraDavidson.ca and browse the CDs and schedule of shows.
"He brought a bunch of woodwind instruments home for me to try, and I liked the saxophone best," she says.
Davidson released her latest CD at the Jazz Bistro in Toronto a few weeks ago. It is a duets project with 13 tracks featuring six different duet partners
"All of whom I love playing with, I have personal and musical relationships with these people, which is why I asked them to join me on this record," Davidson says.
The CD features compositions by Davidson and one by each of her duet partners. For the Saturday gig in The Jazz Room, three of the duet partners will join Davidson on stage --- Mike Murley on tenor sax, Andrew Downing on bass and cello and Andrew Occiphinti on guitar. They will also play trio and quartet configurations.
"Just to sort of give variety through the night," Davidson says.
The duets project follows Davidson's release of CDs featuring her quartet, quintet and nonet, so she was looking to do something different.
"I wanted to choose something I would be happy focusing on, and I really love playing duets," Davidson says. "I often get together with other singular musicians to learn tunes, and when I studied with Murley a lot of my study time was playing duets with him actually. So I really like it."
Davidson, 35, has released several CDs as band leader, and many more as a side player. She is married to the trombone player William Carn, and they co-lead a nine-piece band. They travel regularly to New York City to hear jazz.
Davidson studied jazz at the University of Toronto, 1998 to 2002, under Mike Murley, considered one of the best, if not the top tenor sax player on the Toronto scene.
"At the time he was one of the private teaches there, and I wanted to study with him some more there," Davidson says.
She also studied under Phil Nimmons, who was about 70 when she attended the University of Toronto.
"He was an amazing, vibrant, intelligent, great man," Davidson says. "And he would speak of the fact that as a musician one of the most beautiful things about being a musician is that you can always grow and get better. And the pursuit of that is exceptional and beautiful."
She loves to teach as well. In the jazz program at York University, and at Humber College, in the community school music program that is held every Saturday. Davidson teaches a lot of young people 11 to 15 in tha program, conducting them in small combos and private lessons.
"My dad took us to New York a lot," Davidson says. "Lucky us, for sure."
Davidson is a leading alto-sax player, composer, recording artist, educator and performer. The Juno-nominated performer and composer plays The Jazz Room on Saturday in a show that will feature compositions from her latest CD, Tara Davidson Duets. But it all started with the influence of her dad, Ron Davidson, a trumpet player who headed a high school music department.
"We would go to the Village Vanguard and hear people, I was really young," Davidson says. "He always tells the story how I fell asleep on the table after he stayed all night to hear Illinois Jacquet."
Jacquet was a tenor sax player and jazz musician best known for his solo on "Flying Home." Davidson also heard Dizzy Gillespie at Carnegie Hall when she was young.
"I remember that," Davidson says. "I knew that was special and how amazing he was."
She still makes regular trips to the famous club on 7th Avenue in New York City to hear jazz, and take private lessons with Dick Oatts, the lead alto-sax player in the Village Vanguard Orchestra. Oatts taught at the Manhattan School of Music for years, and is now at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Davidson's dad helped her pick her instrument when she was 12. To this day, he seldom misses a show. Check out her webpage at TaraDavidson.ca and browse the CDs and schedule of shows.
"He brought a bunch of woodwind instruments home for me to try, and I liked the saxophone best," she says.
Davidson released her latest CD at the Jazz Bistro in Toronto a few weeks ago. It is a duets project with 13 tracks featuring six different duet partners
"All of whom I love playing with, I have personal and musical relationships with these people, which is why I asked them to join me on this record," Davidson says.
The CD features compositions by Davidson and one by each of her duet partners. For the Saturday gig in The Jazz Room, three of the duet partners will join Davidson on stage --- Mike Murley on tenor sax, Andrew Downing on bass and cello and Andrew Occiphinti on guitar. They will also play trio and quartet configurations.
"Just to sort of give variety through the night," Davidson says.
The duets project follows Davidson's release of CDs featuring her quartet, quintet and nonet, so she was looking to do something different.
"I wanted to choose something I would be happy focusing on, and I really love playing duets," Davidson says. "I often get together with other singular musicians to learn tunes, and when I studied with Murley a lot of my study time was playing duets with him actually. So I really like it."
Davidson, 35, has released several CDs as band leader, and many more as a side player. She is married to the trombone player William Carn, and they co-lead a nine-piece band. They travel regularly to New York City to hear jazz.
Davidson studied jazz at the University of Toronto, 1998 to 2002, under Mike Murley, considered one of the best, if not the top tenor sax player on the Toronto scene.
"At the time he was one of the private teaches there, and I wanted to study with him some more there," Davidson says.
She also studied under Phil Nimmons, who was about 70 when she attended the University of Toronto.
"He was an amazing, vibrant, intelligent, great man," Davidson says. "And he would speak of the fact that as a musician one of the most beautiful things about being a musician is that you can always grow and get better. And the pursuit of that is exceptional and beautiful."
She loves to teach as well. In the jazz program at York University, and at Humber College, in the community school music program that is held every Saturday. Davidson teaches a lot of young people 11 to 15 in tha program, conducting them in small combos and private lessons.
Thursday, 6 November 2014
Tall musicians stretch all the boundaries
WATERLOO, Ontario --- One of the most unique voices in contemporary jazz, the genre-defying Stretch Orchestra, is coming to town.
If you never heard this trio before, you will never forget it.
Three virtuoso musicians, and a bundle of instruments, producing a big sound unlike anything you ever heard before. Friday, Nov. 7, 2014, is poised to be another milestone night at The Jazz Room.
Stretch Orchestra is Kevin Breit (mando-cello, mandola, mandolin), Matt Brubeck (cello) and Jesse Stewart (percussion). The trio played the Kitchener Blues Festival in August to loud and long applause. Last year, it played the Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival. Breit has appeared five times at the local jazz festival over the years.
Playing together since 2005, the trio has produced only one CD so far, and it won a 2012 Juno Award for best Instrumental Recording. That was the self-titled CD Stretch Orchestra. Distances and crazy-busy schedules have kept them out of the recording studio. Elora-based Breit says 99 per cent of the music the trio plays Friday will be instrumental.
“It's just kind of Americana music,” Breit says. “Because it is improvised, it will always be calld jazz. It is harmonic, so that gives it the jazz bent, the jazz shape for sure.
“I always say Americana because there is blue grass in there, there's blues in there, there's jazz in there, there's tango music in there, which is not really American but our version of it anyway. So it's got all that stuff in it, I think,” Breit says.
That's why this trio plays jazz festivals, blues festivals and chamber music festivals with ease, winning new fans at every show.
Hard to believe this creative powerhouse has produced only one CD, and The Jazz Room is very, very lucky to this trio play on Friday night.
“Yeah, distances kept us from doing another one, ust the geography” Breit says. “Jesse lives in Ottawa and he teaches at Carlton, and Matt teaches at York University and lives in Guelph, and I am on the road.
Among those three things try to get us in the room, it's a bit of a coup that we actually have, collectively, a date available to do this show on the Seventh. I am so happy it worked out.”
Breit is on the road a lot. Bandleader, composer, studio work, sideman. He has won other Junos with other bands, and recorded with the likes of Holly Cole, Hugh Laurie and Norah Jones. One of his instruments is a mandola, an ancestor of the lute and the mandolin. Unless you have heard Breit, very few people have ever heard or seen a mandola. It dates back to the 9th Century, and was popular in Italty and Spain. It did not reach England until the end of 14th Century. It is small and traditionally has nine frets and up to six strings.
“I am really into that, I really love playing those,” Breit says.
His instruments are custom-made by a luthier who lives outside Niagara-on-the-Lake, Joseph Yanuziello.
Breit loves to tell the story about sharing an elevator with Chicago Blues legend Buddy Guy. Breit was playing at a guitar festival in Chicago, and so was Buddy Guy. The next morning Breit is taking the elevator down to the lobby when Buddy steps into the lift. Breit is abashed and flustered, and presses the button for the basement. Then he mutters something to the living legend beside him.
"I saw your show last night Buddy and really enjoyed it," Breit said.
"Well, awright," Buddy said.
The elevator goes to the basement, the doors open and close, Breit hits the correct button for the lobby and the two are off again. When the doors open on the lobby, one of Buddy Buy's assistants is standing there, arms crossed, waiting for his boss.
"What kept you Buddy?" he said.
"The kid took me for a ride," Buddy said jerking his thumb at Breit.
Breit and Stewart had worked together in different bands, played the Guelph Jazz Festival and other gigs. This was prior to 2005. Stewart told Breit about this amazing cello player who just moved to Ontario, Brubeck, the son of the legendary jazz pianist and composer. When the trio first got together, they called themselves The Tall Boys because everyone is, well, really, really tall.
The name was changed to Stretch Orchestra because Breit and Co. found out there was already a band calling itself The Tall Boys.
The Jazz Room audience will hear a mixture of new and old pieces Friday night.
“Half and half,” Breit says. “Some from our self-titled disc, and new songs. We are always gathering up this dust, we are always picking up new songs. We will probably do some selected covers that people will hopefully recognize.”
Brubeck teaches at both York University and Humber College in Toronto. He rides the bus into and out of Toronto on teaching days, working on a laptop while the bus rolls down the 401. Stewart is a professor at Carlton University's School for Studies in Art and Culture.
Breit's music still chills more than 10 years after hearing him play for the first time with a band called Folkalarm. It was at the Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival, and with one of his small, custom-made instruments he covered Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. Never heard anything like it, before or since.
“It's one of those tunes everybody knows,” Breit says. “It is one of my favourite tunes ever written. I still get goose bumps hearing it. Not us playing it, but the Beach Boys.”
If you never heard this trio before, you will never forget it.
Three virtuoso musicians, and a bundle of instruments, producing a big sound unlike anything you ever heard before. Friday, Nov. 7, 2014, is poised to be another milestone night at The Jazz Room.
Stretch Orchestra is Kevin Breit (mando-cello, mandola, mandolin), Matt Brubeck (cello) and Jesse Stewart (percussion). The trio played the Kitchener Blues Festival in August to loud and long applause. Last year, it played the Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival. Breit has appeared five times at the local jazz festival over the years.
Playing together since 2005, the trio has produced only one CD so far, and it won a 2012 Juno Award for best Instrumental Recording. That was the self-titled CD Stretch Orchestra. Distances and crazy-busy schedules have kept them out of the recording studio. Elora-based Breit says 99 per cent of the music the trio plays Friday will be instrumental.
“It's just kind of Americana music,” Breit says. “Because it is improvised, it will always be calld jazz. It is harmonic, so that gives it the jazz bent, the jazz shape for sure.
“I always say Americana because there is blue grass in there, there's blues in there, there's jazz in there, there's tango music in there, which is not really American but our version of it anyway. So it's got all that stuff in it, I think,” Breit says.
That's why this trio plays jazz festivals, blues festivals and chamber music festivals with ease, winning new fans at every show.
Hard to believe this creative powerhouse has produced only one CD, and The Jazz Room is very, very lucky to this trio play on Friday night.
“Yeah, distances kept us from doing another one, ust the geography” Breit says. “Jesse lives in Ottawa and he teaches at Carlton, and Matt teaches at York University and lives in Guelph, and I am on the road.
Among those three things try to get us in the room, it's a bit of a coup that we actually have, collectively, a date available to do this show on the Seventh. I am so happy it worked out.”
Breit is on the road a lot. Bandleader, composer, studio work, sideman. He has won other Junos with other bands, and recorded with the likes of Holly Cole, Hugh Laurie and Norah Jones. One of his instruments is a mandola, an ancestor of the lute and the mandolin. Unless you have heard Breit, very few people have ever heard or seen a mandola. It dates back to the 9th Century, and was popular in Italty and Spain. It did not reach England until the end of 14th Century. It is small and traditionally has nine frets and up to six strings.
“I am really into that, I really love playing those,” Breit says.
His instruments are custom-made by a luthier who lives outside Niagara-on-the-Lake, Joseph Yanuziello.
Breit loves to tell the story about sharing an elevator with Chicago Blues legend Buddy Guy. Breit was playing at a guitar festival in Chicago, and so was Buddy Guy. The next morning Breit is taking the elevator down to the lobby when Buddy steps into the lift. Breit is abashed and flustered, and presses the button for the basement. Then he mutters something to the living legend beside him.
"I saw your show last night Buddy and really enjoyed it," Breit said.
"Well, awright," Buddy said.
The elevator goes to the basement, the doors open and close, Breit hits the correct button for the lobby and the two are off again. When the doors open on the lobby, one of Buddy Buy's assistants is standing there, arms crossed, waiting for his boss.
"What kept you Buddy?" he said.
"The kid took me for a ride," Buddy said jerking his thumb at Breit.
Breit and Stewart had worked together in different bands, played the Guelph Jazz Festival and other gigs. This was prior to 2005. Stewart told Breit about this amazing cello player who just moved to Ontario, Brubeck, the son of the legendary jazz pianist and composer. When the trio first got together, they called themselves The Tall Boys because everyone is, well, really, really tall.
The name was changed to Stretch Orchestra because Breit and Co. found out there was already a band calling itself The Tall Boys.
The Jazz Room audience will hear a mixture of new and old pieces Friday night.
“Half and half,” Breit says. “Some from our self-titled disc, and new songs. We are always gathering up this dust, we are always picking up new songs. We will probably do some selected covers that people will hopefully recognize.”
Brubeck teaches at both York University and Humber College in Toronto. He rides the bus into and out of Toronto on teaching days, working on a laptop while the bus rolls down the 401. Stewart is a professor at Carlton University's School for Studies in Art and Culture.
Breit's music still chills more than 10 years after hearing him play for the first time with a band called Folkalarm. It was at the Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival, and with one of his small, custom-made instruments he covered Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. Never heard anything like it, before or since.
“It's one of those tunes everybody knows,” Breit says. “It is one of my favourite tunes ever written. I still get goose bumps hearing it. Not us playing it, but the Beach Boys.”
Sunday, 2 November 2014
Petr Cancura and Down Home amaze fans in The Jazz Room
WATERLOO ON., Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014 --- Brian Drye operates IBEAM Brooklyn when he's not playing trombone and piano in Petr Cancura's award-winning quintet, Down Home, so he knows something about audiences.
"I think it's going to be hard to beat this," Drye says after the show Saturday night in The Jazz Room that sparked a long-and-loud standing ovation.
A live jazz show is a two-way street where musicians and audiences must come together to make the magic happen. And it happened in a big way in the little club on Saturday. Hard to say who was more amazed, the musicians or the audience.
Drye says even the audiences in Brooklyn, where the band is based, are are not as appreciative as their new-found fans in The Jazz Room.
As the director of IBEAM, Drye oversees the performance, rehearsal and teaching space in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn for established and emerging artists. The organization aims to create a community of musicians, educators and students based out of the space at 168 7th St in Brooklyn . It is outfitted with a Schimmel Concert Grand Piano, a vintage set of Gretsch drums and a state of the art sound system.
It sounds a lot like The Jazz Room, which has created a tight and growing community of artists, fans and music students that gather twice a week in the club to hear live shows, and attend Saturday workshops to learm from some of the best jazz musicians playing today - Loren Lofsky, Matt Brubeck, Ingid Jenson, among others. The next workshop is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 15th with the Torontlo-based sax player and composer Tara Davidson.
The standing ovation on Saturday was only the fourth one in The Jazz Room since it opened more than three years ago. Cancura's band now keeps company with the Spike Wilner Trio (based out of Smalls in the West Village), and Johnny O'Neil (also New York based) in getting The Jazz Room fans on their feet clapping and hollering for more.
Cancura played tenor sax and banjo, Richie Barshay played drums, Garth Stevenson played bass and Kirk Knuffke played coronet during three sets that trawled the deep-wide river of America's music, fusing Mississippi blues, the second lines of New Orleans and urban jazz. Cancura wrote all the music for Down Home, which won Jazz Recording of the Year at the Independent Music Awards and was nominated for a Juno Award.
Nobody in The Jazz Room on Saturday ever heard anything quite like the music Cancura wrote for Down Home. Cancura's stories behind the music took the audience to the Otha Turner Family Goat Roast and Picnic in Senatobia Country, Mississippi. It was August 2010, the cops sold booze in that dry county. Goat meat roasted on the barbecues and loaves of Wonder Bread were on hand for making sandwiches. Blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta and the Hill Country played on the back of a flat-bed truck. The sounds took Cancura back to his musical roots in Eastern Europe -- gypsy jazz.
"We have really enjoyed playing The Jazz Room, thank you so much, you have been a great audience," Cancura says near the end of Saturday's show. "We would love to come back."
And the club would love to have them back.
The band was fresh from a gig and workshop at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and Saturday's show in The Jazz Room was the second stop on its Canadian tour. Drye says he's crossed Canada several times with Cancura in the past, and never had a reception like the one at The Jazz Room on Saturday. Today, the band plays The Rex Hotel, that yappy bar on Queen Street West in Toronto where world-class jazz competes with loud-mouth patrons to be heard.
Cancura and Down Home also play the Ironworks in Vancouver Nov. 6th, the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton Nov. 7th, and Jazz YYC Canadian Jazz Festival in Calgary Nov. 9th. Western Canadian jazz fans are in for a special treat. Do not miss this band if it plays anwhere near you. It is a musical phenom like no other that is bound for something very, very special.
"I think it's going to be hard to beat this," Drye says after the show Saturday night in The Jazz Room that sparked a long-and-loud standing ovation.
A live jazz show is a two-way street where musicians and audiences must come together to make the magic happen. And it happened in a big way in the little club on Saturday. Hard to say who was more amazed, the musicians or the audience.
Drye says even the audiences in Brooklyn, where the band is based, are are not as appreciative as their new-found fans in The Jazz Room.
As the director of IBEAM, Drye oversees the performance, rehearsal and teaching space in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn for established and emerging artists. The organization aims to create a community of musicians, educators and students based out of the space at 168 7th St in Brooklyn . It is outfitted with a Schimmel Concert Grand Piano, a vintage set of Gretsch drums and a state of the art sound system.
It sounds a lot like The Jazz Room, which has created a tight and growing community of artists, fans and music students that gather twice a week in the club to hear live shows, and attend Saturday workshops to learm from some of the best jazz musicians playing today - Loren Lofsky, Matt Brubeck, Ingid Jenson, among others. The next workshop is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 15th with the Torontlo-based sax player and composer Tara Davidson.
The standing ovation on Saturday was only the fourth one in The Jazz Room since it opened more than three years ago. Cancura's band now keeps company with the Spike Wilner Trio (based out of Smalls in the West Village), and Johnny O'Neil (also New York based) in getting The Jazz Room fans on their feet clapping and hollering for more.
Cancura played tenor sax and banjo, Richie Barshay played drums, Garth Stevenson played bass and Kirk Knuffke played coronet during three sets that trawled the deep-wide river of America's music, fusing Mississippi blues, the second lines of New Orleans and urban jazz. Cancura wrote all the music for Down Home, which won Jazz Recording of the Year at the Independent Music Awards and was nominated for a Juno Award.
Nobody in The Jazz Room on Saturday ever heard anything quite like the music Cancura wrote for Down Home. Cancura's stories behind the music took the audience to the Otha Turner Family Goat Roast and Picnic in Senatobia Country, Mississippi. It was August 2010, the cops sold booze in that dry county. Goat meat roasted on the barbecues and loaves of Wonder Bread were on hand for making sandwiches. Blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta and the Hill Country played on the back of a flat-bed truck. The sounds took Cancura back to his musical roots in Eastern Europe -- gypsy jazz.
"We have really enjoyed playing The Jazz Room, thank you so much, you have been a great audience," Cancura says near the end of Saturday's show. "We would love to come back."
And the club would love to have them back.
The band was fresh from a gig and workshop at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and Saturday's show in The Jazz Room was the second stop on its Canadian tour. Drye says he's crossed Canada several times with Cancura in the past, and never had a reception like the one at The Jazz Room on Saturday. Today, the band plays The Rex Hotel, that yappy bar on Queen Street West in Toronto where world-class jazz competes with loud-mouth patrons to be heard.
Cancura and Down Home also play the Ironworks in Vancouver Nov. 6th, the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton Nov. 7th, and Jazz YYC Canadian Jazz Festival in Calgary Nov. 9th. Western Canadian jazz fans are in for a special treat. Do not miss this band if it plays anwhere near you. It is a musical phenom like no other that is bound for something very, very special.
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Brooklyn jazz meets Mississippi blues in The Jazz Room
WATERLOO ON., Sept. 29, 2014 --- About four years ago the Brooklyn-based tenor saxophonist and composer Petr Cancura made a life-changing trip to Senatobia County, Mississippi for the annual Otha Turner Family Goat Roast & Picnic.
The music Cancura heard that August weekend inspired him like nothing else. After returning to Brooklyn, he wrote more than enough music in one month for a new recording. That music, a jazz-blues fusion, will be front-and-centre Saturday night in The Jazz Room. The CD is called "Down Home."
"It just changed my life," Cancura says in an interview with New City Notes.
Otha Turner started the annual goat roast and blues jam decades ago. Turner led The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. He was featured in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning movie The Gangs of New York, and in Scorsese's documentary series on the blues. Hill Country and Delta Blues musicians take turns playing on the back of a flat-bed truck at the annual picnic. Turner's granddaughter, Sharde Thomas, plays the fife in the band, and his grandsons play drums.
Cancura could hardly believe what he was seeing and hearing. It took him way back to his roots. . Cancura was born and raised in the former Czechoslovakia, far behind the Iron Curtain of Cold War Europe. His father was charged with treason and threatened with 15 years in prison for buying a Yamaha keyboard.
When he was nine-years-old Cancura's family escaped to Austria, spent eight months if a refugee camp and then settled in Ottawa. Later Cancura studied music at Carlton University. Then he studied jazz at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston - one of the best jazz programs in the world.
"Pretty soon after I got heavily into music I went back and started checking out all this Eastern European music, Gypsy music," Cancura says. "That stuff just really speaks to me. Really , all it is is an Eastern European version of the blues. I have been studying and playing jazz for over 20 years at this point, and that's become part of my life. When I went down there and checked out this picnic, I got those same shivers that I do when I hear Gypsy music."
The CD "Down Home" is nominated for a Juno Award, and Cancura comes to The Jazz Room fresh from a cocert and workshop at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.. The Jazz Room is Cancura's second stop on this Canadian tour. He plays tenor sax, clarinet, banjo and mandolin. Cancura is also the programming manager for the Ottawa Jazz Festival. The Down Home project taps into everything this multi-instrumentalist has to offer.
"It's kind of combining a lot of southern-kind-of-blues and folk traditions,' Cancura says. "And then letting loose with a bunch of really incredible improvisers from New York."
After graduating from the New England Conservatory in 2006, Cancura headed for New York City. He lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
"It is a great, booming little neighbourhood that is packed with musicians," Cancura says.
He plays a semi-regular gig at Barbes, a performance space and bar at 9th Street and 6th Ave. in Park Slope. He also plays IBeam in the Gowanus area Brooklyn, a performance, rehearsal and teaching space for established and emerging musicians.. Cancura's also played the Cornelia Street Cafe and the Blue Note in the West Village.
"I like it," Cancura says of New York City. "I have been here for a long time, I have been here for eight years. And it's tough, but it's great. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, so we are always talking about should we stay, should we not?"
But Cancura and his partner always decide to stay.
"It's expensive, it's a hard place to live, but people seem to fight for their life here in a good way," Cancura says. "They fight for it, if we are talking music and art, they really fight for it. And when people come to a rehearsal or session to play, they mean it, and it makes it pretty special."
.
The music Cancura heard that August weekend inspired him like nothing else. After returning to Brooklyn, he wrote more than enough music in one month for a new recording. That music, a jazz-blues fusion, will be front-and-centre Saturday night in The Jazz Room. The CD is called "Down Home."
"It just changed my life," Cancura says in an interview with New City Notes.
Otha Turner started the annual goat roast and blues jam decades ago. Turner led The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. He was featured in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning movie The Gangs of New York, and in Scorsese's documentary series on the blues. Hill Country and Delta Blues musicians take turns playing on the back of a flat-bed truck at the annual picnic. Turner's granddaughter, Sharde Thomas, plays the fife in the band, and his grandsons play drums.
Cancura could hardly believe what he was seeing and hearing. It took him way back to his roots. . Cancura was born and raised in the former Czechoslovakia, far behind the Iron Curtain of Cold War Europe. His father was charged with treason and threatened with 15 years in prison for buying a Yamaha keyboard.
When he was nine-years-old Cancura's family escaped to Austria, spent eight months if a refugee camp and then settled in Ottawa. Later Cancura studied music at Carlton University. Then he studied jazz at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston - one of the best jazz programs in the world.
"Pretty soon after I got heavily into music I went back and started checking out all this Eastern European music, Gypsy music," Cancura says. "That stuff just really speaks to me. Really , all it is is an Eastern European version of the blues. I have been studying and playing jazz for over 20 years at this point, and that's become part of my life. When I went down there and checked out this picnic, I got those same shivers that I do when I hear Gypsy music."
The CD "Down Home" is nominated for a Juno Award, and Cancura comes to The Jazz Room fresh from a cocert and workshop at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.. The Jazz Room is Cancura's second stop on this Canadian tour. He plays tenor sax, clarinet, banjo and mandolin. Cancura is also the programming manager for the Ottawa Jazz Festival. The Down Home project taps into everything this multi-instrumentalist has to offer.
"It's kind of combining a lot of southern-kind-of-blues and folk traditions,' Cancura says. "And then letting loose with a bunch of really incredible improvisers from New York."
After graduating from the New England Conservatory in 2006, Cancura headed for New York City. He lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
"It is a great, booming little neighbourhood that is packed with musicians," Cancura says.
He plays a semi-regular gig at Barbes, a performance space and bar at 9th Street and 6th Ave. in Park Slope. He also plays IBeam in the Gowanus area Brooklyn, a performance, rehearsal and teaching space for established and emerging musicians.. Cancura's also played the Cornelia Street Cafe and the Blue Note in the West Village.
"I like it," Cancura says of New York City. "I have been here for a long time, I have been here for eight years. And it's tough, but it's great. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, so we are always talking about should we stay, should we not?"
But Cancura and his partner always decide to stay.
"It's expensive, it's a hard place to live, but people seem to fight for their life here in a good way," Cancura says. "They fight for it, if we are talking music and art, they really fight for it. And when people come to a rehearsal or session to play, they mean it, and it makes it pretty special."
.
Monday, 27 October 2014
First Manhattan, then Berlin, now Waterloo.
WATERLOO ON., Oct., 27, 2014 --- Peter Van Huffel brings the sounds of Toronto, New York and Berlin to the The Jazz Room on Friday night, fresh from a gig in the Cornelia Street Cafe in the West Village.
The alto-saxophonist and composer is nearing the end of his most productive year so far, and his show Friday in Waterloo features his band Boom Crane. After releasing three new CDs so far this year on three different European labels, with another due out before long, Van Huffel's is a cosmopolitan sound.
After graduating from the Humber College jazz program in 2001, where he studied under Pat LaBarbera and Don Thompson, Van Huffel headed for New York City. He did a Master's Degree at the Manhattan School of Music, which he followed up with several years of gigging in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Now, he is based out of Berlin, Germany and loves it.
“The jazz scene is amazing," Van Huffel says of Berlin.
"It is very different. As far as
big jazz cities go I have lived about equal time in Toronto, New York and
Berlin, and they each have tremendous offerings, but each one has a different
thing to offer."
And Berlin offers up a lot of experimental music, perhaps the strongest experimental scene Van Huffel has yet experienced.
"Most music that I am doing, I know there are
some people out there who find it tremendously avant garde some of my stuff,
but in Berlin I am pretty much one of the jazzy guys," Van Huffel says in an interview with New City Notes.
Berlin bustles with musical innovation.
"There is a lot of sound improvisation
in Berlin, a lot of musicians who are really focused on minimalist
improv," Van Huffel says. "There is also a lot of traditional
jazz, and more the style that I am playing as well, but it's really a city
that if you are willing it can really open your mind I think.”
Van Huffel revels in the German capital's history of free jazz. The only similar scene in North America, he believes, is found in the Chicago where the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music is based. Ken Vandermark's free jazz is comparable to what's coming out of Berlin these days, Van Huffel says.
“Germany is kind of the
originating area where all really experiental jazz started to come out of, and there is a great tradition of it, and
some really amazing players," Van Huffel says. "I have had
the chance to play with the older guys who kind of grew up in that scene.
"It's really fascinating to see how they
approach their instruments, how they approach the idea of music,
spontaneaity," Van Huffel says. "It is really quite
different from playing an improvised solo over a set amount of chord changes in
a set form.”
Van Huffel came to Humber College with a head of full of Charlie Parker. He has fond memories of the Toronto school for encouraging students to explore the music and push boundaries.
"I think Humber
helped open my mind," Van Huffel says. "Really great
teachers there."
The alto-sax player Mark Promane was also a big influence on Van Huffel's musical education at Humber College.
"It was a very
broad program, not only swing and be-bop based, but I got to play in a fusion ensemble
for a few years, and really try a lot of
different kinds of music, tremendously open-minded teachers and fellow
students, so it was great," Van Huffel says.
The Manhattan School, he remembers, was much more tradition bound. He made up for that by hitting as many clubs as possible, and hearing the wide array of jazz on offer in New York City.
"Especially
once I finished my Master's Degree, I spent another four years living in New
York after that, and developed my own band," Van Huffel says.
"I got to play with some really amazing people in all different styles
related to jazz improvisation. It was
quite a mind opening experience.”
He lived in West Harlem at first, 152nd Street and Broadway, and then moved to Brooklyn, living in Park Slope and Propect Heights. Van Huffel played the 55 Bar on Christopher St. and the Cornelia Street Cafe, both in the West Village. He played the Tea Lounge on Union Street in Park Slope, and Barbes at 9th Street. and Sixth Ave, also in Park Slope.
“It is kind of like the local musicians'
hang, at least it was when I was there," Van Huffel says of Barbes.
"Quite werll-known New Yorkers like Jim Black and Chris Speed, they are
performing there, or used to be at least, all the time."
The financial demands of living in the resurgent neighbourhoods of Brooklyn and other opportunities in Europe convinced Van Huffel to leave New York City. He had a Canada Council grant to study composition in Copenhagen. He fell in love and married a French-speaking singer from Brussels,
Sophie Tassignon.
He checked out the jazz scenes in Paris and Switzerland, but Berlin stole his mucial heart. New York had become tiring and expensive for Van Huffel.
"I just kind of hit a point where I felt I was teaching, and pardon the term,
but busting-my-ass too much, outside of actually being a musician just to
survive," Van Huffel says.
By contrast, culture-rich Berlin is the most affordable capital city in Europe.
“Gentrification is definitely taking over so rents and
housing prices are creeping up fairly quickly," Van Huffel says of Berlin. "Even in
comparison to Toronto, comparison to New York, Paris, anywhere, it is still
quite affordable. Especially as far as
going out in the evenings, going for a meal, going to see a concert, even
buying groceries, things likie that, it is unbelievably cheap compared to other
cites.”
The move is proving to be a good one for Van Huffel, who is going through an intensely productive period.
"I have
usually been releasing one CD every couple of years, but this year, I have
released three now with my main projects and another one is about to come
out, all totally different projects," Van Huffel says.
Boom Crane, which plays The Jazz Room this Friday, released a new CD on a Spanish label in June. Van Huffel's other grou;p Gorilla Mask released a CD on a Portuguese label in May. And this past January, the band Van Huffel shares with his wife, House of Mirrors, put out a CD on a German label. Then there is the Berlin Trio called Scrambling X that has a CD coming out on a British label in four to six weeks.
Different cities, different bands, different sounds and a raft of recordings. The Jazz Room audience is in for something outside the mainstreams of contemporary jazz.
"I like people who surprise me and throw new sounds my way," Van Huffel says of his major influences, Charlie Parker, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Tim Burn, John Zorn and Anthony Braxton.
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
Joe Sullivan's long apprenticeship pays off big time
WATERLOO ON., Oct. 21. 2014 --- When Joe Sullivan auditioned at the Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1982 the music he played changed his life and enriched jazz fans for the past generation.
On Saturday night, Sullivan and his quintet play The Jazz Room featuring songs from his latest CD, Whiskey Jack Waltz. Sullivan is now among Canada's leading jazz composers, and will be joined on stage by Neil Swainson on bass, Lorne Lofsky on guitar, Andre White on drums and Kirk MacDonald on tenor sax.
The 56-year-old Sullivan is married, lives in Verdun just outside Montreal, teaches in the prestigious music program at McGill University, and is a prolific composer for big bands and small ensembles. He has released seven highly-acclaimed CDs.
Not bad for a young man from Northern Ontario who spent years searching for his musical calling.
In 1982 Sullivan was competing for a place in the Berklee program that teaches composition for movie scores. He always liked writing music, and he figured movie scores would be an interesting way to make a living with his trumpet. The audition was all about jazz and improvisation.
Sullivan did very well in the audition because he was placed in a class of advanced players, and he had to work very hard.
"I started to do a lot of playing, and I suddenly realized I really liked playing jazz trumpet, so I started practising it like a maniac," Sullivan says in an interview with New City Notes.
"And that's when I really started being interested in performing jazz trumpet," Sullivan says. "Before then I liked doing it, but I didn't see myself as being particularly good at it or advanced, and I really liked the writing way more, but at that point I kind of got the bug."
During his year at Berklee, Sullivan wrote a lot of music under the tutelage of a big-band writer and trumpet player named Greg Hopkins. Sullivan took lessons from Hopkins, and wrote charts for him.
"He was really good for me," Sullivan says.
After that year at Berklee Sullivan returned to Montreal, and became a busy, gigging jazz musician.
"I did all kinds of stuff in Montreal. I played with everybody. I started my first quintet with a guy named Francois Theberge, he's pretty famous now," Sullivan says. "It was great in those days. I had my own little quintet, started playing around with that. Played in Montreal, played in Ottawa, played in Quebec City. All that stuff. It was great. It was really fun."
For years, ever since graduating from high school in his hometown of Timmins, Ontario, Sullivan searched for his place in the music world. He was the second-oldest child in a large Franco-Ontarian family. The first music Sullivan heard was his mother's singing. She was part of a group called The Four Rasicots Sullivan's uncle played piano and sang lead vocals, and Sullivan's mother and two aunts sang the harmonies.
The uncle was a bootlegger in the nearby village of Connaught, about 40 kilometres from Timmins. On bonus-pay days the gold miners from Timmins crowded the train to Connaught for a good time. There was a sawmill, a train station, a hotel and couple of dance halls. Not much else. That's where Sullivan's mother was from, and that's where his parents met and fell in love.
The Four Rasicots played in the hotel and dance halls in Connaught, and in Timmins. They played on the radio. Sullivan's mother could not read music, and she was determined her children would, so everyone studied piano from an early age with a Grey Nun from the local convent.
In high school Sullivan played in rock bands and wrote a couple of musicals for the school's annual show. The musicals toured around Northern Ontario, and the young Sullivan found he liked composing. He picked up the trumpet in Grade 11, and taught himself to play a little.
The son of a doctor, Sullivan did well in school and left Timmins to study at the University of Toronto. He started working on a Bachelor's degree, taking a lot of political science courses. Next to the U of T campus is the Ontario Conservatory of Music. Sullivan wandered in there, and signed up for trumpet lessons with George Anderson.
"I sort of missed the music thing," Sullivan says.
He was also playing piano and doing arrangements for a woman who sang and recited poetry at different venues in and around Toronto. He also went through a Llewyn Davis phase, writing and performing folk songs in bars, strumming a guitar.
"Cause I liked writing music."
After a year in Toronto, Sullivan decided to attend the University of Ottawa. Most Franco-Ontarian students from Northern Ontario headed for the U of O, he had friends there, his younger brother was going there too. So he finished his degree at the University of Ottawa - an honour's bachelor of arts with a concentration in music, classical trumpet.
Sullivan hung around Ottawa for a year, teaching ear training classes at the university, and trying to figure out a way to make a living with his horn that did not involve playing classical music in an orchestra. That's when he decided on the Berklee program for writing movie scores. After a year in Boston, he was having a lot of fun playing on the Montreal scene.
That's where he met Charles Ellison and Kevin Dean. Two phenomenal trumpet players and composers. They were a little older than Sullivan, and he looked up to them. And they were both university proffs. So they could make a living playing jazz trumpet and teaching at the university without having to play in R&B bands, rock bands or classical orchestras to pay the bills.
Sullivan was playing in the Concordia big band under Ellison's direction. Sullivan got to know a lot of musicians his age, including Francois Theberge - a tenor sax player and composer.
"Charles was really good to me. He was a great trumpet player and he helped me a lot. He gave me some pointers. I wrote some charts for that band to feature him. He gave me some lessons, and then he started to send me to sub in the Vic Vogel Band."
Vic Vogel is a legend in the Montreal jazz scene. In 1967 he started Le Jazz Big Band, and is credited with reviving the big band tradition in Quebec. Vogel is the only musicians to play 20 consecutive years on the stage at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In the early 1980s, Sullivan found himself regularly subbing in Vogel's band.
Sullivan knew he needed a Masteer's Degree if he were ever going to get a position teaching at a university. So he headed for the New England Conservatory of Music, which has an international reputation for its excellent jazz program.
"It was perfect because I could already play pretty well, and I already had a lot of experience in writing. So when I got there I was able to study with these really world-class individual artists like George Russell and George Carzone."
Carzone is a leading tenor sax player and composer of his generation. Among many of Carzone's other students are Joshua Redman and Bradford Marsalis. Russell was an Amercan jazz pianist, composer, teacher and theorist who taught a veritable who's-who of leading jazz artists. He died in 2009.
After studying under Carzone, Russell and others, Sullivan returned to Montreal where a teaching job at Concordia University was waiting for him. He met the love of his life while studying at the Conservatory, and was now married. It was 1987. After a couple of years he started teaching at McGill on contract - mainly composition and arranging.
In 1993, Sullivan landed a full-time job teaching at Vanier College in the CGEP system. It was a good job, full-time, decent pay and benefits. He had time to compose and arrange his own music for his own bands. It was all jazz, all the time --- at school, on stage, in the studio. It's what he wanted. After seven years, a tenure-track job came open at McGill, and Sullivan got it.
"I was hired to teach jazz composition and arranging. I teach trumpet as well. But my principal role is to direct a big band and teach a graduate level writing course. I love the big bands, it is such a beautiful thing."
While he loves big bands, Sullivan thought his trumpet playing started to slip. Too much time directing, composing and arranging for big bands, and not enough playing in small ensembles. So he formed a new quintet, wrote the music and put out another CD. He's found the perfect musical balance.
He regularly gigs in three Montreal clubs, the Diese Onze (French for Sharp 11th), The Upstairs and The Resonance Cafe. Beginning Thursday, Sullivan's quintet plays The Rex in Toronto for two nights. Then he brings the band to The Jazz Room for Saturday night.
It is a rare privilege, he knows, to have the same band playing the same music, three nights in a row. So the Saturday night show at The Jazz Room will be extra special.
On Saturday night, Sullivan and his quintet play The Jazz Room featuring songs from his latest CD, Whiskey Jack Waltz. Sullivan is now among Canada's leading jazz composers, and will be joined on stage by Neil Swainson on bass, Lorne Lofsky on guitar, Andre White on drums and Kirk MacDonald on tenor sax.
The 56-year-old Sullivan is married, lives in Verdun just outside Montreal, teaches in the prestigious music program at McGill University, and is a prolific composer for big bands and small ensembles. He has released seven highly-acclaimed CDs.
Not bad for a young man from Northern Ontario who spent years searching for his musical calling.
In 1982 Sullivan was competing for a place in the Berklee program that teaches composition for movie scores. He always liked writing music, and he figured movie scores would be an interesting way to make a living with his trumpet. The audition was all about jazz and improvisation.
Sullivan did very well in the audition because he was placed in a class of advanced players, and he had to work very hard.
"I started to do a lot of playing, and I suddenly realized I really liked playing jazz trumpet, so I started practising it like a maniac," Sullivan says in an interview with New City Notes.
"And that's when I really started being interested in performing jazz trumpet," Sullivan says. "Before then I liked doing it, but I didn't see myself as being particularly good at it or advanced, and I really liked the writing way more, but at that point I kind of got the bug."
During his year at Berklee, Sullivan wrote a lot of music under the tutelage of a big-band writer and trumpet player named Greg Hopkins. Sullivan took lessons from Hopkins, and wrote charts for him.
"He was really good for me," Sullivan says.
After that year at Berklee Sullivan returned to Montreal, and became a busy, gigging jazz musician.
"I did all kinds of stuff in Montreal. I played with everybody. I started my first quintet with a guy named Francois Theberge, he's pretty famous now," Sullivan says. "It was great in those days. I had my own little quintet, started playing around with that. Played in Montreal, played in Ottawa, played in Quebec City. All that stuff. It was great. It was really fun."
For years, ever since graduating from high school in his hometown of Timmins, Ontario, Sullivan searched for his place in the music world. He was the second-oldest child in a large Franco-Ontarian family. The first music Sullivan heard was his mother's singing. She was part of a group called The Four Rasicots Sullivan's uncle played piano and sang lead vocals, and Sullivan's mother and two aunts sang the harmonies.
The uncle was a bootlegger in the nearby village of Connaught, about 40 kilometres from Timmins. On bonus-pay days the gold miners from Timmins crowded the train to Connaught for a good time. There was a sawmill, a train station, a hotel and couple of dance halls. Not much else. That's where Sullivan's mother was from, and that's where his parents met and fell in love.
The Four Rasicots played in the hotel and dance halls in Connaught, and in Timmins. They played on the radio. Sullivan's mother could not read music, and she was determined her children would, so everyone studied piano from an early age with a Grey Nun from the local convent.
In high school Sullivan played in rock bands and wrote a couple of musicals for the school's annual show. The musicals toured around Northern Ontario, and the young Sullivan found he liked composing. He picked up the trumpet in Grade 11, and taught himself to play a little.
The son of a doctor, Sullivan did well in school and left Timmins to study at the University of Toronto. He started working on a Bachelor's degree, taking a lot of political science courses. Next to the U of T campus is the Ontario Conservatory of Music. Sullivan wandered in there, and signed up for trumpet lessons with George Anderson.
"I sort of missed the music thing," Sullivan says.
He was also playing piano and doing arrangements for a woman who sang and recited poetry at different venues in and around Toronto. He also went through a Llewyn Davis phase, writing and performing folk songs in bars, strumming a guitar.
"Cause I liked writing music."
After a year in Toronto, Sullivan decided to attend the University of Ottawa. Most Franco-Ontarian students from Northern Ontario headed for the U of O, he had friends there, his younger brother was going there too. So he finished his degree at the University of Ottawa - an honour's bachelor of arts with a concentration in music, classical trumpet.
Sullivan hung around Ottawa for a year, teaching ear training classes at the university, and trying to figure out a way to make a living with his horn that did not involve playing classical music in an orchestra. That's when he decided on the Berklee program for writing movie scores. After a year in Boston, he was having a lot of fun playing on the Montreal scene.
That's where he met Charles Ellison and Kevin Dean. Two phenomenal trumpet players and composers. They were a little older than Sullivan, and he looked up to them. And they were both university proffs. So they could make a living playing jazz trumpet and teaching at the university without having to play in R&B bands, rock bands or classical orchestras to pay the bills.
Sullivan was playing in the Concordia big band under Ellison's direction. Sullivan got to know a lot of musicians his age, including Francois Theberge - a tenor sax player and composer.
"Charles was really good to me. He was a great trumpet player and he helped me a lot. He gave me some pointers. I wrote some charts for that band to feature him. He gave me some lessons, and then he started to send me to sub in the Vic Vogel Band."
Vic Vogel is a legend in the Montreal jazz scene. In 1967 he started Le Jazz Big Band, and is credited with reviving the big band tradition in Quebec. Vogel is the only musicians to play 20 consecutive years on the stage at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In the early 1980s, Sullivan found himself regularly subbing in Vogel's band.
Sullivan knew he needed a Masteer's Degree if he were ever going to get a position teaching at a university. So he headed for the New England Conservatory of Music, which has an international reputation for its excellent jazz program.
"It was perfect because I could already play pretty well, and I already had a lot of experience in writing. So when I got there I was able to study with these really world-class individual artists like George Russell and George Carzone."
Carzone is a leading tenor sax player and composer of his generation. Among many of Carzone's other students are Joshua Redman and Bradford Marsalis. Russell was an Amercan jazz pianist, composer, teacher and theorist who taught a veritable who's-who of leading jazz artists. He died in 2009.
After studying under Carzone, Russell and others, Sullivan returned to Montreal where a teaching job at Concordia University was waiting for him. He met the love of his life while studying at the Conservatory, and was now married. It was 1987. After a couple of years he started teaching at McGill on contract - mainly composition and arranging.
In 1993, Sullivan landed a full-time job teaching at Vanier College in the CGEP system. It was a good job, full-time, decent pay and benefits. He had time to compose and arrange his own music for his own bands. It was all jazz, all the time --- at school, on stage, in the studio. It's what he wanted. After seven years, a tenure-track job came open at McGill, and Sullivan got it.
"I was hired to teach jazz composition and arranging. I teach trumpet as well. But my principal role is to direct a big band and teach a graduate level writing course. I love the big bands, it is such a beautiful thing."
While he loves big bands, Sullivan thought his trumpet playing started to slip. Too much time directing, composing and arranging for big bands, and not enough playing in small ensembles. So he formed a new quintet, wrote the music and put out another CD. He's found the perfect musical balance.
He regularly gigs in three Montreal clubs, the Diese Onze (French for Sharp 11th), The Upstairs and The Resonance Cafe. Beginning Thursday, Sullivan's quintet plays The Rex in Toronto for two nights. Then he brings the band to The Jazz Room for Saturday night.
It is a rare privilege, he knows, to have the same band playing the same music, three nights in a row. So the Saturday night show at The Jazz Room will be extra special.
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