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Volume 19 Issue 9 - June/July/August 2014

  • Text
  • Jazz
  • Toronto
  • August
  • Festival
  • Quartet
  • Musical
  • Concerts
  • Sept
  • Theatre
  • Arts

3:30pm at the Rex.3)

3:30pm at the Rex.3) Here’s hoping American vocalist Dianne Reeves has a sold-outshow at the festival Main Stage on Tuesday, June 24 at 8pm, and here’shoping you’ll catch her opening act, the Brandi Disterheft Quartet.A force to be reckoned with as a bassist, composer, bandleader andrecording artist, the Vancouver-born musician has released threeexcellent albums: her JUNO-winning Debut, slightly poppier, evencatchier Second Side and the very satisfying Gratitude from last year.It’s always exciting to see where Disterheft is going next, both in theshort term sense of each solo and the long term sense of her nextrecord. She currently lives in New York City where she maintains abusy schedule as sideman when not touring. Cheers to Brandi!4) On Sunday June 22 at 7pm, “Girls Night Out” jazz jam sessionhost Lisa Particelli will present a group of GNOJAZZ all-stars andcontinue to raise money for her annual Humber College Scholarship.The award is given to a vocal jazz student who demonstrates exceptionalability and requires financial assistance with this crazy dreamof singing jazz. Every Wednesday from 8pm to midnight singers of alllevels are welcome to perform at this vocalist-friendly jazz jam, whichcan also be thought of as a jazz open mic, a truly rare and very prizedopportunity not only for vocalists of all levels but really for anyonewho would like to try singing with three incredible jazz musicians ina safe environment. In addition to the fundraiser, there’s a jazz festivaljam session on June 25, as well as every Wednesday year-round.5) Lovers of the clarinet, trumpet, or saxophone, go no further thanKAMA on King, where Ken Peplowski, Harry Allen, Warren Vache andHouston Person, respectively, will be guesting with the Canadian JazzQuartet on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday June 23, 24, 25and 26 from 5 to 8pm. These days there are not many venues in thistown where one can really go out and listen to this brand of instrumental,classic jazz. A rare opportunity to hear cream-of-the-cropNew York players here in Hogtown, each of these concerts would be agreat treat for any aspiring horn player! Tickets are and are availableat Ticketmaster – and a discount of 15 percent if you attend allfour concerts.6) For piano lovers, mellifluous Cuban-American Manuel Valeraheads a trio at the Rex on June 20 and 21, and energetic B3 specialistJoey DeFrancesco plays the Horseshoe Tavern with his trio on July 25.Jazz Bistro features several solo piano shows of note, including BillMays on June 22, Gerald Clayton on June 23 and two shows per nightby the Oliver Jones Trio on June 27 and June 28. Singer-pianists area rare breed of awesome; the Bistro is expecting to sell out whenLondon, England’s Ian Shaw performs on June 25, and the wholefamily can enjoy free lunchtime performances in Nathan PhillipsSquare led by two Canadian singer-pianists who are also exquisitesongwriters: the Elizabeth Shepherd Quartet on June 23 and LailaBiali Trio on June 25; Shepherd also performs two intimate eveningconcerts at Musideum, 7 and 9pm on June 21.7) String along! For guitar lovers, there are some excellent residentmusicians such as the Fraser Melvin Blues Band at Gate 403on June 20, the Eric St. Laurent Trio at Painted Lady on June 26 andMark Sepic at Relish on June 28; and several big tickets, includingJohn Scofield on the Main Stage on June 26 and futurist Bill Frisellperforming “Guitar in the Space Age” at the Jane Mallett Theatreon June 28.Continues on page 64Beat by Beat | In With the NewSound, Music andNature’s SongWENDALYN BARTLEYAs we head into the summer season, spending time outside in thenatural world is the one thing most of us eagerly look forward toafter enduring the long winter months. And even though we are nowwitnessing the incredible enduring force of nature bursting with newgrowth all around us, we also know deep in our guts that life as weknow it on the planet is in trouble. Already many places are experiencingthe effects of climate change, super storms, rising sea levels,drought, and on and on. It has been argued by many that one of thereasons that we are in this situation is that collectively as an industrializedculture, we have lost our sense of deep respect for being inrelationship and communion with nature. Our technological andunlimited growth ideologies have led to widespread misuse of theearth and its resources. So, one of the questions that I ask in responseto these difficult issues is how can musical practice and sound itselfcultivate a restored relationship and connection with the earth, withthe land, with the natural world.June: Since the early 1970s, Canadians have been pioneers in thefield of acoustic ecology and soundscape studies, beginning withthe groundbreaking work of composer R. Murray Schafer and hiscolleagues at the World Soundscape Project. So it is no surprise thatSchafer is one of the keynote speakers in the upcoming “Sound inthe Land – Music and the Environment” festival at the Universityof Waterloo’s Conrad Grebel College. Running from June 5 to 8, thefestival/conference is the brainchild of composer Carol Ann Weaver,who is part of the music faculty at Conrad Grebel.During a conversation I had with Weaver about her vision andmotivation for creating a series of Sound in the Land festivals (2004,Carol Ann Weaver2009, 2014), she spoke passionately of her love for the stillness andbeauty of the wilderness. From these experiences she has cultivateda creative practice focused on listening to the soundscapes ofnature and composing music in response to what she hears. It is thisquest to recreate the magical moments in nature that inspired her topull together this uniquely focused multi-disciplinary event in orderto delve more deeply into the relationship between music and thenatural world. The festival will combine concerts, workshops, keynotespeakers and academic paper presentations to create a cross-pollinationof ideas, sounds and people and the music of many musicalcultures so that the “bruised and broken planet can yet be sung back14 | June 4, 2014 – Sept 7, 2014 thewholenote.com

presenting partnerpresentpride on screenfilms • guests • free exhibitionjune 12 – august 17TICKETS ON SALE NOW tiff.net/bentlensthewholenote.com June 4, 2014 – Sept 7, 2014 | 15

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