Art of Jazz May 17-21, 2006
Review - Bill King Editor Ejazz
Posted by: editor on Monday, May 22, 2006 - 11:00 AM

Springing an event in Toronto's Distillery District any day in May perpetually attracts monsoon like winds, torrential downpours, gloomy overcast skies and temperatures more akin to November's drift into winter's despair. Only the brave or uninformed dare stage multiple days of jazz programming.

Fortunately, the masterminds behind Art of Jazz – a nonprofit organization dedicated to year-round development of jazz artists and audiences in Canada selected a few premier indoor facilities in mounting the five-day festival. Lord, pray for the bands that braved the outdoors huddling together seeking warmth on various patios. In truth, the big action was inside. Read Article

A Tribute to Barry Harris
At the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto on Thursday

It was set up to look like a simple duet, but in truth it was more like a jazz piano summit, a duel between geniuses.

Behind the Steinway on the left sat Barry Harris, bebop legend, master educator and honoree of the Toronto tribute concert that opened the five-day inaugural Art of Jazz Celebration. Behind the Steinway on the right sat Hank Jones, also a bebop legend; the older brother of drummer Elvin Jones and trumpeter Thad Jones, he's considered one of the most accomplished and technically gifted pianists in jazz. Along with Oscar Peterson, Harris and Jones are considered the elder statesmen of jazz piano. Read Article

The creative arts scene of Toronto just added a new color to its vibrant pallet with the May inauguration of the Art of Jazz Celebration. Solidly based in jazz education, Art of Jazz was founded by Toronto’s jazz emissaries, saxophonist Jane Bunnett and trumpeter Larry Cramer, along with Bonnie Lester and Howard Rees. Read Article

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What better way to kick off the inaugural Art of Jazz Toronto Spring Jazz Festival than with a tribute to an icon of the Canadian jazz scene. Don Thompson, award winning multi instrumentalist, (piano, bass, vibraphone and percussion) composer and educator, was born in Powell River, British Columbia, Canada on January 18th, 1940. Read Article

At a new festival in Toronto, the masters don't just perform, they'll also teach the language behind the music.

Howard Rees remembers being thrilled and mystified by jazz when he first started listening to the music. "Everybody looks like they're having fun, but what are they doing?" he recalls. "It would sound like magic." Read Article

ASHANTE INFANTRY
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER JAZZ
 
He inherited the name and the face, but Ravi Coltrane earned the chops.

The second son of saxophone icon John Coltrane has established himself as a top-notch musician; playing tenor and soprano sax, mainly in a quartet setting like his late father, but with a sound influenced more by the legendary horns of Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson and less by inevitability. Read Article

Toronto's latest jazz venture is a non-profit initiative comprised of concerts, workshops and late-night jam sessions geared to the development of artists and audiences. Read Article

In the program, the evening's performance was billed as the Afro Cuban Jazz and Dance Party, printed on the ticket was "Salsa Meets Jazz", which is also the title of a recording of Tito Puente and his Latin Ensemble with guest Phil Woods. This concert was in part, like that CD, a tribute to the days when jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton and Charlie Parker would hurry over to New York City's Palladium to hear Tito Puente and the Latin bands after their own gigs and a sort of mutual admiration society was born. It was a celebration of salsa, jazz and the movement between and the marriage(s) of the two. Read Article

Alto saxophonist Sonny Fortune stepped right up, after two or three adjustments of his reed, and proceeded to blow like a demon, like an angel, and sometimes like an avenging spirit, for a non-stop 105 minutes plus. Read Article

Saturday morning. Cool and brisk, but sunny. People slowly gather in front of the Gibsone Jessop Gallery for the Barry Harris clinic for piano and guitar players, some with guitar cases in hand, some looking through their Barry Harris guitar method books.

When the doors open, we file gratefully into the warmth of the historic stone building to learn from a legend. Dr. Barry Harris' illustrious teachers were Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. Dr. Barry Harris' illustrious pupils include Paul Chambers, Yusef Lateef and Joe Henderson. Dr. Barry Harris is now as well known for his achievements as an educator as for his achievements as a musician. Read Article

The title of the program reads "Art of Jazz. Performance. Education. Cultivation". On the back? "The Art of Jazz is a non-profit organization, dedicated to jazz education and performance." The 2006 Art of Jazz Celebration is their inaugural 'festival'.

There is more to this jazz festival than concerts, there is a whole jazz culture being celebrated and nurtured. Most of the musicians who are a part of this festival are staying around for at least a few days, many for the entire five. The conditions are set for camaraderie, creativity and collaboration. It is a chance to renew old friendships and to form new ones. Read Article

"All that stuff is written." Rashied Ali is trying to explain something to me, and I'm not getting it. He tries again. "We played ‘Stellar Regions,' and all that music is transposed and written out. Solos are something different." Silence. I'm trying to work out which parts of the dense clusters of sound produced by John Coltrane and his 1960s-era group — which included Ali on drums — were actually written down on sheet music. It's hard to imagine one of Ali's duets with saxophonist Sonny Fortune — Ali's long-time duet partner — being transcribed in the same way that you would write down the melody and chord changes to a George Gershwin show tune. Read Article

The Art of Jazz launches a festival in the Distillery District presenting and honouring both an international musician and a Canadian. This year’s international figure is Barry Harris, a pure bop pianist who emerged from the hotbed of Detroit bop in the late 1950s with a spare, linear, rhythmically incisive style. Harris is joined by such stellar associates as pianist Hank Jones, alto saxophonist Charles McPherson and bassist Earl May. May 18. Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill St. The Canadian musician being similarly honoured is multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson, though the guest list of performers — guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Dave Holland and saxophonist John Handy (the B.C.-born Thompson first emerged in the mid-’60s with Handy’s innovative California quintet) — certainly places the emphasis on Thompson’s international associations. May 19. Young Centre for the Performing Arts. Read Article