All That Jazz

Okay, this is going to be one of the most difficult posts I will ever have to write. Reason being, how in the hell do you describe the music I heard without letting you hear it all too. Blogger has to come up with a way for us to upload our own music. Anyways, what a week end! Beginning to end, the week end was filled with some really great Jazz from mostly Canadian Jazz musicians. Including an expat American, Tim Louis, who became a Canadian citizen and now lives in our neck of the woods. Also included in this week ends line-up was a group called Zapati Jazz who came all the way here from Chile. On top of all the music, I accidentily found out we were having a Rib and Beer Fest. This little shindig was only about 10 minutes away so I figured I would have to go pay that venue a little visit too. After all, a man has to eat from time to time. Needless to say, both events were just filled to capacity with people, young and old, enjoying themselves immensely.

Now, I'm trying something a little different here with the pics. Just an idea I stole, I mean borrowed from Lori over at My Life Interupted. It's kind of a slide show as opposed to me waiting for three days to upload some of what I took. I'm not sure if you can stop the thing and enlarge the pics. So, we'll see how that works. There were 12 acts over the three days and I was able to catch 8 of those. Luckily for everybody involved, the weather kind of co-operated a little. It was cool and windy but the sun stuck around most of the time. Don't mind me if I'm a little all over the place. I'm still trying to run everything through my head.

The event started on Friday night around 6pm and was led off by Carol McCartney (no relation to Paul). I even managed to score an autogrphed copy of her latest CD. Carol performs mostly in Canada and the United States so if she is coming to your town any time soon, go check out her music. Next up was the only international group in the line-up; Zapatti Jazz. Only one way to describe these guys and that is UNBELIEVABLE! They have been around since 2004 coming out of Puerto Varas, Chile. I don't think one of them is even close to 30 years old yet. They stunned the audience which encouraged them to a well deserved encore. And closing out Friday's soiree, was Chris Smith who is up against the likes of Michael Buble and Diana Krall for the 2009 Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards.



On Saturday, I spent a few hours at the Rib Fest, feeding my face and running into a few familiar faces in the crowd. Then I headed back across town to continue with the music infusion. Apparently I missed some pretty damned good acts earlier. Including, The Toronto All-Star Band, Andriy Tykhonov and Julie Crochetière who apparently put on quite a show. I did make it back in time to catch Tim Louis, whom I mentioned above. You want to talk about a prestigious career. This guy has performed for Bill Clinto, Jean Chrètien and Prince Andrew. And here he was, performing for all of us and we didn't pay a dime. Although I am sure somebody was footing the bill for this. I found a clip on YouTube of Tim performing at a nearby club, The Rude Native where he performs regularly. I hope it shows up and enjoy it if it does.



Now, fortunately we were not required to vote on any of the acts because this next artist, Divine Brown, would have had my vote hands down. More of an R&B/Soul singer, this young woman literally moved the audience to tears with her performance. Surrounded by her back up singers and dancers, she didn't miss a beat as she had people both dancing in the aisles and in their seats. When she sang 'One More Chance', from her 2008 release, 'The Love Chronicles', she was barely able to choke out the last of the lyrics before breaking down in tears. I'm sure there wasn't a dry eye in the house after that perormance. Ms. Brown rebounded quickly and again had the audience eating out of the palm of her hands. This was indeed a huge surprise to me. Sadly, when I went to purchase her CD, they had already sold out. Of course that didn,t stop me from ordering it online when I got home:) Aside from the YouTube clips, you can hear more of her music here.




Rounding out last nights performances was Michael Kaeshammer who dazzled us with his incredible ability behind the piano. In Michael's bio he is quoted as saying, "being onstage is about hanging out with people, having a conversation. I just love it. I don't want my audience to all be jazz fans or piano fans. I want people who want to hang out with me. You can really open yourself up onstage, and that's like a high for me." Well, believe me, he was very successful because nobody moved from their seats to leave while he played. Incredible music.

And finally, today I managed to catch the final two acts of the week ends performances. Two completely different styles if I ever saw one. The John Sherwood Trio consisted of Terry Clarke on drums, Dave young who used to play with Canadian Legend Oscar Peterson and John Sherwood who just so happened to have arranged the latest CD by Carol McCartney (still no relation to Paul) who started this whole week end off. You can tell these guys have played together forever the way they just lulled you into a blissful sunny Sunday afternoon. Last but not least were a collection of former street perfomers collectively known as The Shuffle Demons. Giving the crowd a tast of what was to come, they snaked their way thru the crowd getting everybody's heart rates up. They didn't stop once they returned to the stage keeping the audience captivated right to the final note of this years very successful festival.

So uh; I guess I had a busy week end to say the least. Hope you all had a great week end yourselves!