Vancouver Vintage: Chris Gage Trio

Chris Gage is almost the Buddy Bolden of Canadian jazz – a jazz musician who lived on in memory, with fewer and fewer of his contemporaries around to verify his greatness. Until the release in May of Our Blues by the Fraser MacPherson Quintet from 1962-63 on the Just A Memory label, Gage hadn’t ever been heard on a commercially-released recording. When the Vancouver pianist died 15 days past his 37th birthhday in 1964, he was considered one of the best musicians in the country, rivalled on his instrument only by the inimitable Oscar Peterson, although their styles are vastly different. To read more on Gage, I recommend Mark Miller’s Jazz in Canada: 14 Lives (Nightwood Editions, 1988). You can also read remembrances by his contemporaries from interviews on Vancouverjazz.com: Don Thompson (interviewed by Cory Weeds) and Bobby Hales (interviewed by me). I’m going to occasionally be posting blasts from the past, via audio and video, in this space. Our inaugural "Vancouver Vintage" segment is the Chris Gage Trio, featuring Stan “Cuddles” Johnson on bass and Jimmy Wightman on drums, playing A Taste of Honey. Enjoy. Chris Gage bio [Encyclopedia of Music in Canada] Post comments in the Jazz Forum