Our first year was a tremendous success with over 30 shows of fantastic music.   The music presented has run the gamut from trad to post-bop, free improv to world music fusions and every point between.   We heard exciting premieres of new works and new bands, both daring musical experiments and well-established groups.  Naturally, Clyde and I booked some bands in which we or our friends play, but I think we both enjoyed just listening every bit as much.   Our tradition of free tea and cookies has become much loved by young music students. Some nights we had a small but mighty handful of audience  ’regulars’  and on others we ran out of chairs.   Musicians mingled with audiences and discussed reactions and opinions.  We made lots of new friends, watched some folks ‘turn on’ to their first live concert, heard and played lots of new music, and consumed prodigious quantities of tea and cookies.  What could be better than that?

Our plan for the second season is much the same as the first: lots of great music and a wonderful opportunity to hang out with people who love jazz and related species of creative, adventurous  music.  The admission is very inexpensive at $8 per show, the music is great and the feeling is warm, welcoming, and comfortable.  I hope you’ll consider coming along as often as possible!  Visit our website at www.myspace.com/jazzatpresentationhouse to get up-to-date listings and to check out videos of some past performances.

Jazz at Presentation House Studio begins its second season on Wednesday, September 15, at 8:30pm. 

COME TO NEW YORK WITH CORY WEEDS!

A Jazz Filled and Culinary Exploration of the Big Apple!

Nine days & eight nights in the city that never sleeps.  MARCH 19^th to 27^th, 2011

New York City has long been considered the jazz capital of the world and home to some of the finest food to be found!  On this tour you will get your fill of both!

The tour includes visits to The Village Vanguard, Smoke Jazz Club, Dizzy’s Coca Cola, The Harlem Legion, The Louis Armstrong House, The Harlem Jazz Museum and The Apollo Theatre.

In addition you’ll be treated to private shows featuring some of New York’s finest musicians at Small’s Jazz Club in the Village and at the critically acclaimed Swizz Restaurant in Times Square.  The tour will also include meals at three other fine NYC restaurants, Sylvia’s, Double Crown and Brasserie Les Halles (home base of Anthony Bourdain, author of the best selling Kitchen Confidential and host of the TV Show, No Reservations. Bourdain is also the co-author of the Brasserie Les Halles Cookbook with proprietor Philippe Lajaunie).

Plus, you will have plenty of time on your own to explore this amazing city! (We will provide many helpful hints from former New Yorkers, Tim and Nat of Cardero Bottega, and regular New York visitor, Cory Weeds!)

Tour guests will stay at the hotel Thirty-Thirty at 30 East 30^th St. This classical, European designed hotel is located in the heart of Manhattan near the neighborhoods of Gramercy Park, Murray Hill and Union Square.

Truly a once in a lifetime musical and gastronomic adventure!

$2249.00 per person double occupancy or $2599.00 single occupancy

*includes accommodation, transit pass for duration of tour, all venue admissions, food and gratuity at clubs and restaurants

*tax, airfare and airport transfers are extra

For more info visit newyorkwithweeds.com or contact 604-662-4144 or 778-822-3441.

Tour Registration All Participants must register online or by telephone.

Tour Deposit A non-refundable tour deposit of $300 is required at the time of registration. Registrations are processed on a first come, first served basis and subject to availability. Tour deposits will be returned if the tour is cancelled or the dates are changed.

Balance of Payment Due 60 days prior to departure. Registrations received and confirmed by The Cellar less than 30 days prior to departure are payable in full at the time of confirmation.

Hot Air on CBC Radio One
Saturdays at 5:05 pm

After more than 13 years together as a working sextet, you can immediately sense their remarkable chemistry, both on and off the bandstand. You can hear it in their crisp ensemble playing and warm, inviting harmony lines executed with flawless precision by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, trombonist Steve Davis and trumpeter Jim Rotondi. You can feel it in the near telepathic connection between rhythm section mates David Hazeltine on piano, John Webber on bass, and the creative timekeeper Joe Farnsworth on drums. This kind of bond can only be developed over time, and for the members of One For All, it keeps getting better.

The One For All sound is forged in the quintessential ‘50s-‘60s Blue Note vibe, perhaps best exemplified by classic Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers recordings. The timeless Horace Silver quintet is another obvious reference point.

The 4 nights will be recorded for a Cellar Live CD that will be released in early 2011!

I would like to sincerely thank the musicians on the Vancouver Jazz Scene without whom The Cellar would not exist.  We are very lucky to have the talent that we have in this city. A lot gets made about the international talent that has set foot on The Cellar stage but it really is the local musicians that make The Cellar what it is.  Thank you to the media who over 10 years have done everything they could to support what we’ve been doing.  Thank you to the investors who have been involved in the club over the past 10 years. Without your support and belief in my vision none of this would’ve been possible and finally to the jazz fans of this city.  You have scene us through so many growing pains but you never gave up on us and you kept coming back.  I’m indebted to all of you and completely honored and humbled by your support.  Here’s to another 10 years.

Poncho Sanchez headlines opening concert, Aug 6

MusicFest Vancouver is back for its tenth year presenting classical, jazz and world music artists in Vancouver. Its diverse 2010 program showcases the festival’s core mission to celebrate and promote live music in many styles and forms. This year’s lineup will include hundreds of international and local artists in nine Vancouver venues from August 6 – 15.

The festival kicks off with Celebración!, an amazing gathering of Latin jazz performers from the U.S., Argentina, Cuba and Canada (August 6 @ the Orpheum Theatre). Headlining the show is the legendary jazz leader and conguero Poncho Sanchez with his Latin Jazz Band from Los Angeles. Also on the bill is a returning festival favourite, the Adrián Iaies Trio from Buenos Aires. And there’s more, with two dynamic Latin jazz ensembles, Vancouver’s own Orquesta Goma Dura and Zapato Negro.

Among the jazz presentations are a Tribute to Django Reinhardt featuring Van Django with Bria Skonberg, the Joe Chindamo Quartet, and the Ingrid Jensen Quartet, all at the Norman Rothstein Theatre; The Jazz Choir Workshop: The Idea of North, at Christ Church Cathedral; and a series of piano/bass duets, featuring some of the city’s most highly regarded musicians, at the Cellar jazz club.

Being also an improvised form of music, it seems natural for classical Indian and jazz musicians to play together and there have been many successful ventures in this direction.  Bhattacharya himself, for example, has participated in a number of multicultural projects, most notably with John McLaughlin’s Shakti and a number of projects with slide guitar master Bob Brozman.

In a rare Vancouver appearance, Debashish Bhattacharya will perform next Thursday with his brother Subashis Bhattacharya on tablas and Vancouver residents, Bob Murphy on piano and Tom Keenlyside on saxes and flutes.

Murphy wrote in his media release, Ever since I first heard Ravi Shankar back in the early 1960s I have been a big fan of Indian classical music. I have often hoped for an opportunity to play with some Indian classical musicians and that opportunity has presented itself. Next Thursday July 29th I will have the privilege and honour of playing a concert with two great Indian musicians:  Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya on Indian slide guitar, Subhasis Bhattacharya on tablas, along with my old pal, the phenomenal Tom Keenlyside on saxes and flutes. I will be playing piano. Indian classical music features improvisation very much like jazz so the crossover is a natural. If the rehearsal was any indication, we’re in for a beautiful night. Please join us.

Thursday, July 29 @ 8pm
CBC Studio 700, 700 Hamilton Street

For more information visit http://www.roguefolk.bc.ca/concerts/debashishbhattacharya.html

Debashish Bhattacharya’s web site

As usual, our jazz jam at Petra’s Arts Café was a great success, with kids and adults from the Workshop getting up to play tunes with faculty and musicians from the community.   It is truly magical to see people, many of whom just learned what a blues is that very morning, get up and play a few choruses with a band they haven’t met before.  Some of our more advanced students organized some surprise tunes and personnel combinations including a massive ten-saxophone jam on “The Chicken”.  Our genial host, Petra Tetrault, kept the lemonade flowing and made all the musicians and listeners feel right at home as always.

A really wonderful addition to the workshop this year was the Infinitus String Trio.  Infinitus is a professional group with an interest in playing jazz.  They signed on as students (some of the best students I have ever worked with!) but as we got to know them during the week it became apparent that we needed to get them involved with the faculty concerts.  Our bass faculty member, Rob Kohler, quickly wrote some arrangements for his noon-hour show on July 8 and the string trio was featured with various combinations of saxophone, guitar and rhythm section.   Look out for the Infinitus Trio.  These guys can play anything  with gorgeous sound and great time and I’m definitely planning to collaborate with them in the near future.   Here’s a candid shot of the Infinitus String trio (John Littlejohn, Alex and Anthony Cheung) with faculty members Rob Kohler (bass), Len Aruliah (sax), Stan Taylor (drums) and on of our TAs, Chris Peterson (guitar).

The next day brought more musical delights in the form of a visit from my good friend, Alan Matheson.  Alan has been a guest artist and teacher at the Workshop and Festival before, but it has been a couple of years since the last time.  As always, Alan brought in a fantastic book of original tunes and standards all cunningly arranged for cornet, alto, trombone and rhythm section.  The faculty band had a great time playing these arrangements and listening to Al’s beautiful cornet and flugelhorn playing.  Alan is a great musician and a true gentleman in every sense of the word.

Friday night featured theLen Aruliah Quartet in concert at All Saints Anglican Church with Stan Taylor on drums, Rob Kohler on bass and yours truly on guitar.  Len is a wonderful saxophonist who lived in Vancouver for a while in the 1980s and early 1990s, but has been based in London for a long while now.  We presented two sets of Len’s original music, plus a few of my tunes and one each from the books of Kenny Wheeler and Dave Holland.  I had a great time playing this show and the audience gave us a standing ovation. The church turned out to be a great venue for listening and playing and we’ll surely be presenting more shows there in the future. 

Saturday afternoon was our grand finale concert.  This is the moment for student combos  to present the material they work on during the week at a big outdoor show and picnic at the Delta Hospital grounds.  Residents from long-term care centre are brought out in their wheelchairs and get to groove along with all the parents and friends and folks from the community.  The students played wonderfully as always.  The highlight for me had to be our youngest combo of 12- and 13-year old kids playing a latin version of Justin Bieber’s “Baby” in a set with Mr. PC, Sonny Moon for Two, and C Jam Blues.  I overheard a very elderly lady in a wheelchair say “I like that Baby song! Why don’t they play that again?”. 

Here’s a shot of our advanced students playing at Diefenbaker Park in Tsawwassen.

After seven years of doing this, one of the most satisfying things for me is seeing the audience for jazz grow in this little suburban community and building a family of ‘jazz people’.  I have been doing this long enough now that most people think I live in Ladner rather than East Van and indeed, in many ways I feel like a Ladner native.  Folks like Willie Germann (our honourary patron saint), Roland Selby, Don Burkett, Bob Miller, Betty Tanney and so many others come back as students and audience members year after year and make me and our teachers and musicians feel so welcome.  We have watched kids who started with us as 7^th graders go on and graduate from high school.  Some go on to study music in college and some don’t, but all are lifelong jazz fans.  The adult students really look forward to taking a week off work to make music.  Many of our faculty members come back year after year and musical relationships grow and deepen.  At the end of each year I feel so exhausted from the organizing, promoting, recruiting, playing and teaching that I often wonder aloud whether there will be another year.  In the end it is this community of music lovers that keeps making it happen.  Many thanks to all the students, faculty, and audience members who support this event!

Hot Air on CBC Radio One
Saturdays, 5:05, 6:05 mountain
88.1 FM, 690 AM in Vancouver

Hot Air on CBC Radio One
Saturdays at 5:05 pm, 6:05 mountain
www.cbc.ca/hotair

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