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LE NEWSLETTER

June 28, 2007

Happy Canada Day - one of my fav celebrations in the year.  Such a great weekend to spend with family and friends and celebrate our nation's Birthday.  Celebrate safely!

By the way, had a great time in San Jose, California visiting some great people at a great spot.  Many thanks to Darryl, Kerrynn and Hazel for making my trip such a great one! 

Harbourfront Centre offers hot festivals this summer - World Rhythms which includes a concert featuring Seun Kuti and Egypt 80.


::HOT EVENTS::

Harbourfront Centre Announces The Anticipated Return Of World Routes 2007 - June 4 To September 3, 2007

Source:  Harbourfront Centre

Harbourfront Centre is pleased to announce the dates for the 2007 Summer Festival season, as well as the dates for the festivals collectively known as World Routes 2007 presented by RBC. From June through September, Harbourfront Centre will be presenting top Canadian and International artists comprising all creative disciplines including music, dance, theatre, visual arts, readings and film each weekend. Visitors will also enjoy our 10-acre site once again for enriching family activities at multiple waterfront venues. All Summer Festivals are FREE admission.

Visitors to Harbourfront Centre can also experience the rich cultural diversity of each weekend's theme while enjoying rotating shopping and food selections at the International Marketplace and The World Café nestled alongside an expanded boardwalk.

World Rhythms
FRIDAY JULY 13 TO SUNDAY, JULY 15
Harbourfront Centre unites the four corners of the globe together with the musical showcase of World Rhythms. Instruments and icons from around the world will be on hand to demonstrate and display how music is the universal language; also features food, dance and visual arts from around the world.  Sound is the source of this festival as the major regions of the world showcase their rhythms in this global musical mix. Instruments from the farthest reaches of the world, icons of the world music community, and a captivating demo of how percussive movement has charmed the world over - this festival leaves no stone unturned.

 

·         Futuristic funk mash-up with Sa-Ra Creative Partners

Sampled by everyone from Public Enemy to Mos Def, it's the Toronto debut of Motown guitar God Dennis Coffey


SEUN KUTI & EGYPT 80

Source:  Harbourfront Centre

Co-produced with Music Africa is the Canadian Premiere of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80.  The power of a political message, wrapped in an infectious afro-beat lives on as the legendary Egypt 80 band finds the perfect new leader in Seun Kuti, Fela's youngest son. In commemoration of the 10 year anniversary of Fela Kuti's passing. Listen to new recordings from Seun Kuti's upcoming 12"

FRIDAY, JUNE 29
SEUN KUTI & EGYPT 80
Opening Act: Eritrean krar virtuoso Daniel Nebiat
Harbourfront Centre Concert Stage
235 Queens Quay West
8:00 pm
Tickets:$25 | $30

Get tickets HERE 

**Harbourfront Press Release:

World Rhythms – A Showcase of Global Sounds and Culture

 Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15 – ONLY at Harbourfront Centre
 (complete event schedule included below)
 
 TORONTO, June 26, 2007 – Harbourfront Centre travelled the four corners   of the earth to assemble the incredible line up for World Rhythms.    This festival escorts visitors on a journey around the world to bring   together globally diverse art, food and culture, an undertaking only   Harbourfront Centre could bring to fruition.
 
 With icons of the world music community, traditional and contemporary   dance performances, exquisite global culinary demonstrations,   awe-inspiring films and visual art displays, as well as plenty of activities for   the kids, Harbourfront Centre’s World Rhythms is a gateway to an   enriched cultural experience, from Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15.
 
 World Rhythms is part of Harbourfront Centre’s summer long series of   festivals, World Routes 2007 presented by RBC. Each weekend from June   through September, top Canadian and International artists perform in all   of the creative disciplines including music, dance, theatre, visual   arts, readings and film. Harbourfront Centre’s unparalleled 10-acre   waterfront site is prized for its fun and educational family activities at   multiple venues, as well as the ethnic diversity of the International   Marketplace and World Café. These rotating shops and cafés are nestled   along an expanded boardwalk, and enable visitors to explore and access each   weekend's cultural theme through the purchase of unique items and food.   All World Routes 2007 summer festivals are FREE admission.
 
 Featured music performances include the incomparable Sa-Ra Creative   Partners, the Toronto debut of Motown guitar legend Dennis Coffey, the   highly acclaimed Mamani Keita & Nicolas Repac, and the exciting Ricardo   Lemvo & Makina Loca. The Canadian Premiere of the documentary Ali Farka   Touré and Toumani Diabaté - The Hotel Mandé Sessions is only one of many   very special film screenings. 
 
 Stunning dance troupe Ballet en Fuego from New Mexico make their   Canadian Debut while the body plays percussion in the special dance   performance East Meets West featuring Little Pear Garden Collective and Turn on   the Tap. Local musician and world instrument craftsman Nuno Christo   will display his unique collection of instruments from around the world   and appetites for global cuisine will be satisfied with special Cooking   Demonstrations courtesy of local chefs such as Caroline Ishii, Gregg   Lewis and Jim Comishen.
 
 For more information on all World Rhythms events the public can call  416-973-4000 or visit www.harbourfrontcentre.com
 
 
 World Rhythms at Harbourfront Centre – All events are FREE
 
 Friday, July 13
 
 Music:
 8:00 p.m. – The Arsenals – Toronto’s underground Ska legends (Concert  Stage)
 9:00 p.m. – Soul Influence – soulful a cappella quartet (Toronto Star  Stage)
 9:30 p.m. – Mamani Keita & Nicolas Repac – Malian songstress and French  electronic wizard (Concert Stage)
 11:00 p.m. – Pat Braden – Yellowknife based singer/songwriter  (Brigantine Room)
 Dance:
 7:30 p.m. – Hollywood & Tazz (Toronto Star Stage)
 Film:
 8:30 p.m. – As Old as My Tongue: The Myth and Life of Bi Kidude –  Canadian Premiere! (Studio Theatre)
 
 Saturday, July 14
 
 Music:
 2:00 p.m. – Fiamma Fumana – Northern Italy’s finest (Concert Stage)
 3:30 p.m. – Justin Nozuka – Rising Japanese/Canadian soul star!  (Concert Stage)
 7:00 p.m. – Beyond the Pale – Toronto’s genre-defying specialists, presented by Tilley (Toronto Star Stage)
 8:00 p.m. – Dennis Coffey – Motown and jazz guitar legend – Toronto  Solo Debut! (Concert Stage)
 9:30 p.m. – Sa-Ra Creative Partners – witness “The Future of Music” –  Canadian Debut! (Concert Stage)
 11:00 p.m. – Peace…What It Is! – Sa Ra Creative Partners After Party  with DJ Dave Campbell (Brigantine Room)
 Dance:
 1:30 p.m. - Mosaic Dance (Toronto Star Stage)
 3:00 p.m. – East Meets West – Little Pear Garden Collective and Turn on  the Tap  (Toronto Star Stage)
 5:00 p.m. – Tarana Dance Academy (Toronto Star Stage)
 5:30 p.m. – Ballet En Fuego – New Mexico’s finest dance troupe –  Canadian Debut! (Toronto Star Stage)
 Film:
 2:00 p.m. – Mariza and the Story of Fado (Studio Theatre)
 7:30 p.m. – The World Talks: The San People of Namibia (Studio Theatre)
 9:00 p.m. – Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté - The Hotel Mandé  Sessions - Canadian Debut! (Studio Theatre)
 Food:
 1:30 p.m. – Chef Jim Comishen – “Jambalaya” Cooking Class (Lakeside  Terrace)
 3:30 p.m. – Chefs Caroline Ishii & Gregg Lewis of ZenKitchen – Food  Demo (Lakeside Terrace)
 
 Family Activities:
 1:00 p.m. – Children’s Craft Rainstick (Kids Zone Tent)

 Talks/Workshops:
 3:30 p.m. – World Music Instrument Talk with local collector Nuno  Christo (Studio Theatre)
 
 Sunday, July 15
 
 Music:
 3:00 p.m. – Pacha Massive – Colombian rhythms via New York City - part  of the Pepsi Concert Series (Concert Stage)
 4:30 p.m. – Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca – Legendary Congolese Rumba  (Concert Stage)
 Dance:
 1:00 p.m. – Bold Steps Dance Studio – Highland Scottish step dance  (Toronto Star Stage)
 2:30 p.m. – Ballet En Fuego (Toronto Star Stage)
 4:00 p.m. – The Road – Emily Cheung and Rina Singha (Toronto Star  Stage)
 Film:
 2:00 p.m. – HerSong “La Colombiana” - WORLD PREMIERE! (Studio Theatre)
 4:00 p.m. – Breaking the Silence – Music in Afghanistan (Studio  Theatre)
 5:30 p.m. – The Cult of Walt: Canada’s Polka King (Studio Theatre)
 Family Activities:
 1:00 p.m.  – Children’s Craft Rainstick (Kids Zone Tent)
 Food:
 2:00 p.m. – Chef La-Toya Fagon – Food Class “Sweet and Spicy Caribbean
 Style Chicken with Vegetables” (Lakeside Terrace)
 4:00 p.m. – Tamales Demo with John Martin of Johny Banana (Lakeside Terrace)

::TOP STORIES::

Robin Thicke Could Be First Non-Black To Win B.E.T. Award

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Brad Wheeler

(June 26, 2007) Robin Thicke is white, and that's no rap against him. At least in the eyes of Black Entertainment Television, the U.S.-based cable network which airs its annual BET Awards ceremony tonight. Thicke, the crooning, platinum-selling son of Canadian entertainer Alan Thicke and singer-actress Gloria Loring, is a contender for the best male R&B artist and a publicly voted viewer's choice prize for his smash album The Evolution of Robin Thicke. If he should win, he would be the first non-black artist to snatch the star-topped statue: Justin Timberlake and Eminem made short lists, but lost, in 2003; while the wacky and pale Michael Jackson has never even been nominated. (Justifiably, BET people have historically been ice-ice cold to the milk-skinned rapper Vanilla Ice.)  The BET Awards were established in 2001, according to a Wikipedia blurb, to "celebrate African Americans and other minorities in music, acting, sports and other fields of entertainment." Though his lithe falsetto has confused radio listeners into thinking otherwise, Thicke is not an African American. Skin colour aside, Thicke's Oprah-approved brand of suave soul has been embraced by black audiences. YouTube commentary is highly favourable ("homey can sing!"), and the cover of the current issue of Giant is given exclusively to Thicke, dubbed by the Afro-centric magazine as "Soul Brother No. 1."

In the article, Thicke is disarmingly candid, whether speaking about his marriage to black actress Paula Patton (Idlewild) or a long-seeded jealously of Jesus: "I'm special. I'm able to be righteous. How come Jesus gets to be the Son of God and not me?" In the same interview, the Beverly Hills-born and raised Thicke reveals the delusion that he is something other than privileged. "People act like the only black people or Puerto Ricans or people of any ethnicity who make it out of the 'hood are athletes and rappers and, in reality, we have more minority doctors, lawyers, teachers, and professors than ever before. Society as a whole is changing because the white man is finally losing some control." The cryptic use of "we," whether it refers to minorities or residents of the 'hood, is nothing short of bizarre coming from the non-suffering musician. That being said, in the field of urban R&B music, Thicke is a minority. Victory tonight in Los Angeles would be a legitimate triumph. Thicke will be in tough, though, facing challenges from Senegalese rapper Akon, John Legend and the sympathy-vote grabbing Gerald Levert, recently deceased. Blue eyes and light skin notwithstanding, Thicke, in this race, is the dark horse.

Canadian Wrestler, Wife, Son Found Slain

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Daniel Dale, Staff Reporter

(June 26, 2007) Professional wrestler Chris Benoit, known to fans as the "Canadian Crippler," was found dead yesterday in his suburban Atlanta home with his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel.  Detective Bo Turner told Atlanta television station WAGA the case was being treated as a murder-suicide. The station said police believe the 40-year-old Benoit killed his wife and son, then himself on Monday. A neighbour called police, and the bodies were found in three rooms of the house yesterday afternoon.  Autopsy results are expected today. Benoit had wrestled since 2000 for World Wrestling Entertainment. He had at least two other children: David and Megan. "Chris was always first-class – warm, friendly, caring and professional ... one of the best in our business," WWE Canada president Carl DeMarco said in a statement. Dennis Turner, who wrestled in the 1980s as Dirty Dan Denton, said Benoit was widely respected for his technical skills, and was regarded as a level-headed person "in the middle of the craziness" that is the world of pro wrestling.

"I'm a very laid back, quiet person. I'm not a big talker," Benoit, a chiselled 5-foot-11 and 220 pounds, told the Canadian Press in 2004.  Born in Montreal, Benoit moved at age 12 to the Edmonton area. At 17, he enrolled in "the dungeon," a legendary wrestling training facility run by Calgary's Stu Hart. "Every time I come out and hear my name announced and they're saying from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, I'm very proud of that," he told the Edmonton Sun in 2000. He wrestled for Hart's Stampede Wrestling circuit in the mid-1980s before competing in Japan and Mexico. He moved to the U.S. World Championship Wrestling in 1992, then to the WWE in 2000. Three months ago, he wondered to the United Kingdom's Express newspaper why so many wrestling stars have died so young. "You read about the lifestyles of rock bands and movie stars and they don't have anything near the mortality rate that we do in wrestling. It's very strange." Despite his age and injuries that came with his job he said this year he had no plans to quit.

With files from Canadian Press

Losing The Pulse At Queen And John

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - Geoff Nixon And Unnati Gandhi

(June 23, 2007) When well-known news anchor Gord Martineau first went to CITY-TV in 1977, it wasn't because he wanted to make a dazzling career move. It was because he had a job he didn't like in Montreal. Back then, you didn't go to the fledgling newsroom at Toronto's underpowered, pre-cable era CITY-TV unless things were pretty bad. "No one in his or her right mind would do this, because it was a nuthouse," says Mr. Martineau, describing his reaction to a supervisor's suggestion that he make a move from then-sister station CFCF Montreal. But Mr. Martineau came to CITY, never looked back and quickly became one of the many hip and talented young faces drawn to the urban station and its breezy brand of TV. Now, with regulators having recently approved the takeover by Rogers Broadcasting of five CITY-TV news affiliates across Canada, the flagship Toronto station will be moved out of its downtown digs at 299 Queen St. W. within three years (location to be determined). With the station will go the faces of reporters and anchors that have become as much a part of the neighbourhood as the suburban teens squealing over celebrities visiting MuchMusic. It's this diverse group of personalities, including booming baritone Mark Dailey, veteran anchor Anne Mroczkowski and social-issues reporter Jojo Chintoh who, over the years, brought an intangible freshness and edge to CITY-TV.

It's a sad passing: The station both defined the neighbourhood and represented a Great Leap Forward in broadcasting. "It's going to be sad for me because I associate this whole area with CITY-TV," said one local, Vanessa Amaron, 27, who works in the area. "It's what marks Queen West." The downtown Toronto location will continue to house the cable channel operations that CTVGlobemedia Inc. acquired from CHUM. That includes music-video channel MuchMusic, which has become a staple of Queen Street with its sidewalk concerts and parking-lot video-awards shows. CITY-TV has run its main operations from the CHUM-CITY building since moving there from the defunct property of a Queen Street East nightclub, The Electric Circus, in 1987. CITY's arrival at Queen and John streets sparked two decades of gentrification of Queen Street West, which had long been run-down and neglected.  Moses Znaimer's model of television - with cameras roaming the building and pedestrians peeking into the studio - made the neighbourhood into a supporting player.  "I remember how excited we were to move in and the fact that they had wired the whole building [for broadcast]," says John (J.D.) Roberts, an anchor with CNN's American Morning, who along with Jeanne Beker was one of the original hosts of The New Music.

Ms. Beker, host of Fashion Television, remembers the station's youthful eagerness to challenge the status quo.  "It was the original reality TV," she says, summing up their "smash-and-grab" approach. "You really felt like you were in the eye of the storm." CITY-TV broadcasts were less staid than those on other networks and had quirks that had never before been seen in Canadian broadcast. The station put everyday people - chubby, skinny, those with disabilities, those who weren't white and others who didn't fit the mould of traditional TV fare - in front of the camera both as subjects and as front-line broadcasters. On the newscasts, there were no anchor desks, and the reporters dished the news from the scene. They were expected to go out and get the story, not sit behind their desks and rehash the details from the inside of an editing suite. Mr. Martineau describes the CITY-TV way as being very stripped down and very simple: "You shoot Toronto and you make the streets of Toronto your newsroom," he recalls. "It was very much seat-of-the-pants and $1.98 television," Mr. Roberts says.  Now, 20 years later, Queen West is known as Toronto's version of SoHo by locals, renowned for its trendy boutique shops and outdoor patios. And CITY was the catalyst for the area's transition through the 1980s and 1990s into Toronto's cultural heart - first with the arrival of bookstores, restaurants and music clubs such as the Rivoli - and then a busy retail strip driven by fashion. "CITY-TV and Queen Street have been synonymous since its inception in the 1970s," Mr. Roberts says succinctly. "It would be tragic for it to move out of those digs." CITY-TV's move probably won't affect the vibrant strip, architecture historian Larry Richards says. "Queen West has fully demonstrated its economic, cultural and social vitality, developing further and further west," he says. Prof. Richards doesn't think the loss of CITY-TV "will place a major dent, at all, in the Queen West miracle that seems to go on and on." One man, who declined to give his name as crews set up the stage for the recent MuchMusic Video Awards ceremony, agreed that CITY-TV's leaving won't have much of an impact. "The groupie kids from Scarborough are still going to come down."

::TORONTO JAZZ FESTIVAL NEWS::

Redman Keeps Moving Forward

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - J.D. Considine

(June 26, 2007) Pore over the press for Joshua Redman's new album, Back East, and it's clear that he is going back. The question is, back where? According to some, the album - his first all-acoustic project after five years playing with the Elastic Band - marks a return to his roots; according to others, it's a return to tradition. One reviewer, writing in The Boston Globe, called it "a return to a certain post-bop orthodoxy" (although he neglected to specify which post-bop orthodoxy). Redman doesn't see it that way. For him, the album is a move forward and every bit as modern as the Elastic Band was. He's particularly rankled by the notion that, because he's working with acoustic bass and drums, his music is now somehow closer to jazz tradition. "I bristle against that," he says over the phone from a tour stop in Los Angeles. "Not because I don't believe or respect the jazz tradition, but because that term has become so symbolically and ideologically charged."

When Redman began to make a name as a jazz saxophonist, after winning the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition in 1991, the battle to define tradition had become almost a holy war. "Everyone seemed to want to divide the jazz world between the traditionalists and the innovators," he says. "It made for good press, but it's so reductionist." And in his case, it's also pretty silly. The Harvard-educated son of jazz giant Dewey Redman (a saxophonist best known for his work with Ornette Coleman, the Keith Jarrett Quartet, and Old and New Dream), Joshua Redman arrived with impeccable credentials and a solid grounding in the music. For him, there was no question about defining terms. "The jazz tradition is basically the language of jazz, and it's a living language," he says. "It has developed and evolved over time, and in that sense, yes, what I'm doing is part of the jazz tradition. But in that sense, everything I've done has been part of the jazz tradition. The Elastic Band was coming out of the jazz tradition in the sense that it was using the language and vocabulary that we've developed as jazz musicians. "But the sense of tradition as something from the past that you return to, that's something that I've never felt comfortable with," he adds. "Jazz is by its very nature a relevant music, because it's a music based in improvisation. When you're really playing jazz, you're creating, you're expressing yourself in the moment. You might be working within a language or even within some structures that have their roots in music of the past, sure. But a return to the past in terms of nostalgia or an attempt to revive or recapture something - that's not something that I'm really interested in."

Even so, Back East does make some conscious nods to the past, from the title, which recalls Sonny Rollins's 1957 album Way Out West, to the inclusion of a number of standards in its set list. "This is the first album where I am explicitly taking on or engaging with the music of my great influences," he admits. "So in that sense, I'm almost contradicting myself. "I feel, for the first time, more comfortable and more confident with my own identity," he says. "It's something that I've always thought I had, but now I feel a little more comfortable with taking on material that Sonny Rollins did. Taking on a Wayne Shorter tune, or a John Coltrane tune, and creating a whole album that, conceptually, deals with my influences." Not insignificantly, among those influences was his father, who appears on two tracks (one of them a version of John Coltrane's India) and who died not long after the sessions were completed. "Certainly my father was a great influence," he says. "So yes, I wanted to play with my father, because I wanted to play with a great saxophonist who had taught me so much, and to celebrate that." He laughs. "You don't have to get to psychoanalysis to explain that." Redman had played and recorded with his father before, but always as a sideman. "I didn't even know he was going to agree to do this, originally, and when he did, I was excited," he says. "We had a great time, and of course, it took on even greater significance. This was the last time that we played together, and the last time that I saw him until he passed away. I don't think either of us knew the importance of it at the time."

Joshua Redman performs tonight at the Vancouver Jazz Festival, tomorrow at the Victoria Jazz Festival, Friday at the Toronto Jazz Festival and Saturday at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Cabaret finds a home at the Savoy

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic

(June 21, 2007) Life is a cabaret, old chum – or at least it will be next week. The Savoy Cabaret Series is one of the most intimate yet engaging parts of the Toronto Jazz Festival, allowing an eclectic group of artists to perform their own highly individual material in an intimate setting. "This is our second year," Says Sybil Walker, organizer of the series, "and if all goes well I believe it will be an annual one for the festival and hopefully something I can continue to build on as we love cabaret and are not, in this city, serviced well in that area."  Walker certainly knows what she's talking about. For many years, she booked the talent that appeared in the same venue at 253 Victoria St. when it was known as Top o' the Senator, and this year she's got a very impressive lineup. It starts next Monday with Jean Stilwell and Patti Loach reprising this spring's two-woman act Carmen Unzipped. The title comes from the fact that Stilwell is world-renowned for performances as the title heroine of Bizet's opera.  Stilwell recounts some personal adventures, and combines more recent songs with classic cabaret chansons like "La Vie en Rose." Everything, of course, delivered in Stilwell's exquisitely throaty mezzo-soprano. Tuesday, Micah Barnes takes the stage. The singer that L.A. Weekly called "swoonworthy" has returned to Toronto after 10 years in California. He returns with a set full of songs that illustrate his journey through life in a style one critic said "sits halfway between Cole Porter and Elvis Costello."

Julie Michels heads the bill on Wednesday. She's one of the country's premier jazz vocalists, who's been honing her craft for years from coast to coast. She thinks of herself as "a teller of life's stories" and her material ranges from beloved swing classics to deeply personal solos. One of Toronto's favourites climbs those well-worn stairs on Victoria St. on Thursday, June 28, when John Alcorn connects with his public yet again. Alcorn is one of our finest interpreters of the "great American songbook," an artist who always knows how to walk the fine line between respecting the material and offering an original interpretation. This program, where he'll be joined by Richard Whiteman at the piano and Steve Wallace on bass, is devoted entirely to the music and lyrics of Cole Porter and it's exciting just to contemplate what unique spin Alcorn could bring to songs like "Love for Sale" and "Ridin' High."  Last, but clearly not least, Louise Pitre wraps things up with a two-night stand on Friday, June 29 and Saturday, June 30. Pitre has enjoyed a long and distinguished career during which she'll probably be best remembered for her searing performance as Edith Piaf and her joyous lighting up of Mamma Mia! But the cabaret format allows the quicksilver Pitre the chance to shuffle through all the cards in her musical deck and we're likely to hear some Jacques Brel and Jimmy Webb as well as some of her own heartfelt compositions. Tickets for the Savoy Cabaret series are available by calling 416-870-8000. Price vary: for Barnes, Michels and Alcorn, it's $15, with $20 stage seating also available. For Stilwell, it's $25 for regular seat and $30 for stage. Pitre's pair of performances carry the highest price tag: $35, with $40 for stage seating. Information is also available at www.tojazz.com

Delfeayo Steps Into Limelight

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic

(June 23, 2007) Word is after 25 years establishing himself as a Grammy Award winning record producer, Delfeayo Marsalis has decided to focus on a career as a trombonist. But when the Star catches up with the fourth of six sons of the musical Marsalis clan – in advance of his headlining debut at the Toronto Jazz Festival Friday night at 8 at Nathan Phillips Square – it's on the set of a biopic about legendary New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden. "I am producing the soundtrack, but right now I'm actually serving as a consultant to the actors, helping them to look like musicians," said the genial 41-year-old by phone from Wilmington, N.C.  "You get these bands sometimes in the movies that look terrible, so we're trying to combine the theatrical along with the musical. I'm working with them on how to hold the instruments, how to make it believable that these guys created such vibrant and joyous music."

The New Orleans native, who has more than 100 recordings to his name as producer and engineer for elder brothers Branford and Wynton, father Ellis and others, is a seasoned, if under-recorded musician. He toured with Elvin Jones, Max Roach and Ray Charles, evoking a sound compared to trombone titans J.J. Johnson and Jimmy Knepper. "All of my training and what I've done over the years has lead me up to this point," said Marsalis of the relationship between his playing and his role with the Bolden flick, which includes an on-camera appearance. "I consider myself more of a presenter of the music and I use the trombone as part of that presentation. That's why I can work with these actors so well, because I see that all of us have the theatrical, the musical impulse. I think that it's important to have individuals like Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, people who are more interested in the presentation of the music.  "In playing music, most things are about the conceptualization; practicing is important to get your technique to the point where you can express what your concept is. I've always kept the chops up but, more importantly, I've been developing my concept of performance.

"You find a lot of the great big band arrangers were trombone players. The trombonist is always kind of the mild-mannered (person), the organizer, the keeper of the peace. We sit in the middle of the band. I think the trombone, much more so than other instruments, lends itself to diversity." The quintet he's bringing to Toronto will serve up several of the original tunes that comprise last year's Minions Dominion, his first album in a decade.  With a mind to Thelonious Monk's penchant for quirky song names, the title track was derived from an unexpected source. "I was watching MTV Cribs – seeing all these guys with these big houses that all look the same: theatre room, pool, somebody cooking the food, and they have a lot of minions, folks hanging out with them. So Minions Dominion is an MTV crib." Contemporary inspiration aside, the music on the album is steeped in traditional bop. The disc was recorded in 2002 with master drummer Elvin Jones (who died in 2004), altoist Donald Harrison, tenor brother Branford, pianist Mulgrew Miller and bassists Bob Hurst and Eric Revis. "The great recordings are always about chemistry. I wanted musicians who were familiar with the tradition of music and also had an understanding of modern playing, but that would be complementary to myself and, of course, Mr. Jones."

But the music was shelved when Marsalis returned to university to pursue a Masters in music performance. "I've always excelled in educational environments and school is the easiest way to shift gears. I was out there playing with Elvin and I could have just started doing my own gigs, but I decided that it was a good time to work on my orchestration and my arranging and to just to kind of refocus. It was the greatest thing I could have done. I emphasized mostly classical and European tradition. Had I just gone and studied jazz, what I knew, it could've been a cakewalk." Did the sabbatical strengthen his abilities? "For sure. Even working on this movie is a prime example of how all of the experiences in your life fuel whatever the situation is. That's something that Elvin always would talk about: the importance of channelling all of the energy of your experiences and bringing that to the bandstand." Minions Dominion, which was released on Marsalis's own label, Troubadour Jass, lists brother Branford as a producer. "That was a joke, actually: Branford doesn't produce, he kind of comes and takes over.  "He gave me my first opportunity to produce on a major label, so I thought it would be nice to give him the credit, even though he just came in and bossed me around ... in a sense he was a producer."  On Friday, Marsalis's group will open for noted saxist Joshua Redman, who played on his acclaimed 1992 debut disc Pontius Pilate's Decision, along with the three other musical Marsalis brothers (including drummer Jason, then 14). "It's ironic that we're playing before Joshua. It's a little known fact that I was the first one to actually give him a gig. He played with me between 1989-90 after he graduated from Harvard.  "I was also the first one to fire him after we had a slight musical disagreement. Then he went on to win the (prestigious career-making) Monk competition in 1991. The rest is history."

Herbie Hancock, Musical Chameleon

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - J.D. Considine

(June 22, 2007) ‘I always like the idea of being the first, or being among the first, to try this or try that,” says Herbie Hancock, over the phone from his office in Los Angeles.  “I'm the kind of guy who, when there's a new operating system, I want to get it as soon as it comes out. Right now the iPhone is coming out, from Apple. I want that like on the day it comes out, you know?” He laughs. “I want it the day before.” Nor is this a recent development. “I'm always an early adopter,” he says, “whether it's gadgets or music.” For anyone who has followed the 67-year-old keyboardist's career, it would be hard to imagine otherwise. Hancock, after all, was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace electronic keyboards, using electric piano in 1968 with the Miles Davis Quintet before moving on to clavinet and synthesizers with his own group. His 1983 hit Rockit not only used a computer to co-ordinate his bank of synthesizers, but managed to be the first (and perhaps only) jazz single ever to make regular rotation on MTV. A child prodigy who soloed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when he was 11, Hancock has played with the best of the best, a list that includes such jazz greats as Davis, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner and Quincy Jones, but pop stars as well – Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt among them.

That ability to keep ahead of the curve and fit in with almost any playing situation may have given him an unusually high profile for a jazz musician, but it didn't necessarily win him fans in the jazz community. Critics sniffed that his flirtation with funk was somehow beneath him, and even a few fellow jazz musicians – most famously, Wynton Marsalis, who took on Hancock in a 1985 joint interview with Musician magazine – complained that he was “selling out.” Hancock, of course, was doing no such thing, and the fact that he continues to move easily between straight-ahead jazz and pop-oriented electronic music – for instance, following 2002's Directions in Music, an all-acoustic album recorded at Massey Hall, with Possibilities, an album of pop duets with Paul Simon, Christina Aguilera and John Mayer – reinforces the idea that he's the type of musician who has little interest in enforcing musical boundaries. “There is a tendency for people to find a particular niche that they feel comfortable with,” he says, referring to the way musicians and fans let themselves become identified with a particular style or taste. “And human beings, once they find something comfortable, are not encouraged to go beyond that, because they're identified with that. As a matter of fact, they not only identify themselves with that, but others identify them with that. So everybody feels comfortable if you put everybody in a box.

“But the truth of the matter is, that's just one aspect of, or one expression of, what that person is capable of doing. I think it takes more courage to say, ‘This is cool, but what else is out there?' and being willing to explore.  "And a lot of that depends on your own personality. I've always been a very curious kind of person, so it's natural for me to explore.” Indeed, Hancock has done a bit of everything over the years. He's been responsible for a number of pop hits, both under his own name ( Rockit and 1974's Chameleon) and others (his tune Watermelon Man was a 1963 hit for Mongo Santamaria and a sample from his Bring Down the Birds became the basis for Deee-Lite's 1990 smash Groove is in the Heart). In addition to 10 Grammys, he won an Academy Award for his score to 'Ro und Midnight, and the dancing-robot video for Rockit was named the 10th Greatest Music Video of all time by VH1. He's done so much, in fact, that he seldom bothers to try to take the whole of his career on the road.  His current tour, however, comes pretty close. Working with the pop-savvy rhythm team of bassist Nathan East and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, with saxophonist Chris Potter filling in for regular guitarist Lionel Louecke, Hancock says the show he'll be bringing to the Toronto Jazz Festival on Tuesday will cover a wide swath of his career. “It's acoustic and electric,” he says of the group. “We're doing material that covers a broad spectrum of periods in my career – some things from the early sixties, some of the electric stuff with synthesizers. We're doing everything from, say, Maiden Voyage, which I did in the sixties, to the Headhunters version of Watermelon Man and Chameleon, and some songs from my latest record Possibilities. Nathan East is going to be singing.”

It's no accident that Hancock is working with players whose credits include both jazz and rock.  “Especially for the kind of tour that we're doing – they're really perfect for that,” he says. “I mean, Nathan's worked with Eric Clapton and Michael Jackson. He's also worked with Wayne Shorter – he did the record Joy Ryder. And Vinnie's worked with everybody from Sting to Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa and a variety of people. But he's also a straight-ahead player. A lot of people don't know him as much for his straight-ahead playing, but he's an amazing jazz drummer.” But the tour is hardly the only thing on Hancock's plate. In addition to waiting for the latest Apple product, he's working on an album inspired by Joni Mitchell, whom he inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame last summer. “We don't have a title for the record, but it's sort of a portrait of Joni Mitchell's music and life,” he says. “I mean, her music already describes her life, but we also have a couple of pieces that she didn't write. “One of them is a song, In My Solitude. She heard that when she was really young, sung by Billie Holiday, and it resonated with her. That's one of the early influences on Joni, and that influence is really in her voice. And there's another piece we're doing, Nefertiti, written by Wayne Shorter … we were hoping that maybe Joni would want to participate by writing a lyric and for her to possibly sing it. But it didn't work out, because she's really busy now. She's doing her own album.”

Herbie Hancock plays the Beesborough Gardens in Saskatoon Saturday (www.saskjazz.com) as part of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg Sunday as part of the Jazz Winnipeg Festival (ticketmaster.ca) and the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto on Tuesday as part of the Toronto Jazz Festival (ticketmaster.ca).

Family Matters

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Pop and Jazz Critic

(June 21, 2007) The 21st edition of the Toronto Jazz Festival is a family affair. Among the 1,500 musicians performing during the 10-day event kicking off tomorrow are a slew of artists who are either related to other musicians playing the festival, or are relatives of famous musicians. Lula Lounge, for example, will host two separate but kindred Duran trios: one tomorrow led by award-winning pianist Hilario Duran; the other next Thursday, fronted by his 25-year-old pianist-singer daughter, Yailen. When it comes to musical families, nature and nurture seem to work in tandem. "From a very young age she used to like to sing a lot and she could reproduce all the music she heard in the street and in the house," recalled Hilario of his only child's early years in their native Cuba. "We encouraged her to take piano lessons (at age 8), because it was the instrument we had at home," added mom Cristobalina. When the family moved to Toronto in the late 1990s, Hilario quickly became an integral part of the local music scene with his stellar brand of Afro-Cuban jazz. Yailen landed backup vocalist spots with pop singer Nelly Furtado and jazz clarinettist Jane Bunnett. She also honed her compositional skills, contributing the song "Habanera in Spain" to her father's recent Juno Award-winning album From the Heart.  "She has a particular way of writing a melody that is catchy, but at the same time very intricate," he said proudly, listing his daughter's professional attributes: "perfect pitch, a very good ear, photographic memory (for music, not other things) and determination."

Though she ranked piano greats Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea among her models, when it comes to dad, Yailen said simply, "Anything I play is influenced by him." But the instruction doesn't flow in one direction at a piano and three keyboards inside their Toronto apartment.  "She's my best critic," said Hilario, 53. "She comes to all my shows, so she hears everything and she'll tell me what's right and what's wrong in a way that others don't, because they don't want to get in trouble, or hurt your feelings."  Hilario, whose parents were both musicians, is thrilled his offspring is following his path. "It can be hard to make a living as a musician, but when you have passion, it doesn't matter," he said. "I never think to do anything else."  Yailen concurs. "All I want to do is perform and have people listening to my music." The only note of disharmony among this Duran trio was sounded when the young singer was asked to describe the original material she will be performing next week. "Contemporary," she stated. "You mean Latin contemporary?" prodded her father. She shook her head. "Some world music, right?" offered her mother. "Contemporary," said Yailen firmly.
Hilario smiled. "I told you she was determined."

Christine Jensen's earliest musical memory is fairly vague.
 
"It was probably in the womb," said the Montreal-based saxist who makes her Toronto Jazz Festival debut at The Rex on Wednesday. She grew up in Nanaimo, B.C., the youngest child of a music teacher who "was always using music as a tool."  "She would play on her own for the love of playing and to escape the rigours of raising three girls on her own," said Jensen, 37, of her late mother. "She was a big fan of classical and jazz and had a very small but very tasteful record collection." "We always were into music," she continued, "whether it was musical theatre, or playing jazz, or piano lessons. I assumed (other musicians) had the same upbringing. For those that don't there may be a few more obstacles, in terms of parents saying, `Is that the right choice? That's a crazy lifestyle.'  "Still, I think my sister (Ingrid) had a bit of that put in front of her, being the first one to really become a professional, full-time player." Based in New York, Ingrid Jensen, 41, is acclaimed as a first-rate trumpeter. "She took a bigger risk and leap moving to the States. I could've done the same thing and I did spend a bit of time there, but as a composer I'm pretty happy with the choice I've made of staying in Canada."  With a strong soprano voice that draws comparisons to deans such as Wayne Shorter and Steve Lacy, Christine has also benefited from Ingrid's tendency to play and record her compositions. "I'm getting some great international opportunities, because she's been this transporter of my music. Her first record (1995's Vernal Fields), which won a Juno, had three of my pieces on it." She also credits her sister for paving the way as a bandleader and horn player, a rare combination for women in jazz. "It still perplexes me why there are not more of us; I think it's a lack of visual role models. Ingrid was definitely a big instigator of getting me to take control of my life and seeing what's out there."

Freddy Cole can't recall a moment without music.
 
"It was always present," said the youngest brother of crooner Nat King Cole. "My parents never forced it on us. The piano was there and I guess we just gravitated to it." Though his two elder brothers were musicians, and Duke Ellington and Count Basie were regulars at the family's Chicago home, young Freddy, who'd started piano lessons at age 6, was more interested in sports. "I wanted to play either baseball or football. Fortunately, I got hurt playing football. That was my blessing I call it, instead of my curse." He obtained a masters from the New England Conservatory of Music and began singing in New York clubs, supplementing his income with TV and radio jingle work.  Though Cole, 75, who performs with a quartet tomorrow and Saturday night at Live@Courthouse, never attained the heights of his inimitable brother who died in 1965, he's had a steady career touring and recording alluring interpretations of the Great American Songbook.  "Music has to me such a magical feeling," he said in a phone interview from his Atlanta home. "You can be feeling low, but as soon as you hit the bandstand, or as soon as you start playing some music, you just forget about everything else in the world."

It's a loving feeling that has taken root with some younger Coles, including his Grammy Award-winning niece, singer Natalie Cole. "My son Lionel is a wonderful musician. He ended up with an opera scholarship, of all things, to Northwestern. He's done a lot of movie work. He's a piano player and he lives in California. He was a musical director for a couple years for Mariah Carey....  "My grandchildren like music. I don't say anything. I just lay back. If I find out they want to do it, then I'll help them. But I always have music playing in the house." Must be some kind of jam session when all those musical Coles get together?
"Nope. Nobody touches the piano. We're running our mouths and doing everything else. Because my family is so scattered, we don't get a chance to see each other that much, so music is the last thing we'll be talking about."
 

All that jazz

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Entertainment Reporter

(June 21, 2007) New York–New Orleans may the birthplace of jazz, but New York has long been its incubator, attracting players from all over the world with top-shelf music programs, Broadway gigs and copious nightclubs.  Among the pivotal stories that abound about the genre's musicians and Big Apple venues are Billie Holiday debuting "Strange Fruit" at Café Society in 1939, Miles Davis being assaulted by police in front of Birdland in 1959 and avante-garde saxist Ornette Coleman heralding a seismic shift in the music with a week-long stint at the Five Spot that same year.  Some clubs overlapped several eras: The Cotton Club (1920-1940), The Half Note (1957-1975), Bradley's (1969-1998). Others have been recently resurrected–Minton's, Smalls–and one has outlived them all: The Village Vanguard.

Pat Taylor has spent a lot of time in New York jazz clubs, evaluating performers and meeting with agents as executive producer of the TD Canada Trust Toronto Jazz Festival. Also the co-owner of Toronto's newest jazz venue, Live@Courthouse, he remembers being invited to hear 18-year-old Harry Connick Jr. sing at the Algonquin Hotel in the mid-80s.  "Sarah Vaughn and Tony Bennett were in the audience," he recalls. "Their reaction sold me on him, not him."  That opportunity for discovery is one of the draws in a city rife with up-and-comers, such as drummer Ernesto Cervini who moved from Toronto four years ago to attend the Manhattan School of Music and released his debut CD earlier this year.  It's a hustle to get gigs in clubs where compensation for rookies ranges from a free meal to $200 for the whole band, says the 25-year-old.

"You really have to be diligent to try get a foot in the door because there are 60 other musicians calling (the bookers) every day. If you just leave a message, you're not going to get a call back." But he relishes the opportunity to "be close to everything that's really happening in the jazz scene," and supplements his income teaching piano. There are dozens of clubs featuring jazz, mostly in Manhattan and Harlem. They range from cramped nondescript basements to airy showpieces. "The scene has expanded," says Taylor who attributes New York's ability to sustain so many jazz destinations to the combination of "a great tourism market" and the eight-million-strong population of "a very cultural city where people love to go out."  Most of the clubs have drink minimums from $5 to $25 in addition to the cover charge, turn over the audiences after each set (you have to pay again to stay) and cater to serious jazz lovers with a quiet policy. "On any given day, there are three or four shows that I want to see," said Cervini who frequents the spots with student discounts, visiting high-end locations when he knows someone playing who can "get me in for free." A neophyte is unlikely to make a bad choice since the discerning home audience wouldn't support any joint without good acoustics, reasonable sightlines and stellar players, said Taylor.

"Just select a neighbourhood, or go according to who you want to hear," he advises. "You can't go wrong."

Wild Walk On The Classical Side

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Peter Goddard, Entertainment Columnist

(June 22, 2007) In a career going back more than 40 years, with some 70 recordings and countless gigs with a musical encyclopaedia’s worth of star names – we're talking Stéphane Grappelli, Frank Zappa and even Elton John on Honky Chateau – Jean-Luc Ponty comes to the Toronto Jazz Festival Sunday feeling vulnerable for the first time he can remember.  Blame it on "Desert Crossing."  It's the eighth track on the 64-year-old violinist/composer's recently released album, The Acatama Experience.  An unaccompanied solo on a five-string acoustic fiddle, it reveals a technique that for years has been aided and abetted by studios worth of sophisticated electronics.  And Ponty is concerned about whether his technique will survive close scrutiny.  "I'm often in contact with the stars of the classical world," Ponty says on the phone during a break from a tour that brings him to Saratoga, N.Y., tomorrow night.  "They respect jazz musicians. But what they don't understand is that my life is totally different than theirs. Technique. That's what they think about. All they do is practise, often a day on the same piece. But I have other things. I write music. I have a band." "Desert Crossing" – Ponty visited the Acatama Desert in Northern Chile after a show in Santiago – is indeed Ponty's wild walk on the classical side. It could be called J.S. Bach meets J-L Ponty fusion.

It opens with a flurry of rising arpeggio figures that soar in and around the harmonic outlines rooted in the kind of conventional musical structures Bach himself would have understood. It doesn't stay there for long. It soon morphs into pure fantasy – Jean-Luc Ponty style fantasy, but still without a familiar comfortable cushion of electronics. Yes, his dad taught classical violin. Yes, originally from Avranches, France, he studied the straight stuff at the Conservatoire de Paris in the early '60s, a classical prodigy on the rise, many thought. And yes, in recent years he's increasingly been asked to give lectures, seminars and master classes for classical students well aware of all his many technological breakthroughs when his fiddle was hooked up to the MIDI synthesizer system with its phase shifters and other ear-popping gewgaws.  Yet he finds it increasingly strange to explain his system, or to talk about any system, particularly in front of young students.  "I went into jazz because of its emotional expressiveness. That's when I started playing bebop. I went into jazz because it was where you could explore your own sound." Before Ponty's arrival on the scene, jazz fiddle could be divided into two camps.  There was Grappelli, the French wizard of the fleeting emotion and glistening technical flourish, who's represented a school of playing all to himself.  Then there were Stuff Smith, Joe Venuti and others, who generally favoured an earthier, harder-swinging, bluesier style. (Jazz fiddlers tend to be great characters and tough as nails. When concentrating, Venuti's ferocity made Marlon Brando's Godfather look like your friendly barber trimming the back of your neck.) Ponty saw right through the jazz violin and into its future. Hooking his fiddle up to the array of new electronics emerging in the '70s, he was individually capable of an orchestra's worth of effects. At one point, he reconfigured the fiddle itself, adding a fifth then a sixth string to the instrument. "But there are limits to electronics," he added. "I still love them. They still stimulate my imagination. But now to me, they are just like another colour I can use."

Jean-Luc Ponty performs Sunday at 8 p.m. on the Toronto Star Stage, Nathan Phillips Square.

More Than You Can Eat At A Rich Music Buffet

Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com - J.D. Considine

(June 22, 2007) Big jazz festivals are hard on the indecisive. Unable to be two places at the same time, and incapable of choosing between equally attractive options, they fret and dawdle, poring endlessly over program blurbs when they could be out actually listening to music. Thankfully, this year's TD Canada Trust Toronto Jazz Festival - which officially starts today at noon with a free performance by the Brian Barlow Big Band in Nathan Phillips Square - isn't as rough on ditherers as some festivals. Although the evenings can be pretty packed, with as many as eight concerts running simultaneously, the daytime offerings rarely overlap. And with some of the club acts booked for multi-night engagements, it's easy enough to spread things out. So if, for instance, you're torn between seeing Freddie Cole, younger brother of crooner Nat King Cole (tonight and tomorrow at Live@Courthouse), and former Ray Charles saxophonist David (Fathead) Newman (tonight and tomorrow at the Pilot Tavern), it's easy enough to catch one the first night and the other the next. Moreover, the festival's take on jazz is broad enough that choosing between shows is often as simple as deciding whether you'd like to hear bebop or blues, jam bands or jazz rock, funk or cabaret. (That, unfortunately, is no help to ditherers with broad tastes.) Yet no matter how you weigh the options, there are some nights where you may as well just flip a coin. Take Tuesday, for example. Originally, Oscar Peterson was scheduled to play at the Four Seasons Centre, and it would be hard to imagine the jazz fan who wouldn't leap at another chance to catch this Canadian jazz icon in action. But Peterson, who has been in ill health recently, cancelled, and suddenly the evening posed a more difficult choice. Keyboardist Herbie Hancock and his new electric/acoustic quartet are at the Four Seasons Centre, and drummer Jack DeJohnette's rock-tinged Trio Beyond will be at Nathan Phillips Square, with Japanese fusion dynamo Hiromi Uehara as the opening act. Next Friday is even worse, particularly if you like your jazz straight ahead and swinging. Out in front of City Hall, saxophonist Joshua Redman will hold forth with his new acoustic trio, preceded by Delfeayo Marsalis, the trombone-playing little brother of Branford and Wynton. Meanwhile, at Four Seasons Centre, pianist Keith Jarrett performs with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer DeJohnette. You may want to flip two out of three for this one. In the interest of keeping such coin-tossing to a minimum, here's a short list of don't-miss shows. The names may not all be familiar, but the music is first rate.

Coco Zhao (tomorrow at 1 p.m., Nathan Phillips Square). One of the few male singers who can be credibly compared to Billie Holiday, this Hunan native is such a master of torch singing that you'll understand the heartache whether or not you understand Chinese.

Nikki Yanofsky (June 24 at 1 p.m., Nathan Phillips Square). Opening for the Club Django Sextet, this Montreal teenager has taste beyond her years and vocal chops to spare. Catch her now, and boast about it later.

UMO Jazz Orchestra (June 25 at 11:45 a.m., Nathan Phillips Square). Based in Finland and frequently compared to the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Lewis band, this may be the best big band in Europe.

Don Byron plays Junior Walker (June 25 at 9 p.m., Live@Courthouse). Saxophonist and clarinettist Byron, famous for flirting with klezmer and classical, pays tribute to Motown's greatest tenor man - even if he doesn't match Walker's high harmonics.

Dick Hyman and David Appleyard (June 26 at 9 p.m., Live@Courthouse). If flawless technique and unimpeachable taste are what you crave, it's hard to top pianist Hyman and vibraphonist Appleyard. Gourmet mainstream fare.

Aki Takase: The Fats Waller Project (June 27 at noon, Nathan Phillips Square). Japanese-born and Berlin-based pianist Takase is a stalwart of the avant-garde, but for this tour, she and her band - which includes guitar iconoclast Eugene Chadbourne - explore the unexpected connections between stride and free jazz.

Dhafer Youssef (June 27 at 9 p.m., Live@Courthouse). If your notion of Middle Eastern jazz goes no farther than Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia, this Tunisian-born singer and oud player will open your eyes and ears.

United Trombone Summit (June 28 at 8 p.m., Nathan Phillips Square). As players, bebop vet Slide Hampton, modernists Wycliffe Gordon and Steve Turre, and James Brown alumnus Fred Wesley have little in common beyond their choice of instrument - which is precisely why this trombone showcase is so appealing.

Brubeck Braid (June 29 at 9:00 p.m., Live@Courthouse). A piano/cello duet may sound like a classical recital, but this collaboration between Matt Brubeck (son of Dave) and Toronto pianist David Braid is classic only in the sense that it should be phenomenal.

The Derek Trucks Band (June 30 at 8:00 p.m., Nathan Phillips Square). It's one thing for a guy who has played in the Allman Brothers Band to say he's influenced by John Coltrane and qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, but quite another for him to deliver the goods as convincingly as Trucks does.

Back Again Without Missing A Beat

Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic

(June 23, 2007 When Manteca decided to reunite, they knew the same old thing wouldn't suffice, even though it had afforded them an 18-year, 100,000-album selling run. "When we started in 1979, world beat was not a common phrase, let alone a section in a record store," explained founding member Matt Zimbel of the salsa, samba and funk undercurrent that defined the group's heyday. So when the nontet returned to the studio this spring – with two replacement members – to record its ninth album, Onward!, new instrumentation and compositional direction were in order. But when they landed the opening night headlining slot for the 21st edition of the TD Canada Trust Toronto Jazz Festival, they knew they could rely on the tried and true when it came to performance.  That meant humour, precision and high energy on the Toronto Star Stage at Nathan Phillips Square last night. It wasn't surprising. Even though the group's last gig was in St. Catharines in 1998, the seven original members and newcomers all play regularly in other formations. Saxists Kelly Jefferson and Colleen Allen (subbing for John Johnson who along with keyboardist Aaron Davis is touring with Holly Cole) opened the set trading moody compelling notes, then were joined by the remaining musicians in a blaze of red and blue lights.

While the first few songs, including "Go Train" and "P2" were very much in the vein of the Latin-rooted group that took its name from a 1947 Afro-Cuban gem by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Ponzo, the rest of the 90-minute set gave way to intriguing melody-driven textures including Keltic and Eastern, courtesy of a mélange of instruments such as baritone sax, alto flute, bass clarinet, penny whistle and trombone.  The Toronto group, which disbanded because of high touring costs, plans to hit the road nationally this fall and proceed on a project-by-project basis. It doesn't bode well, despite the intriguing, deserving material, that they didn't sell out the 1200-seat mainstage tent despite their long absence. Wonder if that was due to the concert's downside: bandleader Zimbel's constant allusions to the past and assumption that everyone was familiar with the Manteca saga. Tales about aging, losing hair, gaining weight and the inability of members to download their own ring tunes would be a turnoff to younger or new audiences. While last night's club shows, featuring David Fathead Newman and Freddy Cole, reported capacity crowds, the outdoor mainstage is off to a slow start. The noon-hour kickoff by Brian Barlow Big Band brought out too sparse a crowd for such a stellar free show comprised of traditional horn-driven band and tasty guest vocalist Melissa Stylianou. To date, the festival's only sold-out show is Medeski, Scofield, Martin and Wood on Wednesday. As Mayor David Miller said at the launch, the 10-day event delivers the “best in modern jazz Toronto can offer." With at least four free shows daily and reasonably priced ticketed events, let's hope our citizenry is not taking it for granted.

80-Year-Old Musician Dick Hyman Brings Back The Golden Age Of Jazz Piano