No Marquee funding for Ottawa jazz festival
The Ottawa Jazz Festival won't be getting Marquee Tourism Event funding in 2010.
On Friday, the federal government released its list of events to be funded under the program. The official list shows that the Ottawa Bluesfest got $1,987,500 (up from $1.5M in 2009). The Montreal jazz festival got $3M (same as 2009), and smaller amounts went to the jazz festivals in Vancouver, Saskatoon, and Port Credit.
However, the Ottawa jazz festival wasn't on the list. The Ottawa Chamberfest, and the Toronto jazz festival were also cut off.
In 2009, the Ottawa jazz festival received $338,000, which was used to sponsor an extra free evening of concerts before the official start of the festival.
– Alayne McGregor
Ottawa Jazz Festival announces closing act
The Ottawa Jazz Festival today announced its closing headliner: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
As we mentioned in our previous article on the festival line-up, the festival had booked Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson for that evening, but they abruptly cancelled just before the festival launch.
The Dap-Kings is a funk/soul band whose previous Ottawa appearances at BluesFest and at the Babylon Club have been very well received. They will appear on the festival main stage at 9 p.m. on Sunday, July 4.
www.myspace.com/sharonjonesandthedapkings
www.sharonjonesandthedapkings.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Jones_&_The_Dap-Kings
Full house celebrates Hugh O'Connor's CD Release "For the First Time"
by Brett Delmage
Hugh O'Connor plays with bassist John Geggie at Hugh's "For the First Time" CD release at the NAC Fourth Stage - ©Brett Delmage, 2010
Longtime Ottawa saxophonist Hugh O'Connor, 81, released his first CD For the First Time to a sold-out concert at the NAC Fourth Stage on Monday May 3. Ottawa musical "catalyst" Harvey Glatt, who spearheaded the making of the CD after listening to O'Connor play since the 1950s, recalled some history and announced production credits to start the show.
O'Connor played two sets of songs from his album on alto and tenor, with long-time collaborators Mark Ferguson (piano), Don Johnson (drums) and John Geggie (double bass). He was joined for a few songs by Don Paterson on flugelhorn, and talented high school musicians Daniel Ko on alto sax, and Jenna Glatt on vocals. Tom Denison also sat in on drums. The group finished the evening to an enthusiastic and sustained standing ovation.
– Brett Delmage
See also: Hugh O'Connor, 81, records CD "For the First Time"
Chamberfest: jazz for classical music fans
Ottawa Chamberfest
See our story about the 2013 Chamberfest.
The Ottawa ChamberFest is programming a series of jazz concerts this year for people who like classical music.
Festival artistic director Roman Borys said the groups chosen all had "a foot in the classical realm". Some musicians, he said, had started playing classical music and had found they were now ready to move on to jazz or jazz-classical mixtures.
Most of the jazz concerts will be at St. Brigid's Centre in Lowertown, which Borys described as "a great jazz room", especially the late night concerts which will be set up in a café style.
The most prominent jazz artist will be veteran Canadian pianist Gene DiNovi, playing with two equally well-known Canadians: bassist Dave Young and drummer Terry Clarke. Although DiNovi is best known for his jazz and film compositions, he also collaborated with classical clarinetist James Campbell to create "Jazz in a Classical Key". DiNovi will be playing August 3 at 8 p.m.; the show will include a large-ensemble presentation of his Scandinavian Suite (1958), as well as a set of standards with Young and Clarke.
Other jazz-related concerts include:
Hugh O'Connor, 81, records CD "For the First Time"
Hugh O'Connor (sax) with John Geggie (bass) and Mark Ferguson (keyboard) perform at the 2007 Ottawa Jazz Festival. photo ©Brett Delmage, 2007
After more than 60 years of steadily playing for live audiences, Ottawa alto saxophonist Hugh O'Connor is releasing his first CD, "For the First Time" (True North records). The CD will be available starting April 27 at Compact Music and other local stores.
The CD launch concert will take place at the NAC Fourth Stage at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 3. O'Connor will be joined by Mark Ferguson, who has played piano with him for many, many shows, John Geggie on double bass, Don Johnson on drums, and maybe a surprise guest or two.
This Sunday afternoon, there will also be a mini CD release party at Chez Lucien, where O'Connor has duoed with pianists, including Ferguson, every Sunday afternoon for the last five years.
O'Connor has been playing jazz in Ottawa since the late 1940s, and has been a fixture at many venues and playing with many visiting jazz legends. Three years ago, the Ottawa Jazz Festival honoured his "enormous" contribution to jazz in Ottawa with a Community Recognition Award.
A modicum of jazz at Bluesfest
We stayed up late to check the Ottawa Bluesfest listings (which were released at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday). So far, there's no jazz headliners at Bluesfest.
The artists we did see who might be of interest to jazz fans include:
Santana (Latin/rock fusion)
Grupo Fantasma (Latin)
The Lost Fingers (gypsy jazz)
and, last but not least,
The Mayfair Theatre Orchestra reprises its live soundtrack to Night of the Living Dead at the Barney Danson Theatre in the Canadian War Museum (unclassifiable, but includes lots of Ottawa jazz musicians).
If you see any jazz-related artists we missed in the Bluesfest listings, please let us know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
- Alayne McGregor
Renée Yoxon: "a jazz aesthetic is what you make of it"
Renée Yoxon at The Rainbow - photo ©2010 Brett Delmage
Renée Yoxon graduated with a physics degree and a minor in math and music from Carleton University In January 2010. While she was studying, music was another way to apply her creativity, and an escape from academic demands and drudgery.
Now that she is setting her own schedule, Renée is pursuing her career as a vocalist with a determined passion. She has been singing at as many as six gigs a week recently in a variety of different styles. On top of that, she sits in on other events, and has started a new "StreetJazz" series on YouTube. It's no surprise that Renée's confident and expressive singing has come to the attention of a growing number of listeners, fans, and other jazz musicians.
I recently interviewed Renée about how her music has developed. She shared some interesting personal thoughts on jazz and music, and what music has inspired her.
"I think everyone should be out supporting the [local jazz] scene – so developing it or not, get out!"
"A Jazz aesthetic is what you make of it. [...] I plan to continue to add stuff from modern repertoire in a style that suits us, because we just want to play good music, whether that's standards or whether that's modern tunes.
"Good music for me is a combination of two things: song-writing, so if it's a song that has been written honestly, and then performance. So you could take a great song and play it like garbage, and it's not good music. Or you could take a crappy song and then play it really well and it's not really good music. But if you have a really good song played honestly and truly, then it's good music."
On picking songs for StreetJazz: "Usually the song that will work is the song that's been in my head: the one that's going to work by myself. It's just the song I've been singing all day. So that's why it works, cos it's been in my head all day long. We might have to have a bit more forethought when we start collaborating with more musicians, but the whole point is that it's off-the-cuff and sort of natural, and not too much pre-planning goes into it. So you see a lot of me forgetting the words and us bumping into things as we walk on the streets and it's kind of funny and cute and a really good time."
Listen to the podcast [mp3, 25 minutes, 12 MB]
You can hear Renée Yoxon each Monday evening at Bar 56 in the Byward Market.
A new jazz camp in town
Mike Tremblay - photo ©Brett Delmage, 2010
Mike Tremblay's eyes light up as he describes his unexpected dream come true.
The Ottawa saxophone player and teacher is launching a new week-long jazz camp in Ottawa this August, sponsored by Carleton University. It's a project he's been thinking about for many years, but hadn't been expecting to start this soon.
But a breakfast meeting in February made it possible. He and Carleton University music professor James Wright had been discussing the Music Department's direction for the next academic year. At the end of the meeting, Tremblay said "there's something I've always really wanted to do is set up a jazz camp in Ottawa, right in the city, and get people here from Ottawa involved." But what he needed was a sponsor, and a location to hold the camp. Would the university be interested, maybe for 2011?
Wright was intrigued, and challenged Tremblay to put his ideas in writing. A week later, Tremblay had analyzed all the other jazz camps in Ontario, and produced a detailed 12-page proposal, together with a budget and a tentative list of instructors. Wright went through it in detail, asked questions, and then told Tremblay to go ahead – for 2010.
But that left him only a week before MusicFest, where he needed to advertise the camp. A friend he played hockey with pointed out the university's printing department could help with the brochure. With that and some "express" meetings to get approvals, the camp was announced in time for the MusicFest weekend at the beginning of March.
Richard Page: Ottawa has an incredible appreciation for original music
Richard Page with trio bassist Philippe Charbonneau play at the Avant-Garde Bar, 2010 March 23 photo ©Brett Delmage, 2010
Reedman, flautist and composer Richard Page came to Ottawa in 2008 with the Youth Summit at the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Since then he's made Ottawa his home and his presence known. In the past year he's done a lot of playing, and an increasing amount of composing.
Page has taken risks and worked hard to create his own opportunities: he introduced a weekly jazz series to the home of blues and funk, The Rainbow (on Saturday afternoons, yet!) and presented chamber jazz at the Unitarian Church with his A Large View from a Small Window sixteen-piece string ensemble.
He is currently developing an audience at Avant-Garde on his regular Tuesday night shows with his experienced and tight trio, including Matt Aston on drums and Philippe Charbonneau on bass. This month they are also performing on Wednesday nights at Café Nostalgica.
OttawaJazzScene.ca publisher Brett Delmage interviewed Richard Page at Avant-Garde about his music.
Listen to the interview [mp3, 12 minutes, 6 MB].
4 saxes + 2 flutes + clarinet + 2 players = much texture
Listeners at Avant-Garde on Friday April 9 were treated to Richard Page and Linsey Wellman playing Richard's original, hard-bop tunes with a variety of textures. With Richard playing tenor and soprano saxes, clarinet and flute, and Linsey playing soprano and alto saxes and flute, a paper spreadsheet had to be created to keep track of all the combinations. The Trio's regular drummer, Matt Aston, and bass player Philippe Charbonneau accompanied the two horn players. The music had the blend of rigour and spontaneity that only comes from group of people who enjoy playing with each other and have been doing so long enough to fit well together. Linsey Wellman' reliable exuberance and intense voice on his own instruments complemented Page's more restrained playing that evening.
Ottawa Jazz Scene photographer Brett Delmage caught all the combinations of instruments - or at least all the ones we think were played :-)
If you missed this show, there's lot's more opportunity to catch the Richard Page Trio. They are now welcoming listeners and musical guests Tuesday nights at Avant-Garde. In April, they are also taking the spring chill away at Café Nostalgica on Wednesday nights.
Click a thumbnail for a larger view. All photos ©2010 Brett Delmage.
JazzFest 2010: Great artists, and more to come
JazzFest 2010: Lots of local artists
JazzFest 2010: Free OLG Stage returns with local artists, unusual music
JazzFest 2010: Not the same festival for fans
A look and listen inside Theo Bleckmann's masterclass with Renée Yoxon
Paradiso mentoring series to continue next fall
Hard-working audience treated to Treatise
Big group, big sound, big ideas
Jacques Emond retirement party tonight
Ottawa-Gatineau contributors considered for Jazz Awards