Aren’t we lucky that Juno Award-winning saxophonist-composer Christine Jensen has her own big band, and that she is touring it through our very own TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival?  Aren’t we lucky, with so many current stories of destruction and sadness, that we can hear her collaborate with her renowned trumpeter sister Ingrid to actually create something wonderful?

For her pieces build houses out of sound, with initial design motifs laying down a foundation—by a forest, over the ocean, perhaps upon a mountain aerie.  Her musician’s soul is the architect, her eighteen-member big band her raw materials.  With titles like “Western Yew,” “Sea Fever,” and “Dancing Sunlight,” her native province of British Columbia seems to be her inspiration. Don’t miss your chance to hear what she can forge with a mighty horn section (trumpets, trombones, saxes) and a nimble rhythm section. Let her construct a place for you!

I wish I understood the ephemeral moment in music when a vamp settles in, and a chord changes, and you feel that rush in your spine, and you say, “Yes yes, this is right, this is good…” Aren’t we lucky that Christine does understand this moment, and we can go hear her for ourselves, at the Winnipeg Jazz Festival?

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, June 17 at MTC. We should always be so lucky!