When I look in the mirror, I see a man—but I remember that most people see a black man. I realize that I am from one of the hundreds of various dark races in Africa but I remind myself that my soul is colorless and that color is not relevant to my character or virtue. […]

You might think of past eras when you think of big bands, and it’s true that Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and others took their bands to the highest levels, providing us with many beloved standards. But big bands continue to be popular and relevant, performing not only music from the swing era, but music that […]

Toronto-based quartet Peripheral Vision keeps one eye out for a wide array of diverse influences from both within jazz and outside it. Led by bassist Michael Herring and guitarist Don Scott, with saxophonist Trevor Hogg and drummer Nick Fraser, the group is a folky reimagining of the classic jazz quartet instrumentation. They successfully meld the […]

Jazz Winnipeg is rolling out its ninth season of Nu Sounds, a lively series featuring Manitoba musicians venturing into new territory. The season opens on Sunday, January 18, with a performance by the Winnipeg Jazz Collective, a tentet of Winnipeg jazz musicians. Though personnel periodically adjusts to accommodate busy careers, the current configuration features Derek […]

When Simon Christie was a kid, he wanted to play saxophone, but at band tryouts, he couldn’t make a sound on it. He could play the trumpet right off the bat, so he figures trumpet picked him. Simon graduated from the Jazz Studies program four years ago, and brings his winning combination of musicality, discipline, […]

On November 16, Winnipeggers packed the Park Theatre for Rent Party 5, a special celebration of dig! magazine’s tenth birthday! Small groups of students and alumni played while people milled in the lobby, getting their pictures taken on the red carpet, making strategic efforts to win prizes at the rainbow auction table, watching images from […]

Rob McConnell is one of the larger-than-life figures in Canadian jazz. He’s crusty, comical, and a musical triple threat, for he is an exceedingly gifted valve trombonist, arranger, and composer. For most of his professional life he has lived in Toronto, with the exception of a brief time in Los Angeles in the late 1980s. […]

The list of musical figures whose lives were cut short is a lengthy one. For some their lives ended in an accident, others traveled a more self-destructive path, and still others were overtaken by a tragic set of circumstances. Booker Little seems to fall into the last of those categories. Little was one of the […]

My friend recently told me about weekly visits with her aged father-in-law in a lock-down dementia ward. Her husband thanks her profusely for going, but she admitted to me that she goes as much for herself as for the old man. “I’ll go to England with him,” she says. “I ask him what we’re going […]