This is a crazy world we live in. A house party is where a group of people get together to stare at their phones. You can have a thousand friends and no meaningful conversation. A peanut can be fatal and injected botulism can be beautiful. In this crazy world, Winnipeg sits in the bull’s-eye centre […]

If you haven’t heard the name Kamasi Washington yet, it’s just a matter of time, because this young tenor player is taking the jazz world by storm. A west-coaster—and son of a saxophonist—Washington started playing drums as a little kid, then the clarinet. He listened almost exclusively to hip hop until he was about 13, […]

As I write, I’m listening to a hard-swingin’ recording of the great pianist, Mr Oliver Jones. I heard him play years ago in Toronto at the now-closed Montreal Bistro Jazz Club, and I can’t wait to re-live the swing here at the TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival! The wonderful Oliver Theophilus Jones was born in […]

Amanda Tosoff is a BC-raised, Toronto-based pianist, composer, and bandleader. She has established herself in recent years as a rising star in the Canadian music scene, performing with such internationally-recognized artists as Phil Dwyer and Ingrid and Christine Jensen, and has opened for jazz legends including Bobby Hutcherson and Renee Rosnes. At the piano, Tosoff […]

Saxophonist Tia Fuller has established herself as a prominent force in jazz today. You may have heard her performing in Beyoncé’s band, and make no mistake, this cat can play! Tia was born in Colorado to a musical family—her father is a bassist and her mother a singer. Now a professor at Boston’s famed Berklee […]

The TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival features a wide range of music every year, from blues to bebop to electronic—and everything in between. The Tedeschi Trucks Band, featuring Winnipeg’s own guitar hero Joey Landreth as their guest artist, is decidedly on the blues end of that spectrum.  Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks are both accomplished […]

If you sit across the table from Steve Kirby in a café, you’ll notice pretty quickly that he’s always aware of the music—not only what’s playing, but also the music of people’s voices. Steve leads with both his ear and his curiosity, which is one of the reasons he’s accomplished so much as a musician […]

There is something uniquely bold about the music of Tortoise, a post-rock band from Chicago, Illinois. Tortoise’s style borrows from multiple genres such as jazz, electronica and psychedelic rock. Instrumentation for this band includes many acoustic and electric instruments like vibraphone, melodica, and synth, resulting in rich soundscapes with many layers. Development is the band’s […]

Troy Andrews, better known as Trombone Shorty, started playing in brass band parades when he was shorter than the trombone he carried—thus his name! At the age of thirteen, he was featured in Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Listen to a recording of that concert and you’ll clearly see that Andrews is a […]

Jay Buchanan heard Ella Fitzgerald for the first time when he was still a teen, and something awakened inside him. “I had never heard someone sing a melody so beautifully, or with such joy, freedom, and control,” he muses. When she forgot the lyrics and launched into scat, he knew he too wanted to be […]

Most young jazz musicians look at all the chords and scales they need to master and find it a bit intimidating. (I mean, what is an M# demented chord anyway?) They spend countless hours practicing so they will instantly know exactly what scales work over which chords, and how to create smooth voice-leading. That’s all […]

Chesney Henry “Chet” Baker Jr. had movie-star good looks, a breathy, spine-tingling singing voice, and produced a warm melancholy sound on the trumpet. He was an enormously gifted musician who, for almost his entire adult life, put getting high on heroin above everything else. Chet never had a bank account; he always kept all of […]

It’s not easy establishing yourself as a jazz vocalist. You have to know the lineage of the art form, find your spot in a changing jazz scene, and develop your own sound and style. Among the up-and-comers, British vocalist-pianist Jamie Cullum stands out on my to-see list. His charisma and style compliment his badass piano […]

Strange things happen when your brain is interrupted. I fell toward the end of February and banged my head on the ice. The next few weeks are a murky haze of sleep, dim rooms, and headaches. I’m pulling back into full-speed traffic now, but it’s been an exercise in accommodation and patience—from others, and from […]