When I first arrived in Winnipeg it felt like I was in a city that was happy to just be hiding in the middle of nowhere. At a welcoming committee I attended, one of the professors said to me, “Winnipeggers are proud of the many great things that are here. However, we like to keep […]

On Sunday, February 19, the Robert Glasper Experiment is hitting Winnipeg. Nine days later, they’ll release their much-anticipated album on Blue Note Records, Black Radio. This will mark the Experiment’s first full-length album, and it will feature many high profile guests, including Lalah Hathaway, Erykah Badu, Musiq Soulchild, and Stokley Williams of Mint Condition. Glasper […]

Jimmy Greene’s powerful saxophone and big heart have been a part of Winnipeg’s music scene for the last two and a half years. He can be heard at numerous venues around the city but his presence is felt most at the University of Manitoba where he teaches jazz saxophone and jazz composition and arranging, and […]

The winter nights might be long, but the daytimes are bright. Set aside your Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from January through to early March for the Music ‘N’ Mavens series at the Rady Jewish Community Centre. The series includes lectures on a broad range of topics (from Winnipeg crime to how to get out of […]

You may have heard Joanna Majoko by now—she sang this summer with the Jazz on Wheels band, she’s a regular at the Cool Wednesday Night Hang, and she performs all over town with her soul/R&B band, SoulStation. It’s hard to catch her voice in words. It’s silky and warm, with a touch of gospel and […]

We’ve started a new project at the University of Manitoba. On Saturdays, a crew of really talented high school kids get together with me to develop their skills as jazz musicians—and make some great music while they’re at it. The U of M Youth Jazz Collective is starting off as an octet: trumpet and trombone, […]

Jazz always reflects the spirit of the time. Back in the ragtime period, jazz was volatile—it was sexy, exotic, extroverted. In the early 60s with the Beatles revolution, jazz absorbed those ideas and offered jazz-rock fusion. Right now we’re in the information era. Every jazz musician has access to boatloads of information, and it’s readily […]

Sarah Vaughan was a great jazz vocalist, as talented as Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. What made Vaughan stand out was the broad range of colour in her voice. With a four-octave range, she could reach inside a song and make it her very own. Vaughan was a singer’s singer. She understood jazz because she […]

Paul Motian, drummer, composer, bandleader, and an important figure in the jazz world for over five decades, died November 22 at the age of 80. Motian is not known for flashy rhythm inventions or wild drum solos. I think of him as more of a tai chi drummer, understanding exactly what was necessary and never […]

I first heard the buzz about Esi Edugyan’s novel Half-Blood Blues when it hit last year’s prize lists. When a book is nominated for the Giller Prize (which it won), the Governor General’s Award, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Man Booker Prize, you know something special is going on. Half-Blood Blues straddles […]