My first bass teacher was an old Jewish guy by the name of Henry Loew. He was the principal bassist in the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. He was an amazingly generous soul who cared for me like a son. In my very first lesson, I brought along a bass that was once owned by a […]

This August, the University of Manitoba will attract a new band of junior high and high school musicians, along with a handful of adult weekend warriors, for the annual U of M Summer Jazz Camp, now in its 24th year. For a full week, these musicians learn new repertoire, gain new levels of accomplishment on […]

The Leo Mol Sculpture Garden at Assiniboine Park is one of the cultural treasures in this city, an elaborate maze of blooms leading a walker through an outdoor gallery of sculptures by the incomparable Leo Mol. Born Leonid Molodozhanyn in 1915 in present-day Ukraine, Mol studied sculpture in Leningrad, was deported to Germany during the […]

Marc Tugby is one of a bright new crop of young jazz bassists in Winnipeg. You may have seen him with the U of M Jazz Orchestra, or with a student ensemble kicking things off at the Izzy Asper Jazz Performances, or holding down the bass at the Cool Wednesday Night Hang. He’s quietly dedicated, […]

The sax player and flautist Roland Kirk unjustly earned a reputation for being gimmicky because of his eccentric, often bizarre appearance on stage and because he played as many as three instruments in his mouth at once. His stature is worth defending because Kirk was an innovative soloist and an entertaining performer who was well […]

I first saw Chris Potter in the early 1990s when he was travelling with Red Rodney, a trumpet player who was one of the last players to play with Charlie Parker before he died. Red Rodney was doing a gig in St. Louis at the Majestic Hotel but this kid on tenor saxophone was the […]

It’s the last thing you said which rings in your ear when someone you care about dies. More than the accomplishments or acquisitions, our legacy is determined by the experience left behind. For those who knew Greg Lowe, a prolific Manitoban musician who passed away this May, those experiences were ones of respect, trust, professionalism, […]

In a big tent under the warm June sun, I had a chance to hear Inuit master storyteller Michael Kusugak. In under an hour, we ran alongside dogsleds on snowy tundra and we curled up in igloos lit by seal oil lamps to hear a grandmother’s stories. We were mesmerized by tales of a mythical […]