As the new term begins, I will teach an improvisation class to two types of people: some who want to learn, and some who want to learn without being observed publicly. The latter doesn’t want the humiliation of failing in public. It’s natural that nobody wants to sign up for public humiliation, but putting fear […]

Trombonist Curtis Fuller’s warm tone and “buckets and buckets of soul” (Gigi Gryce) makes him immediately identifiable and consistently in demand, even after almost six decades of performing. His resumé reads like a history of jazz—he’s recorded and played with a who’s who of jazz elite, and he continues to be highly sought-after, even into […]

This September, Izzy Asper Jazz Performances subscribers are in for an explosive start to the 2008-09 season. Kansas City alto saxophonist Bobby Watson will be in town with Horizon, a band which has been swingin’ people into good health with feel-good jazz for almost twenty years. This has not gone unnoticed: the group was featured […]

Every year, the Israeli Concert Series presents an exciting combination of jazz, folk and world influences within the context of Israeli music. This year, the series is off to a vibrant start with singer and composer Michal Cohen who is taking the stage with Steve Kirby, Will Bonness, Winnipeg clarinetist Myron Schultz, and New York […]

The University of Manitoba has announced its first new hiring in the Jazz Studies program: drummer Terreon Gully. Gully has performed often in Winnipeg over the past several years—he’s an annual faculty favourite at the summer Jazz Camp, he’s been featured more than once at the Izzy Asper Jazz Performances, and he laid down the […]

Sam Chrol is a nineteen-year-old reed player just entering her second year in the Jazz Studies program at the U of M. Already she’s made an impact on the musical world—she was the first Canadian to win an Outstanding Wind Soloist at the Essentially Ellington competition in New York City, and this summer she received […]

We’re about to have a visitation from as close to a celestial being as the jazz community has yet been able to produce. I’m talking about Jimmy Greene. He is a tall, broad, gentle, corn-fed giant. Peace and love just pours out of his eyes—he’s a really warm spirit. And he plays a mean tenor […]

Jazz on Wheels has had a busy summer, with appearances at a bunch of community events and several inner-city summer programs for kids. We’ve had a great time too. Amber Epp and Heitha Forsyth are an infectious duo—I swear they could get a crowd of corpses up dancing! They find a way to bring the […]

At least a couple of hundred new books crowd onto my desk each year, each of them in contention for a spot on the roster for THIN AIR, Winnipeg’s annual festival of writers at the end of September. There’s some of everything in those stacks: novels, short fiction, memoirs, mysteries, biographies, plays, poetry. Some are […]