A friend of mine asked me, “Which is more important, talent or hard work?” I say talent is hard work. I believe talent is the ability to focus and work hard at something. Some people do this at an early age and others never do it. Extraordinary people like Tiger Woods, Venus Williams, Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock and Christian McBride, had something in common in their early lives: an ability to concentrate. They also had the gift of appreciation.

Like dominoes, appreciation opens the door to inspiration, inspiration fuels passion which triggers motivation—and we begin to realize our dreams. When most kids watched cartoons, little Tiger Woods learned how to sink a 30-foot putt. He wasn’t good at it at first but he was inspired by the poetry of it. When most kids were learning how to play Asteroids or Pac-Man, Christian McBride was transcribing jazz bass solos. Christian was intrigued by the dance of countermelodies.

Recently one of my colleagues, Miguel Zenón, won the MacArthur Fellowship. It’s one of the most prestigious acknowledgements of artistic achievement in the States and carries a cash award of $500,000. My friends have nicknamed it the “genius grant.”

Many Winnipeggers have met Miguel. He was a guest artist three years at the U of M Summer Jazz Camp, and has also performed with the WJO. The most common comment I hear about Miguel, besides how dedicated and humble he is, is how “naturally gifted” he is.

Miguel is different from the aforementioned “naturally gifted” lot. They were on their way to stardom as children—college wasn’t an issue. Miguel acquired his natural gift in his own way and at a gradual pace. He attended many schools, including Berklee in Boston, and later graduated from Manhattan School of Music with a Master’s degree in Jazz Composition. In these institutions, he learned how to focus and dedicate himself to realize his true potential. Miguel can write the book on getting the most from his work/practice time. Now his discipline has paid off.

The thing that makes all that talent and discipline work is patience. The guiding principle for patience is faith. I believe that faith makes us unique in the universe. It’s possible that our faith amounts to what we’re worth as individuals.

Occasionally even an accomplished person loses faith. To them I say: a thousand miracles happen every day just to get me out of bed. This doesn’t happen so that I can fail at some worthwhile pursuit. It happens so that I can succeed. The same goes for everyone else on this planet.

Miguel stuck with his dream. In a society of immediate gratification, many of us lose patience with ourselves and let go of our dreams. The fact that we came into this world dreaming—and I suspect go out the same way—makes me value dreams all the more.

From 1993 to 2001, Ross Porter was the voice of jazz in Canada every weekday evening on CBC’s “After Hours,” a highly popular radio show broadcast out of Winnipeg. After a brief stint at CoolTV, Ross moved to Toronto in 2004 where he has built a highly successful station, Jazz.FM91. In 2006, he published the best-selling book, The Essential Jazz Recordings, a guide that shows astute insight as well as a broad and very personal knowledge of jazz musicians around the world. He has won several broadcasting awards and continues to inspire people on and off the air. I think of Ross Porter as one of the most influential people in the jazz scene in Canada. I caught up with him at his home in Toronto.

In your book, The Essential Jazz Recordings, you talk about how those 1960s recordings produced by Creed Taylor captured your imagination. I remember putting on Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’ on Sunset and Ron Carter’s All Blues—I didn’t even know jazz but those records just knocked me out. What is it about them, do you think?

Your timing on this is remarkable. I just came from New York where I’m working on a documentary series about Creed Taylor. I think he’s an underappreciated record producer, from those Bethlehem days through the Impulse years to Verve to CTI. Some of his critics accuse him for making jazz too accessible, but I have nothing but praise for what he achieved in terms of bringing jazz to the mainstream.

The magic about Creed is the way he puts the elements together. He recognized talent on the engineering side with heavy hitters like Rudy Van Gelder, Phil Ramone and others. He recognized talent on the arranging side too. Claus Ogerman and Don Sebesky, for instance—their work is amazing and Creed was there at the start. He had an instinct for the right repertoire too. He looked towards the songs that were popular and started to bring them into the mainstream.

He also recognized talent. With both headliners and sidemen, his ability to recognize talent was crucial. He took Gil Evans into the recording studio, and Oliver Nelson, and Freddie Hubbard. He signed John Coltrane to Impulse. Pat Metheny said to me once that a person’s perception of Creed Taylor’s work is kind of a litmus test: if they don’t understand what he was trying to accomplish, they don’t see the big picture of jazz.

You hand-picked 101 recordings for your book. For you, what makes a jazz recording memorable?

Bill Evans said to me one time that great music is about musical truth and beauty—I look for those qualities. Memorable jazz has a personality, so I look for a distinctive voice, a distinctive sound. It also has to withstand the test of time. Time puts music in perspective—you can hear a great recording today and perceive it as fantastic, but the question is, how will it stand up in ten years’ time?

So what message would you give today’s aspiring recording artists?

You have to capture the essence of who you are as a personality, and you have to get people’s attention. One of the mistakes I see now is artists making recordings for themselves. They lose sight of the fact that you have to get people to write about it and play it.

Also, people don’t listen to music the way they used to. There’s so many demands on them, whether it’s the 500-channel universe or being able to play your iPod in the car. You have to be sensitive to people’s time. This isn’t new, mind you. Creed told me that when he began, he started paying attention to the length of the solos, and asking himself, is there a musical statement here? For some players, the answer was obvious—when Coltrane was playing, he just got out of the way!

I think the key for aspiring artists is, don’t make a record in isolation. Think about who you want to market it to, how you want to get it played, then find a story people want to write about. A new jazz CD that recently crossed my desk is a tribute to Pink Floyd—that concept got my attention. One of the most successful singers in Canada right now is Sophie Milman. She’s got a great story to tell. She was born in Russia, raised in Israel, and now she’s singing her heart out in Canada. The people writing about her are maximizing that—it’s show business!

That’s what it is! I don’t know when it became vulgar to think about entertainment as show business. You’re asking people to spend their money and their time listening to you.

Some of the musicians I admire most really get that. Cyrus Chestnut, for example. Watch him in concert, listen to his recordings, talk to him—he gets marketing. His tribute to Elvis says that loud and clear. Steve Turre is like that too, and lots of others.

Sometimes I’d like to be a bug on your shoulder—you keep great company!

I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. I get to make a full-time living playing jazz—not the way you play it, but…

You’re following your passion, your dream. You’re as important as any great jazz artist because you’ve brought the art form to so many people and made it accessible without selling it out. That’s commendable.

I’ve been really fortunate to work with a lot of good people along the way. My years at CBC in Winnipeg were crucial—Kinsey Posen, Wes Wilson, Tom Anniko, John Bertrand, Peggy Ingram. And of course Izzy Asper. Izzy’s picture hangs by the door of my office—I wouldn’t be the CEO at Jazz.FM91 if it weren’t for him. My time with him was like going to the Harvard School of Business! I’m eternally grateful to him for showing me the balance between art and commerce.

Are you still in your dream job?

Absolutely! To be able to run a stand-alone jazz station in the largest market in Canada? We’re a niche station but my goodness we’re doing well. 320,000 people. They say cultures are defined by how they treat the arts, and I have to say that Torontonians’ response to the station has been great.

My jazz glass is half full, not half empty. Sure, there can always be growth, but I’m very happy with how jazz is being received in this country. The inferiority complex that seems to accompany this music can be self-perpetuating, and I really resist that. My time in Winnipeg (which still feels like home) was so good, and I wake up happy every day to be the CEO of Jazz.FM91. My experiences with jazz in this country have been nothing but positive.

So what do we have to do to get you back here to the Jazz Capital of Canada?

I don’t know, Steve—never say never! I’d love to teach…

Steve Kirby arrived in Winnipeg just before Ross Porter left for Toronto. Happily, their paths continue to cross.

I was surprised to see a lone mic stand and guitar on the stage at Joe’s Pub. Where were the drums, the piano, the saxophones? I was only in NYC for five days, and wanted to make sure I spent my nights wisely.

Wise is an understatement!

Gretchen Parlato’s performance that evening was one of the best shows I have ever seen—it opened my eyes to a lot of new possibilities. She and guitarist Lionel Loueke captured the audience with their first notes. The music was original, relaxing, refreshing, calm, unabrasive, exploratory, and highly communicative.

Every person in the room was glued to their chair, wide-eyed at the performance in front of them. Gretchen Parlato drew people in by singing quietly, using the dynamics of the lyrics, and improvising with sounds not often heard from a jazz singer. Singers who can actually sound like another instrument are few and far between. When Gretchen sang a bass line with Loueke, it was amazing!

At the time, swing was my thing, but the Brazilian-influenced jazz in this performance blew me out of the water! I was surprised to hear this new rhythmic feel without any drums, but the pair pulled it off without a hitch. And fortunately for me I discovered a Brazilian musician, Marco Castillo, right here in Winnipeg, soon after I returned from my trip. Now I have the opportunity to learn more about this music, and appreciate it even more when Gretchen comes this fall.

Rhythm played a huge part of the show. Lionel played on the body as well as the strings of his guitar, and Gretchen played some Brazilian percussion instruments. Both Gretchen and Lionel also make percussive sounds vocally—I remember thinking, I didn’t know you could do that! I was fascinated by all the sounds they made with only their voices. I tried some on my first duo gig, and it was very successful!

The most striking aspect of the performance, however, was the communication between the two musicians. They seemed to be connected in every way—anticipating and answering each other’s phrases, complementing each other, and just flowing seamlessly in the music. Their main purpose that night was to serve the music, and they did it so well. I could not look away from the stage, I was so transfixed by the magic happening there.

Gretchen Parlato has taken the jazz world by storm in a few short years. In 2003, she won a place in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, even though Wayne Shorter, Terence Blanchard, and Herbie Hancock were actually searching for a trumpet player. A year later she won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition. Her self-titled CD appeared in 2005, the same year she appeared on Blanchard’s Grammy-nominated Flow. She has recorded recently with Lionel Loueke, Esperanza Spalding, Kenny Barron, and a host of others, and has been named the Rising Star Female Vocalist three years in a row by Downbeat.

Herbie Hancock identifies her as “a singer with a deep, almost magical connection to the music.” Winnipeg has an amazing opportunity to catch that magic when she shares the stage with Lionel Loueke in the next Asper Jazz Performances concerts. They might change the way you think about jazz too!

Amber Epp is a vocalist in the Jazz Studies program at the U of M, and is sharing her passion for Latin and Brazilian jazz on stages around the city.

One of the most beautiful characteristics of jazz is that it is open to the influence of all cultures and musics. Jazz music itself is the result of a marriage between African rhythm language and European musical traditions. It has evolved to encompass a wide variety of styles, all of which seek to express the essence of the culture and people from which they come.

In recent years, the development of technology and communication has made music of all genres more accessible around the world. This thorough sharing of music has led to a further freeing of the jazz genre, where its blues roots in the United States and its improvisational nature are being applied to music all over the world. One of the most exciting musicians to embrace and adapt jazz music is guitarist Lionel Loueke.

Born and raised in the West African country of Benin, Lionel Loueke experienced music as a part of everyday life. His older brother played guitar in an Afro-Pop group, which Lionel spent many hours watching and listening to as a boy. At age 17, his brother finally let Lionel play his guitar. Loueke’s immediate ability with the instrument and his musical curiosity led him to delve further into the traditional music of Benin and other West African countries like Nigeria, Congo, Mali and Zaire. Loueke first encountered jazz when his brother’s friend introduced him to guitarist George Benson. Enthralled by what he heard, Loueke began studying Benson’s music, which led him to discover earlier jazz guitarists Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery.

Lionel left Benin to study music at the National Institute of Art in the Ivory Coast, where he got his first gig which he held for two years. In 1994, he moved to Paris and began his studies at the American School of Modern Music. Upon graduating he received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, Lionel met both Massimo Biolcati (bass) and Ferenc Nemeth (drums), his future band mates for many projects. After obtaining his degree at Berklee, he was accepted into the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles where he studied with top jazz musicians, including legends Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Terence Blanchard. Loueke so impressed his mentors that before the end of his studies at the Institute, he began touring with Blanchard’s sextet.

Loueke went on to become a staple of Hancock’s band, touring and recording with the acclaimed pianist. He is a frequent sideman on many recent recordings, including Hancock’s Grammy Award-winning album, River: The Joni Letters. He has also recorded three albums of his own. His most recent album and major label debut, Karibu (Blue Note records), was released last spring. It features Biolcati and Nemeth as well as exciting appearances by Wayne Shorter and Hancock. The album’s repertoire ranges from well-known standards to Loueke’s original compositions.

Lionel Loueke is unlike any guitar player and composer yet to have graced the jazz scene. He brings his distinct African style and virtuosic guitar playing to every musical project he undertakes. His playing is recognizable because he makes use not only of the strings, but also of the instrument’s body as a drum. His voice flows seamlessly over melodies, yet he contrasts these with astonishing vocal percussion. With creative use of pedals (affecting both his voice and guitar), Loueke is able to draw on a panorama of colours. His remarkable understanding of rhythm and his extensive study of jazz music allow him to thrive in all musical situations he encounters.

This November, the Izzy Asper Jazz Performances series welcomes Lionel Loueke to the stage alongside vocalist Gretchen Parlato. Though both Loueke’s and Parlato’s individual careers have flourished, their charismatic musical personalities, creativity and their wide knowledge of musical cultures have brought them together in various contexts. Parlato’s facility with Latin and African percussion and her clear voice (a cleaner Astrud Gilberto) make her an ideal partner for Loueke. In unison, their voices blend beautifully to produce a fresh free sound unparalleled in today’s music scene. For this concert they will be joined by bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth. It promises to be a musical experience that will take its listeners around the world and leave them breathless.

A vocalist in the U of M Jazz Studies program, Rayannah Kroeker also spearheads the Jazz for Humanity project.

Oscar Peterson was not only one of the greatest Canadian jazz musicians, he was one of the greatest musicians in the history of this music. He epitomized a whole style—he was the hard bop pianist! He had the technical proficiency of Art Tatum, the melodic skills of Bud Powell, he swung like Wynton Kelly. He took all these things and galvanized them into a listenable hard bop sound. In his playing, you could hear the blues, you could hear gospel, but no matter how complicated it got (and it could get complicated!), you could always follow the melody. His playing was relentlessly fast and relentlessly listenable.

Often when virtuosos team up, it just makes noise. But Oscar Peterson teamed up with the best players and it always sounded just beautiful. His bass players over the years are a virtual who’s who—Ray Brown, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Neil Swainson, and more recently Canadian Dave Young. He also played with some of the most important drummers—for me, his work with Ed Thigpen sets the bar as high as it can go.

In the course of his lifetime, Oscar Peterson performed all over the world, made more than 200 recordings, won seven Grammy awards, and logged countless honours, including the Companion of the Order of Canada, the UNESCO Music Prize, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and many honourary degrees. It’s appropriate, when we lose a giant like this, that we find ways to pay tribute, because we’re watching the passing of an era. There’s nobody who can really carry Oscar Peterson’s torch because his playing is so distinctly his own. At the same time, all the contemporary jazz pianists have been influenced by Oscar Peterson—and if they’re not, they’re missing something essential.

We’re approaching the one-year anniversary of his death, and Winnipeg is the place to mark the brilliance of Peterson’s contribution to the jazz landscape. On Sunday, November 16, our own local piano icon, Ron Paley, will be joined by Peterson’s Canadian rhythm section, Terry Clarke on drums and Dave Young on bass, and together, they’ll heat up Westminster United with a Tribute to Oscar Peterson. The Winnipeg Singers and soprano Valdine Anderson are part of the line-up too. This is one of those don’t-miss occasions…

Steve Kirby is the Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Manitoba.

Home is an idea that most of us are familiar with. I call it an idea because that’s what it is—something intangible, a place we hold in our hearts and our minds. Home defines us, finds us, gives us refuge, solace, and comfort. Home can be made of bricks and mortar, a house or a town or a city. It can even be a person. But whatever form it takes, it’s still an idea. One that’s unique for each of us.

Oscar Peterson has an idea of home, formed while living the life of a successful jazz pianist travelling the world and seeing all of its possibilities and failings. I’m sure his concept of home has changed over the decades, but I think that one part has remained constant: Canada. There have been times when Canada wasn’t as good to Peterson as he’s been to it, but this is what defines a patriot: someone who serves and honours their country without expecting anything in return.

The Canadiana Suite is about Peterson’s home, Canada. It is an essential piece of Canadian culture to have in your collection, and one of his strongest musical statements. The album expresses his affection and pride for his country and the city where he was born, Montreal. The selections evoke a train ride across Canada. Peterson’s father, Daniel, worked as a train porter, and you can imagine him returning from his cross-country travels to tell a young Peterson about the sights he saw.

Many of the songs are blues-based and are a musical tribute to cities and places. The suite moves from east to west. “Ballad to the East” is a delicate, classically flavoured song about the Maritimes. The majestic “Laurentide Waltz” is about the Laurentian Mountains just north of Montreal. “Place St. Henri” is a swinging tune about the one-time working-class area of Montreal where Peterson grew up. The musical journey moves on to Toronto with Peterson’s elegant “Hogtown Blues” and then to Manitoba and Saskatchewan with the two Peterson classics “Blues for the Prairies” and “Wheatland.” The frisky “March Past” is about the Calgary Stampede parade, and the suite ends with Peterson’s tranquil tribute to the Rocky Mountains, “Land of the Misty Giant.” The Canadiana Suite is intimate and thoughtful, and Peterson’s playing is flawless and elegant.

I once had the pleasure of visiting Peterson at his home. As I approached the house he lived in, I noticed a face carved into the front door. It was pianist Art Tatum’s. I couldn’t help but smile and think, man, someone special lives here. And when I think of Oscar Peterson, and what his fellow Canadians feel about him, that sums it up. Someone special lives here.

And we should all thank him for that.

Choice Cuts is a new monthly column featuring a CD from Ross Porter’s book, The Essential Jazz Recordings (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006).

The U of M Jazz Studies program is taking full advantage of several artists-in-residence in the 2008-2009 academic year. Saxophonist Jimmy Green has been coaching and teaching students in October, and fellow saxophonist Steve Wilson picks up the torch in November.

Steve Wilson is no stranger to the U of M, or to Winnipeg audiences either. A guest artist at the 2007 U of M Summer Jazz Camp, Wilson has inspired a whole crew of young musicians in this city, and he shared his tremendous talents on stage at the Summer Night Jazz concert as well.

Steve Wilson plays a wicked saxophone. He appears on more than 100 recordings with a broad range of the jazz elite—players like Chick Corea, Dianne Reeves, Mulgrew Miller, and Joe Henderson. He also has several celebrated CDs under his own name. He’s been cited in the alto and soprano saxophone categories of Downbeat polls, and has won acclaim and awards for his playing.

What makes Steve Wilson a special teacher? Kirby points to his extraordinary knowledge base and his openness to learning. “He comes in with this ocean of knowledge, but he comes in so humble that we want to learn from him. It’s as though he’s presenting a body of information that’s in front of us all and he shows us all how to dip into the pool. He doesn’t assume the role of expert, but of fellow learner.”

Wilson has talked about his own inspiring teachers—old-school musicians who offered support and made demands on the bandstand, jazz educators who consolidated and passed along information and strategies, and perhaps especially jazz artists like Chick Corea and Dave Holland who continue to inspire him with their appetite for learning, and their willingness to grow and adventure musically.

He’s already establishing himself as a next-generation mentor, and Winnipeg’s young jazz musicians are keen to absorb more of what he has to offer. He’ll be coaching and teaching during his two-week stint at the U of M. He’ll be holding court on stage too—don’t miss him!

Charlene Diehl is a Winnipeg writer and performer with a passion for jazz.

Ron Paley offers a lot to the city he loves—he’s a busy jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher, and a mentor to a lot of emerging players.

November is a big month for Ron. On November 16, he’ll team up with bassist Dave Young and drummer Terry Clarke, to pay tribute to the late, great Oscar Peterson. Young and Clark toured and recorded with Peterson, and the trio will be playing Peterson’s original compositions.

I asked Ron if he’d ever met Oscar Peterson, and he said, “Once, for about a minute! I’d been commissioned to arrange Peterson’s “Hymn to Freedom” for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir for the Royal Visit. Peterson and his quartet were playing. I was introduced to him at the dress rehearsal and he said, ‘Is everything alright?’ I thought that was such an intuitive thing to say—I learned a lot from that one-minute meeting!”

Ron is well-known in Winnipeg and beyond as the leader of the Ron Paley Big Band. The band plays a mixture of dance music and jazz, and has been delighting people for a good long time now. I asked him how he’s kept his big band in business for so long. “Well, we’ve been rehearsing every Thursday for 32 years—it keeps us playing! When I was on the road, I got it literally drummed into me by a drummer.” Exactly what got drummed into you, I wondered. His answer? “Big-Band-itis.”

The Ron Paley Big Band plays throughout the summer at the Lyric Theatre in Assiniboine Park, and plays often around the city and beyond. They will hit the stage in the Jazz Under the Rooftop series at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in November.

The last time the band toured was a couple of years ago with Ron’s arrangements of Rodgers and Hart songs for the very successful Royal Winnipeg Ballet production of A Cinderella Story. Ron is anxious to hit the road again soon. He’s hard at work on a big band musical called Bring ’em Back—no doubt that will have a lot of toes tapping.

By all indications, Big-Band-itis is incurable. Ron is hoping that’s the case, and legions of fans are hoping so too!

Jazz vocalist Anna-Lisa Kirby profiles local jazz musicians in every issue.

One of my discoveries on the run-up to this year’s THIN AIR writers festival was a quirky little book called A Voweller’s Bestiary by Toronto poet JonArno Lawson. The premise is a bit like a kids’ A-is-for-aardvaark, B-is-for-bumblebee book, but Lawson turns things inside out and trips on vowels instead of initial consonants.

Initially, the poems revolve around single-vowel words. “An ant’s bad karma / has blatant drawbacks” is how the first poem begins; “Stuck-Up Gulls Must Trust Dumb Ducks” is both a title and a moral-of-the-story of the fifth. As the book progresses, we travel through curious little scenes built around two- and three- and more-vowel words. “Alligator,” the a-i-o poem, closes with this economical little gem: “Florida’s champion attraction? / Alligators’ flamingo compactions.”

The pieces in this collection are funny, odd, provocative. They do something very strange to your listening ear. When JonArno read them out loud, all of us scrambled to hold onto the narrative thread, but we were all busy dissecting the aural landscape as well, trying to identify the vowel-cluster. Even when I’d solved the puzzle, I found myself listening as much to the sound-world as to the sense-world.

I love this about poetry: it is a resolutely aural literary form. It depends on readers caring enough to be aware of the aural dimension of language. If Walter Pater is to be trusted in his assertion that “all art aspires toward the condition of music,” then this sound/sense strategy is poetry’s kick at the can.

I’m delighted by JonArno’s poems because they’re jubilantly playful, and in that way they remind me of great jazz solos—you’re being invited to appreciate dexterity and wit, and to ride along on a wave of energy that makes you glad to be alive and in the presence of creative effort.

But the project here also foregrounds another of the essential characteristics of all creative enterprise: it has absolutely strict limitations. That’s the nature of the contract between artist and medium. JonArno Lawson kept lists and lists of words on the way to The Voweller’s Bestiary, and those words provoked him to find their stories. Jazz musicians keep their own kinds of lists—rhythmic shapes, harmonic structures, scale patterns—and invent elegant answers to demanding restrictions. Audiences, whether they’re solo readers or concert crowds, take pleasure in witnessing the imagination and virtuosity with which artists use those limits to outdo themselves.

The more I read books and listen to music and watch films, the more I believe that a set of rules, whether they’re broadly shared (like the blues scale or the sonnet form) or arcanely personal (like JonArno’s word families), are what releases artists to do their work. My students who insisted poetry can mean whatever you want consistently produced lax, dull poems. Saying everything is like saying nothing. Saying something? Well that’s another kind of play.

Charlene Diehl is the Director of THIN AIR, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival.