I was recently invited to a Grade 4 classroom at Riverbend School. The encounter was among the most memorable I’ve had since coming to Winnipeg.

On arrival, 9-year-old ambassadors greeted me at the door with cordial speeches, and led me to the main office where they signed me in and introduced me to the principal. I was given a clip-board with an agenda and led down the hall past colourful artwork they had produced for my visit. When we arrived at Room 15, the children were on the floor around a comfortable easy chair. A spokesman introduced me to his classmates, and said something personal about each one—what they like, what they do, what makes them special.

Then they asked me questions about myself. When they asked my favourite thing to do, I said, “Meeting people like you.” They were surprised by that—they thought I was going to say “playing jazz.” I told them I love playing jazz, but mainly because it helps me travel around the world and meet curious people. They busily wrote that in their notebooks. They asked me why I love jazz so much. I told them it’s because jazz is the first world music, the first musical expression of racial tolerance. Furious note-scribbling ensued.

I saw by the way those kids supported each other that they already understood a lot about tolerance yet I took a chance to probe them a bit deeper. I asked them to raise their hands if they knew somebody who had a stinky lunch. After some giggling and hesitation, several kids raised their hands. Other kids admonished them for raising their hands. A lot of chatter ensued, and finally one said to the others, “You know, people who have stinky lunches may think your lunch is stinky too.” The room went quiet. Teachers and students began to write in their notebooks again.

On the eve of a new year and a new era in American and world politics, I’ve been doing an informal survey about how my friends and colleagues define peace. I asked this group of grade four students also. Not surprisingly, their answers were incredible. Ryan said, “Peace is a place where there’s respect and no violence.” Teegan said, “Peace is when everyone is safe.” Breanna stunned me with this answer: “Peace is when you want to share the whole world with everyone.” What more can be said after that? In that group of kids, I saw the beginnings of real traction toward world peace. In that moment, I felt that I was in a holy place.

In these days of war, bigotry and oppression, peace on earth sounds extremely naïve. Yet the children of Ms Campbell’s fourth-grade class see their way to peace very clearly. Share the world with everyone. Realize you might have a stinky lunch too.

We always hear about people waging war. Cora Campbell is teaching her students to wage peace, one classroom at a time. Thanks, Room 15, for sharing your visionary world with me. It’s my pleasure to pass it on.

Sophie Milman is a new jazz singer who is making waves across Canada and in other countries around the world. Her first self-titled disc, Sophie Milman, sold over 100,000 copies and gained her wide critical attention. Her second CD, the 2007 recording Make Someone Happy, won her a Juno for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. She appears in the most recent Downbeat as an artist to watch, and she has a busy international touring schedule—which just happens to include an appearance in Winnipeg this February at the Burton Cummings Theatre.

Born in Russia, Sophie and her family emigrated to Israel when she was only seven.  When she was 16, the family sought a new life in Canada and Sophie has made Toronto her home ever since. Sophie is intelligent, intuitive and hard working—probably just a few of the benefits of having more cross-cultural experience in her 25 years than many have in a lifetime.

Make Someone Happy is a quality recording that showcases Sophie’s smooth, smoky vocals. She has a confident, consistent sound that is distinctive because of her slight Russian accent. At this point in her career, she’s not writing work herself—as she puts it, she “would rather be doing good covers than bad originals.” From the simmering “Something in the Air between Us” to the spiritual “Eli, Eli” to a fresh take on “Undun” (with The Guess Who’s Randy Bachman, no less), Make Someone Happy is a great addition to any jazz listener’s library.

I was fortunate enough to catch up with Sophie early in December just after she finished recording her third album.

How did you come to jazz?

I listened to jazz as a really young kid.  My dad had a pretty comprehensive collection: Oscar Peterson, Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Brown—really wonderful, classic stuff.  It tuned my ear and made me a lot more sophisticated in my musical tastes.

I always sang along, making up words even though I knew little English.  As a teenager what came out was a mish-mash of all the records I had been listening to—Peggy Lee, Edith Piaf, Ella, Sarah—all sung with a slight Russian accent. I really connected with the music right away.

After high school I started sitting in at jazz clubs. I compare it with the kids who play pick-up basketball with no intention of going pro. I caught the eye of a piano player named Bill King and he gave me my first gig. He put me in a rotation at a restaurant that had a jazz series and I sang Tuesday nights. A record label walked in a few days later and they liked me and were in the mood for signing a young jazz artist. And that was when the path of my life completely changed—I went from being a first-year commerce student who sang jazz once in awhile to being a jazz singer who studied commerce once in a while!

Who are your music icons?

My favourite jazz singer is Carmen McRae.  She’s always playing somewhere on my iPod.  Then there is Shirley Horn, Jaco Pastorius, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Miles, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder—I love good music!

You have a busy performing schedule that many young musicians would envy. What are the highs and lows?

The highs are obvious: being able to go on the road and sing—it’s an amazing thing when you stop and think about it. I can live from what I love to do! I have an amazing band that I really enjoy spending time with on and off stage. Meeting different audiences, seeing how audiences around the world react to different things. I have seen the world as a result of what I do—I can’t imagine anything better than that.

The lows? Being away from family and the people who, at the end of the day, are closest to you. You tend to get kind of homesick.  The jazz touring schedule is intense. At the high-end clubs in the States and Japan, they often require two 75-minute sets a night, six or seven nights a week.  It gets hard on the voice. I recently started taking classical voice lessons just so that I can keep my voice in decent shape.

What are your goals for the future?

I’m really excited about this next record—we have bookings into 2010. We are going to be playing some symphony shows next year which is terrifying and exhilarating. I saw Dianne Reeves performing with a symphony in Toronto. That was the most amazing experience of my life and we’re going to be doing that next year!

Also I want to excel.  It’s not enough for me to just sing songs.  I want to grow from record to record.  As long as I feel like I am living up to my musical potential I will be really happy doing this for the rest of my life.

What advice do you have for fledgling jazz singers as they begin their performing careers?

You know, everybody has their own path. (I’m totally not zen but that came out really zen!) There are no rules to this game other than not compromising too much in what you’re doing. Follow your musical instincts because the music industry will chew up young women if we let them. It sounds harsh, but it does tend to happen. So no matter how young or inexperienced you are, you’ve got to come in there with some attitude. At the same time, keep an open mind and listen to people when they give advice.

Put together the most amazing band and be loyal to them.  Take them on the road even when it’s financially unthinkable.  The beauty that comes out of a band that is comfortable together is unmatched.  When I was on an indie label with no budget, I dragged my guys with me everywhere and it paid off over the years.  It’s like a family on the road.

You said that there are struggles just in the nature of being a young woman in the business.  Have you had anybody try to push you around?

Absolutely! Yes I am petite and blonde, yes I was signed when I was 19, but at the same time I have a strong personality. On my first tour of Canada I did an interview with someone who told me that I need to sound more like Norah Jones, more “rootsy.” I hung up the phone.

Fundamentally, I am who I am, I sound the way I sound. I’m going to get better, I’m going to develop, but I will not force myself to fit into a mould—ever. And I think that has really worked out for me over the years. No I haven’t sold 14 million records, but I don’t feel like I need to at this point in my career. As long as I keep growing, as long as every record and live performance is better than the ones before, I’ll be happy. I’m kind of a simple girl that way.

Erin Propp is a vocalist in the U of M Jazz Studies program.

A mainstay of Toronto’s bustling jazz scene, drummer Ted Warren has played with most anyone who’s anyone on the Canadian scene and several prominent artists from abroad, including Kenny Wheeler, Dave Liebman, and Slide Hampton. This January, he and his band are booked in to play at the Park Theatre as part of Jazz Winnipeg’s Jazz Innovators series.

Warren is no stranger to the prairies: he was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan. From there he moved to Antigonish, Nova Scotia, to study at St. Francis Xavier University for two and a half years, receiving a diploma in jazz studies. He eventually moved to Montreal to attend McGill University. During that period, he was frequently traveling to Toronto to play, and ended up relocating to Toronto in the early 90s, working with several local musicians, most notably Don Thompson, Jeff Healey, and Rob McConnell’s Boss Brass.

In 1993, the consummate sideman decided to put together Ted’s Warren Commission (an oft-misread play on the U.S. government agency responsible for investigating JFK’s assassination) to feature his original compositions. The band is rounded out by bassist (and former Winnipegger) Mike Downes, whom Warren met at St. FX, trumpeter Mike Malone, and guitarist Ted Quinlan. The Warren Commission’s latest record, Songs for Doug was released this past year, and is dedicated to Doug Riley, a veteran Toronto musician who passed away less than a month before the recording date. His presence is still felt on CD, as several cuts feature work the group had done with Riley for CBC Radio and for Humber College, where Warren, Downes, and Quinlan are all faculty members.

Songs for Doug grabs the listener’s attention immediately with Warren’s clever “Haiku” (only when I read the title of the tune did I understand its strange five beat-seven beat-five beat rhythm), and continues through “Jonesin’,” a contrafact of Richard Rodgers’ “Have You Met Miss Jones” set over an odd-metered Afro-Cuban groove. “Cautionary Tale,” my personal favourite, is a live recording featuring an extended organ solo by Riley. Other tunes on the record show off Warren’s broad palette of influence—“Motown Meets MacMurray” features a driving beat that is unmistakably characteristic of its namesake, and “Zakir” (the only non-Warren composition, written by Downes), a stream-of-consciousness tune in 15/8, is clearly influenced by Indian music. “Lemon House” burns all the way through, and “Kate and the Wave,” featuring Riley on piano, cools the album down again. “Doubt Galore” is reminiscent of The Police and is a great, energetic tune to leave the listener with, before sending them off with the pretty “Elvinessence.”

Winnipeg is just one stop of several on a cross-country tour in support of Songs For Doug. The tour begins on the east coast in Antigonish, moves west to Montreal, then on to Winnipeg, Brandon, Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, Vancouver, and finally Victoria.

This is certainly not the first time Winnipeggers have heard Ted Warren. Winnipeg musician Knut Haugsoen has enlisted Warren’s skills on three of his albums, including his 2001 Juno-nominated recording Step and a Half. Warren also plays on Michelle Grégoire’s 2004 release Reaching. She praises Warren’s intuitiveness, enthusiasm, musicality, and enormous dynamic range, mentioning that he “breathed life into my music, he gave it a literal heartbeat.” Grégoire also stressed Warren’s easy-going nature, something I experienced first-hand when I spoke with him myself.

What surprised me was the impact Warren had on Grégoire’s life. When she was 18, an Antigonish group featuring Warren and Downes played in the CCFM’s Mârdi Jazz series. The group blew her away, and led her and several other local musicians—Kelly Marques, Rob Siwik, and Gilles and Lianne Fournier—to enrol at St. Francis Xavier to study jazz. Fifteen years later, preparing to record Reaching, Grégoire did a tonne of research, and Ted’s playing kept jumping out at her. He was definitely the right choice for her debut.

“Minor Alterations,” the first tune on Reaching, is evidence enough. Warren employs his full dynamic range starting with a very light touch, and escalating to an extremely muscular solo. Both of these extremes are found throughout the record: his sensitivity is really showcased on “December 1st,” and he plays with pure fire on “Knock It.” No matter what music he is playing, Warren shapes it remarkably.

When Ted Warren visits Winnipeg with Ted’s Warren Commission, we’ll have a chance to hear a strong band performing original work with a lot of energy and stylistic range. Here’s a bonus: he’ll also offer a drumming workshop in the afternoon.

Curtis Nowosad is a busy Winnipeg drummer enrolled in the Jazz Studies program at the U of M.

Steve Kirby’s Oceanic Jazz Orchestra took a lot of listeners by surprise last June at the Groove-FM Jazz Winnipeg Festival when the group opened for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. They heated things up again as the opener for the Domino Jazz Concert in mid-August. They anchored this year’s Concert for Hope and Peace, and will bring their sound to the Winnipeg Art Gallery in February as part of the Jazz Under the Rooftop series.

From repertoire to instrumentation, OJO is forging its own path. You’re likely to hear a Persian death song keening over a jazz rhythm section. Or a Japanese folk song counterpointed with “The Shadow of Your Smile.” Or a Leonard Cohen tune reconfigured by an Arabic malfuf rhythm. You’re likely to hear traces of Brazil, India, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Cuba, and straight-up Americana, all on the same roster.

The band make-up is a little unusual too. A traditional jazz rhythm section—sometimes sans piano—forms the core. Depending on the piece, you’re likely to hear various combinations of saxophone, trumpet, and trombone. A string quartet is an important component in pretty much all of the arrangements, and many pieces feature vocalists. Almost all depend on the texture of additional percussionists, with other more exotic instruments appearing here and there.

For Steve Kirby, the Oceanic Jazz Orchestra is the realization of a long-held dream. He has played all over the world, from Portugal to Japan to Iceland to Turkey to Argentina and all over North America, and those travels have given him a chance to hear many kinds of music and meet audiences and musicians of many backgrounds. He began to collect folk melodies from his first travels outside of the US, and was always intrigued by how those musical structures connected with the standard repertoire that has evolved in the jazz idiom.

The orchestra gives him an opportunity to explore relationships between folk traditions and the jazz tradition. Oceana, that mythic idea of the world as a gathering of related parts, provides the impetus for both the writing and the instrumentation. The group itself is responsive to the performance context and who’s around to play—Israeli-born trumpeter Avishai Cohen brought his sensibility to the Domino Concert stage this summer, and American saxophone virtuoso Steve Wilson will be part of the group at the WAG performance in February. But this isn’t really a showcase for famous frontmen. On the stage last summer, world-class saxophonist Victor Goines stood shoulder to shoulder with Shannon Kristjanson, a young jazz student at the U of M. Her offering on the Chinese flute was among the most moving moments of the evening.

Exchange is an idea that sits at the center of the whole OJO project. Exchange between musical folk traditions and the jazz process. Exchange between various performance styles and genres. Exchange between players of different backgrounds—Andrea Bell and various other members of the Rembrandt String Quartet provide an important counterpoint to the jazz artists in all of the arrangements. Communication is the key, and when it happens on so many levels at once, it opens the door to a fresh wind.

It might be a new idea, but it’s an old idea too. At its inception, jazz was the art form that came out of the collision and coalescing of dramatically different musical languages and cultures. That New Orleans’ “world music” experiment has expanded and changed shape over the intervening century—jazz has migrated out to far-flung places, and the musical languages of those far-flung places are gradually making their way back into the central holding tank of ideas.

The Oceanic Jazz Orchestra is right there at that point of influx. It takes as its mandate the basic tenets of jazz: a trust in the energy and richness of conversation between individual artists and between musical traditions, and a high value for spontaneity, virtuosity, creativity, and an appetite for new ideas. The world tour has come to Winnipeg—don’t miss your ticket.

Charlene Diehl is a writer who travels the world through books and music.

Mira Black was born in Winnipeg in 1968, but didn’t stay here very long. She spent much of her childhood in many exotic places—India, Florida, Antigua—but eventually landed back in Winnipeg. At Balmoral Hall, she began to sing in musicals and “because it was an all-girls school and because of my vocal range and my stature, I got to play all the great male roles in musical theatre!” More importantly, on stage she was able to forget that she was “deathly shy.”

After high school Mira went on the road across Canada for several years with a gypsy/swing/folk band called Acoustically Inclined. “We got to open for great bands like Blue Rodeo, Sarah McLaughlin, The Crash Test Dummies.” When asked her about her musical training, she says, “I got my butt kicked on the road, just doing it every night for months in a row.” Her bandmates included jazz musicians Gilles Fournier and Richard Moody, but she took her time getting to jazz. “Sarah Vaughan was the first vocalist that I understood to be an all around musician rather than a singer in a musical. When I heard a recording of her singing “Stella by Starlight” I thought, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you could even do that! Could I do that?’ It was inspiring to me.”

After an attempt to become a “wife with a degree and a 9-to-5 job and a house with a picket fence,” she became ill. Gradually she realized it was an illness of her spirit, brought about partly because she had moved away from music. “For whatever reason, music feeds me, performing feeds me, expressing myself in my art heals me.”

Mira is now on a full-speed artist’s journey. She’s been a featured artist at the Jazz Winnipeg Festival for the last several years. Last year, she debuted an original jazz-theatre piece, “Lush Life,” in Jazz Winnipeg’s Nu Sounds series at the Park Theatre—plans are taking shape for another production later this year. She recently released Live @ The Moment, a debut CD of original material that combines jazz, folk and pop sensibilities with a trance-like soulfulness. This winter and spring, she’s singing with the WJO, as well as at the Current Lounge and other gigs around town, and in April she’ll host her (11th annual) 29th birthday bash, a party that features her many musical friends in this town.

Curious about her busy schedule? Visit myspace.com/mirablack.

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

I often liken learning jazz to learning a language. If you took a class in Russian and the instructor only opened the textbook, you might piece together a certain amount, maybe even approximate a few sounds. But if I dropped you off in Moscow, you’d be lost. You might recognize a few signs, but you couldn’t ask for the train station or understand if someone spoke to you.

The same goes for jazz. If you don’t really learn from the masters and internalize the rhythmic, harmonic, melodic language they speak, there’s no way to really communicate in the jazz sense. Getting there takes a lot of real listening—listening with a purpose. Transcription is a critical part of internalizing this language, and this is a strategy that really works.

First, identify a solo that addresses your needs. If you think you really need to work on your slow blues playing, it doesn’t make sense to transcribe one of Ornette Coleman’s up-tempo free-form pieces, no matter how great the solo. Figure out what you want to work on, and then choose a solo that meets those needs.

Then, learn to sing that solo, note for note, with every single inflection, every nuance. You want to recreate it rhythmically and melodically, exactly the way the soloist plays it. All you need for this step is your headphones and your voice. Sing with the recording so that you can’t distinguish your voice from the soloist’s voice. Once you’ve mastered that, turn off your stereo and sing that same solo, in rhythm, and hear the harmony in your head. If you can, take it a step further and play the chord changes on the piano and sing the solo while you’re doing it. Remember, once you can sing something, you can play it. It’s important to be very meticulous with the singing, because it shapes what you can do on your instrument.

Next, take your instrument and play along with the recording, catching every note, every nuance. You’re playing exactly what you sang. When you’re ready, play without the recording, keeping time, exactly as if the recording was on. It’s super-important to focus on your own rhythm—you want to get it as strong as the soloist’s.

Once you can do all these things, only then is it time to write it down. In my experience, writing it down any sooner is actually harmful because it makes it a reading exercise. The whole point of transcribing isn’t to be able to read something better, but to internalize the language.

What you want to do is develop your ears to the highest degree you can. Singing along exactly with somebody is a big challenge at first, but the more you do it, the more your ears are in tune with what the artists are doing. It gets to a point where you can take in a solo and you don’t even need your instrument or manuscript paper—you can sing through a solo and think in your mind exactly what devices they’re using, how they’re weaving through the changes.

The greatest improvisers have both sides of their brains working equally. One side hears and reproduces sounds—you develop that by singing the solos. The theoretical side has important work too. Once you’ve written down the solo (and it’s important to be diligent with precise notation), then spend some time really analyzing how it works. Look at the harmonies and intervals and rhythmic patterns. Look at what makes this solo hold together.

Watch for what really grabs your attention. Let’s say I see a 4-bar phrase of Bud Powell’s that really weaves through the changes in an interesting way. I’m going to take it and learn it in all twelve keys so I really have it in my vocabulary. Then I decide to consciously insert that phrase in whatever song I’m preparing—I’ll play it in rhythm, exactly as Bud played it. The more I do that, the more it becomes mine because I’ll add a note or change the rhythm a bit. As long as the voice-leading and shape is the same, it’ll sound good.

Experienced players are improvising in the moment and reacting to what they hear. I’m not consciously thinking, “I’ll insert a John Coltrane line here.” But that can happen if that’s where the momentum of my melodic line is leading. It’s all about your intention. If you’re intending to stand up there and play somebody else’s solo verbatim, that rings hollow. But if a seasoned improviser in the heat of the moment quotes a melody of a tune and then a piece from somebody else’s solo, that’s actually a really effective moment…

Jimmy Greene is an acclaimed jazz saxophonist—and a brilliant improviser—who lives just outside New York City.

Earl “Bud” Powell’s life was unhappy and painful, but his piano playing was exceptional, innovative, and very influential. The grandson of a flamenco guitarist and son of a stride pianist, Powell grew up in New York City. Before turning to jazz at age fifteen, when he joined a band led by his brother, a trumpeter, Powell played classical piano. As a teenager, Powell was a regular at the crucible of bebop, Minton’s Playhouse in New York City. It was there he fell under the spell of the bebop innovators Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Dizzy Gillespie. Before he turned eighteen, Powell had played with Parker and was being mentored by Monk, who became Powell’s lifelong friend. In 1944, he made his first record, with a band led by trumpeter Cootie Williams. The album included the premiere recording of Monk’s “Round Midnight.”

The following year, at the age of twenty-one, in a racially motivated altercation with the police, Powell was beaten over the head. His personality changed, he started suffering from headaches, and for the rest of his life, he suffered periodic mental breakdowns. Later that year, Powell was institutionalized for the first time. In 1951, he was arrested for possession of narcotics. He was hospitalized for several months and received electroshock treatments. There was another hospital stay in 1959. To escape many of the pressures he was experiencing, and to make a better living as a musician, he moved to Paris in 1959 and stayed until 1964. There he fell ill with tuberculosis. (The character played by Dexter Gordon in the movie ‘Round Midnight was loosely based on Bud Powell.)

To appreciate Bud Powell’s greatness, you need to know that in the late 1940s, a great number of pianists played stride, a style that is similar to ragtime but has more syncopation. Powell pioneered a more fluid approach, employing frequent arpeggios (a chord played one note at a time) and unusual, surprising accents. His playing had a huge influence on a younger generation of pianists, including Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and McCoy Tyner.

Unfortunately, Powell’s recording career was inconsistent. His mental problems and alcoholism often prevented him from providing his best efforts. But many of the good moments can be found on The Best of Bud Powell: The Blue Note Years [Blue Note #93204].

The CD comprises fifteen pieces from 1949-63. “Bouncing with Bud” and “52nd Street Theme” are two of the most influential songs of Powell’s career. An all-star quintet, featuring Fats Navarro on trumpet, Sonny Rollins (only eighteen at the time) on tenor sax, Roy Haynes on drums, and Tommy Potter on bass, delivers plenty of fresh ideas in the bop tradition. The gorgeous “Parisian Thoroughfare” is one of Powell’s best-loved songs and predates his move to Paris by eight years. Powell’s playing is eloquent and powerful. Another well-known number is the athletic bopper “Un Poco Loco,” which features Powell in a trio with Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. “Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Peas” is perhaps the most memorable song in the collection. Here, bassist George Duvivier lays down a strong, steady foundation, and Powell’s shapely piano playing is one of the highlights of the compilation.

Bud Powell died on August 1, 1966, from a lethal combination of tuberculosis, alcoholism, and malnutrition.

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

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s IMRIS New Music Festival is an opportunity to hear the wild edges of the classical world. Often theatrical, and invariably venturing into nearby genres like jazz, New Music Festival performances are a great antidote to the cold that settles in by the first week of February. Concerts are preceded by discussions by the artists and conductor, and the fun continues at after-concert parties. The opening night after-party will feature Papa Mambo’s seven-piece Latin band. More information at www.wso.mb.ca.

If chocolate and jazz are your weaknesses, consider channeling them toward a good cause. The Virtuosi Concerts’ annual l’Affaire chocolat fundraiser on Saturday, February 7, commandeers the Nonsuch at the Manitoba Museum for an evening of wine and liqueur sampling, gourmet hors d’ouevres—and of course decadent chocolate, courtesy of renowned chocolatier, Constance Popp. The Janice Finlay Quintet will keep you company all evening long. For more information, contact music@uwinnipeg.ca.

Music ‘N’ Mavens is one of Winnipeg’s well-kept secrets. Even in its eleventh year, this lively series of winter afternoon lectures and concerts at the Rady Jewish Community Centre is going to be news to some. The lectures feature local experts on topics that run the gamut from American politics to the greening of the Arctic to animal sacrifices in ancient Greece. The concerts range widely too, from klezmer to classical—with plenty of jazz. In February, Jeff Presslaff, Chuck McClelland and friends perform a concert of original music called All Winds that will be recorded by CBC for future broadcast. Ahead in March, the concert line-up includes Sophie Berkal-Sarbit and Ariel Posen, Bev Aronovitch and her crew, Anna-Lisa Kirby and friends, and Rob Hrabluk’s U of W Downtown Jazz Band. Concerts cost $8 (only $5 for Rady JCC members), but you can get a good discount with a mini-pass for six—an even better deal if you choose all eleven. Details at www.radyjcc.com.

In a recent issue of Canadian Children’s Book News, I came across an interview with celebrated Canadian children’s illustrator, Stéphane Jorisch. His characters, both human and animal, are quirky, expressive, intense, and full of intention. They catch the depth and seriousness of the worlds children inhabit, and are equally compelling for adults.

He makes some intriguing observations. “When you draw characters,” he says, “you don’t draw the outside of the character, you draw what the character is thinking. He starts to move—and the reason he starts to move is because we’re always thinking what we’re going to do next, so we’re always in a certain motion.”

This interest in movement is what leads him away from drawing models, which he finds contrived. “To me, if you want to really do a character in an expressive way, you have to not draw what you think they look like—you more or less have to draw them as they physically move.” That’s a fascinating prospect, when you think about it. You’re aiming not for what people look like but for how they respond—away from surface and toward the motion that expresses intention.

So maybe movement is where meaning settles. It’s a long way from the surface-obsessed culture we inhabit, but it does seem to hold true. Writing and drawing and music and dance all strive to recreate an experience of movement, to catch that exact place where time and space intersect. A dancer moves, a musician is buoyed up by a timeline, an artist leaves traces of his pen cutting across the surface of the page, a writer tracks characters and emotions that are later deciphered in real time.

This element of movement gives us a tactile experience of time, the most nebulous of dimensions, and allows us the thrill of linking up with others. Whether we’re in a crowded hall, a quiet gallery, or a solitary arm chair, we are pulled into community with the artists and with one another.

Jorisch claims that illustrators are like “very good musicians. Musicians take a little song and make it ‘wow’—so every note has music in it… Just like when you create characters, all the characters were thinking something when they were put together. They all have their little agendas. When you take all those little agendas out, the drawing just becomes average.”

This might be a particularly apt analogy for jazz musicians who often literally use “a little song”—think, for example, of Ella Fitzgerald transforming “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” into something like pure joy. Great players elevate “a little song” by allowing every rhythmic, melodic and harmonic gesture to pull forward or push backward or cut across the surface. It’s the texture of those many competing agendas (we might translate them musically as sincerity and irony and wit) that lifts an average “little song” to a whole new level.

Charlene Diehl was at Rideau Hall when Stéphane Jorisch received the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Illustration for The Owl and the Pussycat (Kids Can Press).