Award-winning jazz pianist Oliver Jones was here just recently, and he mentioned—not casually, but from the stage at the WAG—how the reputation of our jazz scene has really caught on in Montreal. Every week, I get email or calls from New York, Toronto, St Louis, Boston, or Atlanta, inquiring about what’s going on here. The news is getting around. In the jazz world, Winnipeg is no longer a sleepy town.

There are several reasons for this.

Reason number one: There’s a lot of vitality here. The M.A.D. jazz faculty is comprised of top marquee players with far-reaching reputations. They’re all fashioned in the image of a modern jazz musician—they can all teach, perform, compose, and arrange. The prototype for this model is Wynton Marsalis. Of course Wynton wasn’t the first jazz artist with these qualifications, however his phenomenal popularity has mandated that we all follow suit.

Reason number two: The musicians who’ve been graduating over the past four years have been filtering out. They’re all over town, they’re traveling and recording, they’re living in Toronto or Montreal or the U.S. They’re at a very high level of performance, and when they interact with the rest of the world, the question marks are flying—where’d you learn to do that?! It’s all pointing back to this scene. Musicians coming through town are finding out that they’ve been snoozing on Winnipeg. This city no longer fits their script for it—there are players here who can challenge them, and music is going on pretty much every night.

Reason number three: There is a huge appreciation for the arts here. An incredible number of people come out to hear this music and lots of really special people support jazz in many ways—there are at least twenty people who, through their consistent care and efforts, keep this little jazz cruise afloat. I cannot thank them enough. Because of them, we’ve been getting a large number of real jazz experiences through concerts, master-classes and work shops every year. Add the efforts of Jazz Winnipeg and it’s been a dream.

When someone studies jazz with us, it doesn’t mean that they must go into a career of jazz performance. The tools of jazz allows for a person to get inside of music and go where they want to go. One of the main goals in jazz education is to teach an individual to think outside of the box. We want a person to be able to use their wits to turn a curve ball into a great big home run when the situation calls for it.

One of our recent graduates is a budding country singer. Another is becoming a premier Latin recording artist. Still others have gone into stocks and real estate. Oddly enough, some are actually becoming jazz musicians. It’s exciting that we’re at a time when the old stereotypes of jazz can be challenged to such an extent. We’re limited only by our imagination. Challenge old stereotypes. Say farewell to dogma.

Wynton Marsalis is easily the most artistically and politically successful jazz musician in history. He’s among the most popular—perhaps not more than Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong, but he’s up in their ranks. He’s the gold standard by which trumpet players are measured. You might be as good as Wynton, but I don’t know if you can be better. There’s nothing he can’t do with the trumpet.

Wynton is a jazz icon, but he’s also a jazz educator, and in this zone he has no peer. His Jazz at Lincoln Center project has transformed the way people think about teaching and learning this art form. It has helped move jazz into the mainstream as a credible discipline.

All the members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra are stars in their own right, and with all those stars, you might expect the stage to be chaos, but in fact it’s one of the most well-rehearsed, well-organized improvisation-based groups ever. Each player has more polish than you could wish for, and each one is a star arranger, star composer, star historian, star educator. It’s a council of the baddest cats on the planet, all in one orchestra.

The reason, of course, is that Wynton takes painstaking care to find the most talented musicians out there, and brings them into this group. They get to do the best things a jazz musician can do—they play all over the world, and with every important musician in every genre, from free jazz to traditional jazz to modern jazz. And they absorb everything those experiences and artists have to offer. They’re like the New York Phil, except they have a bigger budget and get more guests into their ranks.

When they hit the stage, you’re getting a high concentration of extreme sophistication. Off the stage, you’re getting a cluster of passionate and eloquent advocates for the jazz art form. Just the mere fact that this collection of guys is here for us to take advantage of is enough reason to go see them. Add to that their polish and musicianship—it will be a great night.

Vibraphonist Gary Burton’s four-mallet technique is astonishing, and has revolutionized the role of the vibraphone in ensemble playing. After touring in the mid-60s with pianist George Shearing and saxophonist Stan Getz, Burton established his own group, the Gary Burton Quartet, in 1967, with guitarist Larry Coryell, drummer Roy Haynes, and bassist Steve Swallow. Their album Duster, released in the same year, is one of the earliest jazz-rock (or fusion) recordings.

Burton is also highly regarded for his duo playing, and his collaborations with Chick Corea have resulted in six albums, garnering five Grammy awards for the pair. Recently, Burton toured and recorded an album with his group Quartet Live, which revisits the music of his 1970s quartet with Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow and Antonio Sanchez.

In addition to his impressive discography and performing career, Burton has been heavily involved with jazz education, including a 33-year career with the Berklee College of Music. Many notable musicians have cut their teeth in Burton’s band, including guitarists John Scofield and Kurt Rosenwinkel.

At this year’s Winnipeg Jazz Festival, Burton will be joined by a stellar lineup of musicians under the moniker The New Gary Burton Quartet. Bassist Scott Colley has appeared on more than 200 albums and has backed up many of the biggest names in jazz, including Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Andrew Hill, and Michael Brecker. Drummer Antonio Sanchez has one of the highest-profile gigs around as a member of the Pat Metheny Group and Trio, and his two recent albums as a leader showcase his original and dynamic approach. Guitarist Julian Lage is only 23, but he has already recorded two albums with Gary Burton and his solo debut album was nominated for a Grammy award in 2010.

The lineup of Burton, Colley, Sanchez and Lage should make for an unforgettable and engaging concert experience.

I always tell my piano students to check out the masters: Fats Waller, Bill Evans, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, and others. But jazz has changed a lot since the 1950s and 1960s, incorporating trends in American popular music—rock, soul, funk, and hip-hop. It’s a living music, so it’s important to check out the great players of today. One to track is Robert Glasper.

Glasper is a young pianist from Houston Texas who has had a meteoric rise in the jazz world. He was signed to Blue Note in 2005, after having worked as a sideman with people like trumpeter Nicholas Payton and rapper Q-Tip. Glasper is a piano virtuoso: he has a ferocious right hand, which can blaze solo lines of impressive complexity, but also deliver soulful melodic statements. His rhythmic phrasing comes more from hip-hop than be-bop (although, I don’t think hip-hop would have existed without be-bop, but that’s another discussion).

Glasper’s most recent disc is Double Booked, a reference to being slated for two different concerts at the same time. (Hey, it happens!) In this case, Glasper is showcasing two different bands at the same time: The Robert Glasper Trio, and the Robert Glasper Experiment. The former is a more traditional jazz trio, and the latter is a more blatant vehicle for jazz hip-hop fusion. The Experiment features the great Casey Benjamin, who plays alto saxophone, but also does wonderful things with the vocoder. (A vocoder is a device which essentially synthesizes the voice. It almost sounds like a singing robot—but trust me, it’s hipper than that!)

The Robert Glasper Trio is on stage at this year’s TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival. If you want to hear a soulful, modern spin on jazz piano concepts, I highly recommend you check out this concert.

Where to start with Trombone Shorty? Perhaps as a 3-year-old in New Orleans, playing “the world’s smallest trumpet.” Or a year later, marching in a street parade with a trombone twice as long as he was high—he got his nickname there and then. Or turning heads at 12 with a funk band in a New Orleans club. Or being scooped up to tour with Lenny Kravitz at 18. (“I want somebody with soul,” Kravitz said, doubtfully. “How can an 18-year-old kid have soul?”)

Or now, at 25, a sensation on both trumpet and trombone, and storming crowds with his own band, Orleans Avenue. Andrews’ technique and imagination are almost otherworldly—for proof, watch the cutting session with Wynton Marsalis (another New Orleans prodigy) on YouTube. They make sounds you can hardly hear!

The band runs everything—rock, R&B, funk, hip-hop—through a kind of jazz super-heater. “In our band we have people from different cultural backgrounds who listen to all kinds of different styles,” Andrews explains, “and when we get into our studio in New Orleans—we call it the Gumbo Room—we throw it all in and see how we can make it work as one thing, so that it’s not so left-field.” The resulting combination of skill, fearlessness, and insatiable curiosity has been galvanizing audiences all over North America.

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue made their major label debut last spring with Verve, and it was a knockout. Backatown held the #1 spot on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart for nine weeks, and remains in the top ten nearly a year later. It also snagged a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Winnipeg is gonna love this band. I might need a double espresso to get up to speed, but I won’t miss this concert!

For all of us lovers of Klezmer and Eastern European folk music, an exciting event is on the horizon! The Black Sea Station, a recent collaborative project comprised of five incredible musicians, is slated to perform at this year’s jazz festival.

I had a chance to speak with Winnipeg’s own Daniel Koulack about the genesis of this group. Koulack was the bass player in the world-renowned Klezmer group, Finjan. He teamed up with brothers Myron and Victor Schultz (clarinet & violin), also from Finjan, and they invited acclaimed music producer and musician Ben Mink (collaborator with k.d. lang and Feist, among others) to join them. Mink plays violin with The Black Sea Station, and brings an especially rich understanding of the Klezmer repertoire, instilled from his father’s deep love and knowledge of this traditional music. These four musicians have a musical relationship that spans over 20 years—it’s no wonder they perform together with such harmony!

Nicolai Prisakar (accordion) contributes a unique flair to the group. Originally hailing from Moldavia (Romania), Prisakar led a traditional orchestra that toured and performed extensively throughout Europe. Following the fall of Communism, Prisakar and his family emigrated to the US and he is currently based in California.

Put together, these five diverse musicians make up The Black Sea Station, and they create powerful and exciting explorations into Klezmer and the East European folk genre. Their debut album, Transylvania Avenue, was released in 2010 on Rounder Records, and audiences and critics are responding enthusiastically to the band’s vibrant spirit and rich heritage.

Founder of Pink Martini, Thomas Lauderdale, describes their repertoire as widely diverse. “At one moment, you feel like you’re in the middle of a samba parade in Rio de Janeiro,” he says, “and in the next moment, you’re in a French music hall of the 1930s or a palazzo in Napoli.”

The birth of Pink Martini was a unique one. Lauderdale formed the band in 1994 to provide a more beautiful and comprehensive selection of music for political fundraisers for progressive causes. He had met China Forbes, the band’s singer, when they were both students at Harvard, and she flew across the country for the first gig. They’ve never looked back. Their first song, “Sympathique,” became an overnight sensation in France, and they were suddenly an internationally recognized band.

Lauderdale describes Pink Martini’s multi-lingual repertoire as “an urban musical travelogue,” and they’ve performed all over the world. “We’re very much an American band,” Lauderdale says, “but we spend a lot of time abroad…and therefore have the incredible diplomatic opportunity to represent—through our repertoire and our concerts—a broader, more inclusive America.”

What appeals to me most about Pink Martini is their playfulness. Hearing them makes you want to sing and dance—it’s very freeing. I think that’s their hope. For them, every concert is another step toward rebuilding a culture that sings and dances.

You might have seen Neil wailing away on the sax in the front row of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra (which he also manages) or you might have seen him on various stages with various groups playing various styles. He’s sunny, thoughtful, and able to juggle many responsibilities—and make it look easy…

When did you start playing the saxophone? What drew you to it?

I started playing saxophone in junior high. That was 153 pounds ago for me, and back then I had a chin and a slapshot—if I had chosen the clarinet, the team would have made me buy a matching dress. But I suppose there might be something in my blood: my grandfather wanted to play saxophone too, but his mother always took it back to the music store!

When did you start playing saxophone?

I wanted to play saxophone when I was ten, but my parents made me take piano lessons first. (I didn’t like that at the time, but looking back now, I’m sure glad they did!) I started playing in the junior high band and I haven’t looked back.

Who are your major influences?

There are so many! I’ve spent lots of time transcribing Bird, Cannonball, Johnny Hodges, Joe Lovano, Coltrane… I could go on and on. But Kenny Garrett—his harmonic language, his funky rhythms, his energy—speaks to me the most. 

What are you up to, musically, these days?

I’m in the early stages of a recording project, which is exciting. I’m taking my time because I need it to be personal, a reflection of who I am. I’m also part of Adam Young’s group, Cowlicks and Rooster Tails. Acoustic guitar, bass, saxophone, and banjo—admittedly a little outside of my wheelhouse, but I’m enjoying the unique sound we’re getting! I’m also committed to becoming a better flute player—I love the sound of that instrument—so I’m playing a lot of flute these days.

What’s on your CD player?

A student recently recommended a John Patitucci recording called Remembrance. It’s a trio record with Joe Lovano and Brian Blade, and I can’t take it out of my CD player! I have always loved a piano-less trio, and the way all three players dance around the beat is incredible.

What do you do when you’re not playing sax?

I have two other passions. The first is my kids: I have a 4-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter, and my number one priority is spending as much time as I can with them. The second is running: I got into that about a year ago and I love it. It’s like improvising on the saxophone—they’re both very meditative. I’m signed up to run the Chicago Marathon next October.

Since mid-January, Steve Kirby and Curtis Nowosad and I have made music with a crew of keen students at Hugh John MacDonald Junior High. After school a couple of afternoons a week, Curtis puts a bunch of eager drummers through their paces on the three drum kits, Steve inspires young bass players just outside the noise zone, I encourage a cluster of wannabe pianists to get comfortable at the keyboard, and a knot of guitar players work on their chording. Then we all get together and bash through the blues and a few songs the kids know. It’s not always pretty, but it’s real music-making, and we all leave feeling energized and satisfied.

On several occasions, senior students from the jazz pedagogy course brought their skills and energy (and instruments) to these gatherings. They worked hard and they played hard, and the young musicians responded in kind. On one of these afternoons, I sat with Rhona Churman, the school’s Vice Principal. She was moved by the patience and warmth of the mentoring students, and so proud of her charges as they soaked up the information and attention, and spread their wings.

We’ll be part of that school community until the end of June—and some of those young musicians will be invited to perform with the Jazz on Wheels band this summer. This is The Bridge Program in action. It has been a remarkable experience for all of us—and this is just the beginning…

One of the most productive relationships in music, let alone jazz, was the one Duke Ellington had with his musical alter ego, Billy Strayhorn. It is a collaboration that started in 1938 and ended when Strayhorn died in 1967. Their work led to such classics as “Take the A Train,” which Stayhorn wrote after listening to Ellington’s directions on how to get to his audition, “Daydream,” “Star Crossed Lovers,” “Satin Doll,” and the soundtrack to the movie Anatomy of a Murder.

Strayhorn’s nickname for Ellington was the Big Monster; Ellington in turn called him the Little Monster or Sweet Pea. Their relationship was so close that, wherever he was in the world, Ellington would call Strayhorn when he had an idea for a song, and they would compose it over the phone. When they had a chance to work together in person, their sessions were often all-night writing marathons, where they would write and sleep in shifts, a musical tag team that alternated throughout the night until they were finished. Their writing styles were so similar that it is impossible to tell where one stopped and the other took over.

Strayhorn was fifty-one when he died on May 31, 1967, after a two-year battle with esophageal cancer. Ellington was devastated and angry, and for the first time in his life didn’t want to play. After one concert, a friend found Ellington backstage by himself, with his head hung low, playing Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom” again and again.

Three months after Strayhorn’s death, Ellington and his orchestra were in the studio recording And His Mother Called Him Bill [Bluebird RCA #56287], a fifteen-song tribute of material Strayhorn wrote between 1941 and 1967. The album features both well-known and previously unrecorded compositions that show Strayhorn’s gift as an arranger and composer.

“Snibor” was written by Strayhorn in 1949 and was titled for a publisher friend whose name it spells backward. It features Johnny Hodges’s smooth, swinging saxophone.

“Blood Count” is a song Strayhorn sent from the hospital for a Carnegie Hall concert the orchestra gave in 1967. It is beautifully poignant and features a heartfelt performance by Johnny Hodges. It was Strayhorn’s last composition.

“U.M.M.G.” stood for Upper Manhattan Medical Group, the practice of Strayhorn and Ellington’s friend and physician Dr. Arthur Logan. It features a beautiful solo played on flugelhorn by Clark Terry.

The solo piano version of “Lotus Blossom” was an afterthought. The band was packing up in the studio when Ellington started reminiscing about the times Strayhorn and he were alone and he would often ask Ellington to play “Lotus Blossom” for him. The tape kept rolling.

Considering all that Strayhorn composed, this album is a fitting tribute. And His Mother Called Him Bill is a classic. For those involved, it was an emotionally charged event, a tribute performed with love and understanding.

This May, the sixteenth Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival kicks off in New York City, and once again, exactly one Canadian band—Winnipeg’s River East Collegiate—is among the fifteen finalists.

Competition is stiff. Over 1500 schools receive Essential Ellington materials, including scores and recordings. This year, 110 bands submitted a recorded performance of three of the assigned tunes. A blind evaluation by a high-powered jury of jazz education experts whittles the field down to the top fifteen bands, and these young musicians get to strut their stuff on stage in New York City.

Essentially Ellington is an educational outreach project of Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. A couple of months ahead of the competition, each of the finalist bands gets a one-day coaching session with a seasoned clinician to polish their performances. In New York, members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, all inspired educators, mentor each band. The students compete, but they also take in workshops and jam sessions—along with the heady atmosphere of NYC.

Marsalis kicks off the competition, and is one of the judges. Meeting him is an awe-inspiring experience for these young musicians, and he actually performs with the top-placing bands. The final awards ceremony also recognizes outstanding soloists and sections.

Jeff Kula, the director at River East Collegiate, is a wizard with his students. Their dedication and determination, along with Kula’s sensitivity to the Ellington stylings, have gained the River East Collegiate Jazz Orchestra a spot in the finals five times now, over a nine span. In a field of schools with bigger jazz programs and from communities with deeper jazz roots, that accomplishment is remarkable.

This year’s competition runs from May 12-14. Here’s to the young musicians who will take their Winnipeg spirit to the Big Apple. Play your hearts out!

I was midway through a concert in the Berney Theatre when I had this revelation. Listening to jazz is like reading good poetry: you get better at it with practice, and the more you bring to it, the more you carry away.

Like poetry, jazz can be intimidating, bewildering, even unappealing. Many dismiss them both as obscure or self-indulgent, or (worse) just something an artist makes up on a whim. In reality, each one depends on an elaborate system of conventions. If you don’t understand those conventions, you won’t be able to retrieve much meaning. It’s like listening to a language you don’t understand. Where do words start and stop? How does the grammar work? How on earth can listeners distinguish words that zip along in such a blur?

I had my eureka when Cyrus Chestnut took the stage for a solo tune. Two or three haunting chords in, I knew he was sweeping us into a Chopin nocturne I learned and loved several decades ago. Of course, what Cyrus offered was not a performance of Chopin but a rich and respectful and deep-spirited conversation with him. A jazz musician has a different mandate from the classical training I knew—the whole point is to use given materials as a basis, then alter and extend and invent and ultimately transform them.

Hearing Cyrus reinvent Chopin got me thinking about how much more I’m able to catch in jazz performances as the years fly by. I can hear influences and divergences. Even better, I don’t miss so many of the references—to songs, players, eras—that are a big part of this art form. Quotation is how these players honour the language they’ve inherited. It’s also how they tease and challenge and celebrate one another—it’s how they play.

Developing fluency in the language of jazz increases my appreciation for the skill and wit and passion of its best practitioners. It’s exactly the same with poetry. At first, I could sense a kind of heartbeat that mesmerized me, but it has taken years of reading and studying and writing it to really hook into that magic. Now I can hear influences and divergences. And I don’t miss so many of the references—because poets too are in the business of honouring and challenging their tradition.

Both jazz and poetry are deceptively difficult precisely because they work with such familiar materials. We all talk and music is everywhere. I suspect this is why people get irritated when they find these art forms inaccessible. They don’t appreciate that access requires study.

To me, making the familiar new again is part of the brilliance of both jazz and poetry. Both offer an invitation to discern another language that is imbedded in one we already know, and that takes patience and determination—and a fair amount of curiosity. The rewards? I defer to American poet, e.e.cummings: “now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.” You can’t improve on that.