When I first arrived in Winnipeg it felt like I was in a city that was happy to just be hiding in the middle of nowhere. At a welcoming committee I attended, one of the professors said to me, “Winnipeggers are proud of the many great things that are here. However, we like to keep quiet about them because we don’t want a lot of other people to come here and just take them away from us.”

Something’s changed here since then. I look around today and I see a flashy new stadium being erected at the U of M campus for the Blue Bombers—who, by the way, almost won the Grey Cup. I also see streets all over the city being repaired on a massive scale and unprecedented urban expansion with an IKEA springing forth on the south end. We’re also sporting a brand new airport and the return of the Jets. (The ones that play hockey!) The Marcel A Desautels Faculty of Music will be moving to the newly renovated Tache Hall as part of the Domino project on the U of M campus. The crowning glory of all this new growth is the new Human Rights Museum.

There’s some smaller scale stuff too. New boutiques and restaurants are emerging everywhere and now there’s a jazz club on Portage that everyone’s buzzing about. On an even smaller scale, the Wednesday Night Hang is just hopping with fresh new faces every week. Many of these young players already have with their own voices.

These changes don’t just happen. Individuals like you and me make them happen.

I was at a ceremony in October when the Governor General eloquently illuminated the power of the individual with this anecdote. Considering himself a witty storyteller, the Governor General was a taken aback to discover that his kids preferred the birthday party entertainment of their friends’ dad. He decided to attend the party as a spectator to see just what his rival was doing.

Turns out the guy performed a magic act, and one of his best tricks was changing water into wine. During the trick, the magician turned his back and dropped a tincture of red dye into a glass of water. That one drop turned the glass of water red and the magician was awarded with cheers of delight and thunderous applause.

To the Governor General, the drop of red dye is a metaphor for making a difference in the world. He spoke about Mother Teresa being one person caring for a very limited number of people in a vast population of needy, or Gandhi’s inspired concept of nonviolent protest.

It’s easy to imagine that one person can’t make much difference. Feeling like only one person against all odds can tempt us not to even try. But just like that drop of red dye, an idea can start a trend and who knows what can happen next?

Who are the critical drops in your circle of friends? Is it you?

On Sunday, February 19, the Robert Glasper Experiment is hitting Winnipeg. Nine days later, they’ll release their much-anticipated album on Blue Note Records, Black Radio. This will mark the Experiment’s first full-length album, and it will feature many high profile guests, including Lalah Hathaway, Erykah Badu, Musiq Soulchild, and Stokley Williams of Mint Condition.

Glasper is an incredibly versatile musician. He is first and foremost a jazz pianist who is rooted in the tradition, as illustrated by his first three records (Mood, Canvas, and In My Element), but he is also well-known for having played with several hip hop and neo soul artists, as well as bringing them in to guest with his genre-blurring group, the Experiment.

Glasper’s 2009 record, Double Booked, explored the Trio format for the first half, and introduced the Experiment in the second half. This Experiment features Derrick Hodge on electric bass, Casey Benjamin on alto saxophone, keytar, and vocoder, and Chris “Daddy” Dave, arguably the most innovative and influential drummer on the planet. Together they make magic. All four musicians have carved out their own careers as jazz musicians while simultaneously working with artists like Maxwell, Janet Jackson, HEAVy, Carly Simon, and several others.

The Robert Glasper Experiment has been under-represented on recordings, but a simple YouTube search will turn up a plethora of great live footage, with videos featuring the Experiment alongside MCs Q-Tip, Yasin Bey (Mos Def), and Lupe Fiasco, as well as covers as diverse as John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which will be featured on Black Radio. What is most evident from the many videos is how much they’ve evolved as a group since Double Booked came out two and a half years ago. They have really taken it to another level.

Glasper got into the hip hop world through vocalist Bilal, one of his closest friends. When Glasper moved from Houston, TX to New York to study at the New School, the first person he met was Bilal, who had just moved from Philadelphia. (Both were on full scholarship.) Glasper played on Bilal’s first demo and became his musical director. When Bilal was signed to Interscope records in 2001, Glasper began developing a relationship with artists like Common, J Dilla, A Tribe Called Quest, and the list goes on.

Concurrent to these relationships, Glasper was also making a name for himself as a sideman to Christian McBride, Nicholas Payton, Terence Blanchard, and Kenny Garrett. He released his first album, Mood, on Fresh Sound Records in 2003, which led to his current relationship with Blue Note. (When Glasper was at the jazz festival in Winnipeg this June he shared a very amusing story about his first time playing with Garrett—he’s almost as captivating a speaker as he is a performer!)

As a result of the deep musicianship and varied backgrounds of the members of the Experiment, the music is really free to go anywhere, which makes Glasper’s music a reflection of what jazz is today. That’s not to say, by any means, that everyone should play the way that he plays; but rather everyone should play as honestly as he does. Here’s how he put it in an interview:

If you’re being yourself, I think your hipness and your awareness of today will be natural. It’s not about putting hip hop with jazz to make something so people will like it—that’s just where [jazz] is right now.

When you go from Charlie Parker to John Coltrane, John Coltrane didn’t say, “Hey, let me mix this with jazz (which is Charlie Parker in his mind) so people will come check this out.” It was just that in 1965, that’s where jazz was. I’m sure there were some people looking at Trane saying, “Wait a minute, what are you doing? That’s not jazz! Listen to Duke—that’s jazz!” Then where would we be? It took those kinds of trailblazers and innovators to say, “Well yes, that’s jazz, and so is this.”

That’s what jazz is for me: it’s now, it’s modern, it’s relevant. I can’t play the music that was very popular in 1960 and expect the people of now to be excited about it.

The Robert Glasper Trio packed the West End Cultural Centre when they performed here last June. Odds are the Robert Glasper Experiment will pack the house too—the Winnipeg audience is in for an unforgettable show.

Jimmy Greene’s powerful saxophone and big heart have been a part of Winnipeg’s music scene for the last two and a half years. He can be heard at numerous venues around the city but his presence is felt most at the University of Manitoba where he teaches jazz saxophone and jazz composition and arranging, and directs the jazz orchestra. Since his arrival in 2009 Jimmy has played a valuable role in inspiring and developing Winnipeg’s current generation of jazz musicians.

In reality, Jimmy is paying forward his own good fortune. Born in Hartford, CT, Jimmy grew up under the watchful eye of legendary saxophonist Jackie McLean. McLean grew up in Harlem in the 1940s and was playing with the likes of Miles Davis and Art Blakey by the time he was 19. McLean eventually moved to Hartford, and in 1980 founded the jazz studies program at the University of Hartford. Jimmy attended that program in the 1990s and recognizes McLean as “a huge influence on my outlook on jazz music, my philosophy of playing and teaching jazz. I seriously doubt I’d be doing the things I’m doing if I had never met him.”

Over the last two decades Jimmy has built an impressive and well-respected name for himself in the jazz world. In 1996, he was the first runner up in the Thelonious Monk Competition, one of the most prestigious jazz competitions in the world. He has performed regularly with a slew of great players, ranging from legends such as Horace Silver and Freddie Hubbard to some of today’s top players like Lewis Nash and Avishai Cohen.

This past fall, Jimmy completed his Masters in Music Education from Boston University, a program he did mostly through distance learning. It was, as he puts it, “a huge undertaking, with a lot of late nights and really early mornings,” but it allowed him to explore “different areas like philosophy, psychology, sociology, and history as they relate to music education.” His position at the U of M gave him tangible experience to ground all the theory. “I think it was very helpful for me as a teacher,” he says, “and very helpful for me as a scholar too—I really learned a lot about research.”

On top of his teaching and coursework, Jimmy also traveled more in the fall semester than he has since he arrived. In September, he did a live recording at The Cellar in Vancouver as part of Lewis Nash’s band. In early November, he travelled to Japan to perform with a big band led by Nash and famous Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino. Almost as soon as he returned from Japan, he boarded a plane to Brazil where he was the featured guest soloist with the Amazonas Band, a regional state-sponsored big band. Jimmy reports that he had a blast performing all the authentic samba repertoire—and he thoroughly enjoyed the tambaqui, a native fish which he ate every day.

Jimmy recently received a Creative Works Grant from the University of Manitoba, and on Thursday, January 19, he will perform a concert of new music at the Park Theatre. His band includes Larry Roy, Karl Kohut, David Restivo, and Quincy Davis, and the music is “very much gospel, R&B, and funk.” The evening will feature electronic instruments, so we’ll have a chance to hear Jimmy on the EWI, an electronic wind instrument.

As a student in the Jazz Studies program, I know how fortunate we are to have Jimmy Greene at the school and in the community. I’m happy to report that Jimmy also holds Winnipeg in high regard. He says, “I honestly feel like I have met some of the warmest and most welcoming, generous people that I’ve ever met here in Winnipeg. That’s what’s sustained me and my family—the warmth and the inclusiveness of the people we’ve met here.”

The winter nights might be long, but the daytimes are bright. Set aside your Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from January through to early March for the Music ‘N’ Mavens series at the Rady Jewish Community Centre. The series includes lectures on a broad range of topics (from Winnipeg crime to how to get out of a waterlogged vehicle to helping adult kids handle stress) as well as a dozen concerts in every imaginable style.

Several concerts will be of particular interest to Winnipeg jazz lovers. The season opener on January 10 is called “Scat, Bebop, and Vocalese,” and features familiar high-energy tunes performed by the Helen White Quintet—Helen on vocals, Jonathan Alexiuk on piano, Chris Berti on bass, Glenn Lambert on drums, and Ken Gold on saxophone.

Just over a month later, on February 16, vocalists from the Jazz Studies program at the U of M will perform in the “Anna-Lisa Kirby Jazz Vocal Studio Showcase.” Anna-Lisa, the Jazz Vocal Instructor at the U of M, will be showcasing the talented vocalists in her studio. They’ll be accompanied by Carter Graham on piano, Luke Sellick on bass, and Kaleb Kirby on drums.

Two concerts round out February. On Tuesday, February 28, Tropical 99, a twelve-piece multi-cultural Latin orchestra, bring the heat of Latin stylings to the stage. The next day, you can celebrate Leap Year at the Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre over on Main. Singer Sister Dorothy is joined by guitarist Tim Cummings for a concert of favorites from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, as well as some Jewish folk songs.

Ron Paley, one of Winnipeg’s favorite jazz pianists, closes out the series on March 8. He’ll be accompanying vocalists Joanna Majoko, Charlotte Martin, and Amber Epp—the next generation of jazz standard-bearers.

Other concerts run the gamut from contemporary aboriginal rock to baroque music arranged for three cellos to traditional Franco-Manitoban reels to music rooted in the Jewish tradition. Concerts are only $10, or $6 if you’re a Rady JCC member. You might consider a season pass. A full Concert card gives you all 12 concerts for the price of nine; a mini-card gives you six for the price of five. All details—plus the full schedule of events—are at the Rady website: radyjcc.com.

You may have heard Joanna Majoko by now—she sang this summer with the Jazz on Wheels band, she’s a regular at the Cool Wednesday Night Hang, and she performs all over town with her soul/R&B band, SoulStation. It’s hard to catch her voice in words. It’s silky and warm, with a touch of gospel and a four-octave range that can raise the roof. She can whisper a secret and sing you the blues, all in the same tune. She’s a big talent, definitely one to watch…

What got you into singing in the first place?

As a kid, I was in every play and musical, but I never really thought about singing professionally until three years ago when I was studying at Brandon University. I took a few elective courses in the music department, and I can only explain it as a light bulb going on. I realized how much I love music and how much I want to be a part of the process. The rush I get from performing is unexplainable—it’s just thrilling.

When I moved to Winnipeg in 2009, a friend introduced me to the Jazz Studies program at the U of M and, well, here I am today, enjoying every moment in this world-class program.

What singers really inspire you?

Sarah Vaughan is a big inspiration for me. I admire her confidence, her talent, and her musicianship. She wasn’t just a vocalist—she could hang with all those cats on the bandstand. My present-day idol is Gretchen Parlato. Her sense of rhythm and feel is beautiful and intricate, and it complements the simplicity in her voice.

Who are you listening to at the moment?

Currently, I’m obsessed with the Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley album and with Gretchen Parlato’s latest record, The Lost and Found. I’m also listening to Kaiso by Etienne Charles, and Erykah Badhu’s album, Mamma’s Gun.

What is the hardest part on the road to becoming a jazz singer?

I would have to say the discipline required for truly honing the jazz craft. It requires attention to detail, and one needs a lot of patience—it takes a long time to truly master the understanding and playing of jazz.

What is the best part?

So far two things stand out for me. The first is that I fall in love with the jazz form more and more—every day brings me more of a realization that jazz is free from any limitations. The second is the growth I see in myself as a jazz singer—I surprise myself sometimes!

We’ve started a new project at the University of Manitoba. On Saturdays, a crew of really talented high school kids get together with me to develop their skills as jazz musicians—and make some great music while they’re at it.

The U of M Youth Jazz Collective is starting off as an octet: trumpet and trombone, alto, tenor and baritone saxes, piano, bass and drums. This configuration gives us the texture and timbre of a big band, but with the looseness of a small ensemble. Personally I’m having a lot of fun with it!

The musicians are Austin Dillingham (trumpet), Jeremy Hill (trombone/euphonium), Lauren Teterenko (alto), Callum Jensen (tenor), Aaron Bartel (bari), Devon Gillingham (bass), Ben Kidd (drums), and Gage Salnikowski (piano). Gage’s twin, Kerrigan, plays several instruments and cycles through different positions on the bandstand.

These kids, who are students at Vincent Massey, Transcona, Kelvin, St John’s Ravenscourt, and Linden Christian School, are enthusiastic and talented. We met four times before Christmas, and already we’re making good music.

We use the first hour to rehearse the charts. This involves working on the subtleties of the arrangement—trying to tighten up phrasing, articulation, dynamics, things of that sort. The second hour, I focus specifically on improvising. Most rehearsals don’t allow much time for developing improv skills, but I want the improvising to be at as high a level as the execution of the arrangement.

We’re using an improvisation strategy that works for any instrument. We start by creating an etude based on the piece, and memorize it. Then we learn a second, and a third. The students play them alongside a recording or with a Jamey Aebersold play-along until they’re blue in the face—that lets them internalize the fundamentals of the language. At some point, you’re gonna get tired of playing those etudes and you’ll be able to make up your own. I’m really impressed by the skills they’re developing. It’s exciting to hear, and it’s exciting for them as musicians too!

I’m so happy to have the opportunity to work with these talented kids. We are continually paving the road for the future of jazz by developing an interest in this music amongst our youth. Jazz is such a demanding art form—you have to be aware of shifts in your melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic environment at the blink of an eye, and at the same time spontaneously compose. The discipline is extraordinary, and the payback is as well. Even if they don’t end up being jazz musicians, they will have an appreciation for the music on a deeper level. They’ll be able to listen intently and really understand the language.

We’re still at the front end of this enterprise, but we’re already making plans to perform. We’ll be making the rounds at the various high schools these musicians attend, and we’re planning to play one night at The Hang. A big concert at the West End Cultural Centre with the U of M Jazz Orchestra is taking shape—stay tuned!

On October 12, a handful of students and teachers from the Marcel A Desautels Faculty of Music and more than fifty enthusiastic middle school students gathered in the theatre at Hugh John Macdonald School to embark on this year’s Bridge journey. Students from grade 5-9, from all over the world and from many linguistic backgrounds, are exploring music as a universal language. The task is daunting, exhilarating, challenging, gratifying and, above all, exciting.

The Bridge kicked into gear last winter, but this year is seeing a lot of firsts. A big one for me is that I have the chance to step into the band director’s position. I’m a saxophonist—I’ve been performing around the city for several years with various ensembles, including the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra—but teaching is a twin passion for me, so connecting with these kids as they discover their musical voices is a thrill. Curtis Nowosad, who was part of last year’s pilot, is back as the Assistant, and we’ve had several other mentoring musicians in the mix along the way. Some of those are young professionals in the community, some are students in the U of M’s jazz pedagogy course. Steve Kirby and Charlene Diehl are on deck often as well.

Again this year, we meet two afternoons each week—we gather for the final class of the day on Monday and Wednesday, then spend a couple of hours together as part of the after-school Peaceful Village program. For the first few weeks, we built on last year’s core of rhythm section instruments—drums, guitars, basses, and pianos—and worked on rhythm exercises.

Then in November, we added a whole battery of instruments to the mix—trumpets, trombones, saxophones, flutes, and clarinets. At first, just learning to assemble and hold the instruments has been chaotic fun, but now we’re digging into the basics of embouchure and breath support, starting and stopping together, dynamics, and articulation.

Some fine players are already emerging. We have a couple of very good drummers who cut their teeth in last year’s program. We have a grade 9 guitarist I have dubbed our “secret weapon”—that guy can play! We have a young Nepalese boy who came to Canada a couple of years back. He plays a mean flute already, thanks to his facility on the bamboo flute. We have a diligent young clarinetist, a couple of eager trumpet players, at least one devoted trombonist, a cluster of girls who are taken with the piano, and a couple of enthusiastic singers (as well as a few shy ones who are inching toward the microphone). We also have at least three students who are a natural on any instrument they pick up.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re setting our sights on developing into a genuine big band. Already, the Hugh John Macdonald Orchestra is exploring music by James Brown, Louis Prima, Cee Lo Green, and Elvis Presley. Premier performances are slated for the New Year, and enthusiasm and momentum continue to build. Watch for our name in the marquee!

Jazz always reflects the spirit of the time. Back in the ragtime period, jazz was volatile—it was sexy, exotic, extroverted. In the early 60s with the Beatles revolution, jazz absorbed those ideas and offered jazz-rock fusion.

Right now we’re in the information era. Every jazz musician has access to boatloads of information, and it’s readily available in ways that were unimaginable even a couple of decades ago. In our time, virtuosity is almost a matter of proverb. What is less common is musicality.

Which brings me to Gretchen Parlato. When you hear Gretchen sing, she’s not selling you a whole lot of extraordinary technique. Her sound is sheer—airy and ephemeral. She’s sensual without being heavy.

Gretchen grabbed attention in 2004 when she won the Thelonious Monk Competition. Now she has three recordings, and the praise of critics and audiences around the world. Get ahold of her most recent recording, The Lost and Found, and you’ll see what everybody is talking about.

She’s just so musical. I think of her as an answer to the information age—she’s always surrounding herself with cutting edge technicians, and when they interact with her, they change to expressive musicians. She always picks the right stuff, and turns what could be background singing into foreground singing.

When Gretchen sings, you can’t not listen—she’s like a siren!

Sarah Vaughan was a great jazz vocalist, as talented as Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. What made Vaughan stand out was the broad range of colour in her voice. With a four-octave range, she could reach inside a song and make it her very own.

Vaughan was a singer’s singer. She understood jazz because she was a product of the bebop era, learning her craft in the bebop breeding group formed by Earl Hines with singer Billy Eckstine. There she performed alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Her style was cheekier than most and earned her the nickname Sassy.

Vaughan had frequent crossover successes with pop tunes such as “Misty,” “Broken-Hearted Melody,” and “Tenderly.” Even when she sang pop, Vaughan still sounded like a jazz singer. She was an original.

Vaughan made many records in her career, but her most satisfying one is her self-titled 1954 album, Sarah Vaughan [Verve #3145433052]. Ernie Wilkins wrote the brilliant arrangements and they are played by a sparkling band that included Herbie Mann on flute, Paul Quinchette on tenor sax, Jimmy Jones on piano, Joe Benjamin on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums. By far though, it is the twenty-four-year-old virtuoso Clifford Brown on trumpet who stands out, showing off his dexterity but never upstaging Vaughan. Brown would die in a car accident eighteen months later.

The song selection is perfect. Vaughan’s smoky voice bops fresh life into the much-recorded George Shearing classic “Lullaby of Birdland.” Vernon Duke’s “April in Paris” is given a slow, pensive treatment. “I’m Glad There Is You” is Jimmy Dorsey’s one and only hit as a songwriter, and Vaughan’s performance of this ballad is flawless. Her moving rendition of Kurt Weill’s “September Song” is wonderful, and Clifford Brown plays a beautiful solo.

Sarah Vaughan is a perfect record. Vaughan’s voice is gorgeous throughout, and she uses a wealth of imaginative vocal phrases and riffs to keep it interesting.

Paul Motian, drummer, composer, bandleader, and an important figure in the jazz world for over five decades, died November 22 at the age of 80.

Motian is not known for flashy rhythm inventions or wild drum solos. I think of him as more of a tai chi drummer, understanding exactly what was necessary and never tipping the scale. He epitomized what it means to react in jazz—when everyone else was wailing away, he would surprise you with just a drum brush on the edge of a cymbal. He had restraint, a delicate touch. He understood drum wisdom.

Motian cut his teeth on some of the most important records in jazz history, first in the 50s and 60s, as part of the trio with Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro, and then as part of Keith Jarrett’s American quartet in the 70s.

Those first decades were intense, but he worked steadily all his life. He played regularly in a working trio with saxophonist Joe Lovano and guitarist Bill Frisell. In 2006, the Electric Bebop Band, with multiple electric guitars, became the Paul Motian Band. Other favoured collaborators include pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, and saxophonists Greg Osby, Christ Potter, and Mark Turner. His discography is dizzying, with over forty as a leader, and many more as a sideman—including six in 2011!

After years of intensive touring, he decided in his seventies that he preferred the sound of his drum kit at the Village Vanguard, and he stayed put in Manhattan. He was a favorite at the Vanguard, performing there many times a year with his own groups or with others. He played there in September, with Osby and Kikuchi.

Another jazz icon exits the stage. Rest in peace, Paul Motian.

I first heard the buzz about Esi Edugyan’s novel Half-Blood Blues when it hit last year’s prize lists. When a book is nominated for the Giller Prize (which it won), the Governor General’s Award, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Man Booker Prize, you know something special is going on.

Half-Blood Blues straddles two time periods. The first is Europe, tipping into World War II. We meet a rag-tag group of talented jazz musicians holed up in a faded apartment in occupied Paris. Most of them are Americans, taking advantage of the European fascination with jazz. The dazzling talent in the group, a trumpet player named Heironymus Falk, is German.

The musicians have left Berlin in an attempt to evade the ever-widening dominion of the Third Reich. The narrative kicks into gear when Heiro forfeits safety in favour of a glass of milk. He is twenty—brilliant, impetuous, fed up with oppressive restrictions, and vulnerable in ways he cannot imagine. As the offspring of a German mother and an African father, in the eyes of the Nazis he is a “Rhineland bastard.” In broad daylight, he is arrested by German soldiers and disappears.

Fast forward fifty years. The band members have worked hard and played hard. Like everybody else, they are carrying their successes and failures into old age. The discovery of an unreleased recording in the walls of a German house catapults Heironymus Falk into public attention again, and the old jazzmen return to Germany to revisit their earlier selves and all the complex years and emotions that have gathered in the space Heiro has left vacant.

The novel is beautifully plotted and alive with jazz lore, and its ethical terrain is challenging enough to nourish a reader. But it’s really the language that gives this novel its muscle. Vernacular, grainy, mannered—the sound of the telling is even more important than the thing that is being told. And to me that’s what makes Half-Blood Blues a jazz novel: it glories in the distinctiveness of its voices, and the weaving together of multiple angles. As a reader, you have to give over to the authority of a voice that is not your own. You have to be willing to be taken over and led to a place that nobody can really anticipate because everybody has to discover it together.

Like many critically-acclaimed books, Half-Blood Blues has its fair share of nay-sayers. Some readers get frustrated and then bored because the words are uncommon and the sentences come out crooked. This is Edugyan’s brilliance, though: given a chance, those crooked sentences can transport us right inside the lives of people who lived out loud in an art form that demanded every ounce of creativity they could muster and a culture that both elevated and denied them.

February is Black History Month. The stories of the African diaspora have so much to tell us about where we have been and how far we still have to go. Put Half-Blood Blues on your night table.