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September/October 2003

I love fall…The air smells clean somehow with that crisp freshness that clings to clothes that have been hanging on the line. Breathing in deeply while going for a run in the fall feels different to me than does a run in the height of summer. I can almost taste the air. Even though fall is a time when things seem to slow down and gardens die away, I feel refreshed and ready for anything. Oh the possibilities that lay ahead! This sensation must stem from student days when the fall was truly the beginning of everything rather than the end.

In early September I saw a concert that changed my life. The wonderful Mark Murphy was at the Stanley Theatre as part of The Sweet Basil Jazz Festival. Mark is 71 years old but you would never know it by his vocal explorations. His voice will do anything that he tries to do and hearing music the way he does there are many surprises to be heard along the way. There was no "schtick" about his performance although he was able to use humor a number of times. He had us laughing and yelling our adorations in between songs. This is a musician who truly has his own sound and approach to improvising. He uses both extreme ends of his range so that the soundscape that he draws from continues to surprise and move you. The ballads were spectacular with Mark simply singing the tune without any overly dramatic embellishments. The emotion came from the song itself being sung by someone who clearly understood the composer's intent. He had a warmth with the audience and with the band too. He performed with a quartet comprised of Vancouver musicians. They each seemed to revel in the experience of playing with such a great musician and were beaming smiles at each other throughout the night. Jodi Proznick on the bass was just swinging through the concert. Mark gave her a number of opportunities to solo and also shared some lovely interplay with the bass and voice alone. Several friends in the audience who had not heard Jodi before were really knocked out by her talent and were asking about her after the concert. Beautiful, bright, young and oh so talented, That is Jodi. We are lucky to have her in Vancouver.

I had the extreme pleasure of singing a concert with two great Vancouver singers; Kate Hammett-Vaughan and Jennifer Scott in September. We were part of the Sweet Basil Jazz Festival concert series of "Menage a Trois" combinations that included Trumpet Trios, Saxophone Trios etc. We were the vocal group of those "Trois" combinations. The three of us took to the stage on our own and then also sang some songs together. Each of us is so very different in our approach to singing and that makes for a very interesting combination in my opinion. It was fun to hear the girls sing their tunes as I am a big fan of both of them. Jennifer and Kate are both great vocal improvisers and inspire me to really dig into the world of soloing scat, Our songs together were such fun too, swinging and singing in harmony. Wish we could do more of that together…Our band was wonderful and was headed by the always brilliant Chris Sigerson on piano, Rene Worst on bass and Tom Foster on drums. Such fun!

I am getting excited about a little three day BC interior tour that I will be performing with my favorite duo partner Bill Coon. We are going to perform for three BC interior jazz societies: Kamloops, Kelowna and Vernon. While out there we are also going to lead a couple of high school workshops. I am really excited about meeting kids that are interested in performing jazz or who have just recently discovered it. In my case I wasn't exposed to jazz at all until my University years. It was all classical and popular music and jazz just isn't popular. Ha!! Maybe that is changing. I certainly hope so. I don't regret my musical past at all but sometimes I wonder about what kind of musician I might be today had I been exposed to people like Clifford Brown and Bill Evans and Mark Murphy when I was much younger.

I have performed in Kelowna a number of years ago for the Mission Hill Jazz Festival but otherwise I haven't performed in the other two cities so I really look forward to singing for those audiences. I think Bill is excited about the trip too. October should be a lovely time to travel to that part of BC. The drive from Vancouver to the interior will be a colorful palette by then with leaves changing color, The fruit and vegetable stands should be bursting with all of that wonderful fall produce. There is nothing like biting into a crisp BC apple right from the area in which it was grown.
Here's to good apples and good jazz in the BC interior this October…With Bill Coon as my musical partner, what could go wrong unless I bite into a bad apple?

Karin