Home : Plato's Words : July 2007

July/August 2007

“Summer Breeze, makes me feel fine, blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind….”
That is a line from an old Seal’s and Crofts song and it calls to mind my favorite summer scent: jasmine, wonderful jasmine. My lovely climbing jasmine succumbed to the winter weather this year so I am very disappointed not to be able to enjoy this scent as easily as I have in the past. This year I have been catching the scent of jasmine on some of my longer bike rides during these fantastic summer days. At some point of course I will have to plant another jasmine and hope for better luck during the winter months.

The Vancouver Jazz Festival has come and gone again and as always I enjoyed hearing diverse artists from various disciplines under the “jazz umbrella”. The artist that most impacted me this year was vocalist Tierney Sutton. She sang with her wonderful band of 15 years and that long-term relationship was apparent in their joint musical efforts. There was a connection that perhaps can only be felt once several years of playing together have taken place. Tierney and her band performed several well-known standards but they brought a freshness to the familiar pieces with their creative arrangements and their interplay. She has a marvelous and accurate voice and she definitely has her own style and seems to follow her own muse so I found myself clinging to her every note and nuance.. She was playful and spontaneous with her band mates and each in turn seemed to be enjoying her every note as well as her every spoken word. She is a very witty woman and had the audience entertained and amused throughout the evening. One of my personal highlights was hearing her perform a voice and drum duet on the tune “What A Little Moonlight Can Do”. In fact her drummer was so fantastic that I found myself grinning ear to ear as I listened to his wonderful dynamics throughout the evening. As of late I find my personal tastes with regards to vocal jazz would include a drummer who understands the importance of hearing the lyric and who never attempts to overpower the vocalist’s sound. Ray Brinker, Tierney’s drummer was such a musician and he always “served the tune” and embellished the soundscape of the song instead of being the focus and simply pounding furiously as some drummers do seem to do. For many songs he played the brushes and I must admit I absolutely love hearing brushes when they are played well. Of course I also like the loud side of dynamics and he was able to dig in with his stick playing when the music demanded or called for that type of playing. I suppose being able to cover all bases really makes a complete musician. It is not so often that I hear drummers that I believe are willing or able to play in a gentle fashion. That may sound unfair but I have witnessed this quite often particularly with vocalists. I think it is probably quite different to be playing with a horn or electric guitar for example than playing with a vocalist who, yes has the assistance of an amplified mic but can’t simply turn up the volume on his or her own instrument beyond a certain point.

There were other artists that I did see during this year’s festival but Tierney Sutton was definitely the highlight for me.

My own festival concert was at Ironworks with my quintet and this year instead of using my trombone based quintet that I had used in the past two jazz festivals, I added Bill Coon on guitar instead and what could ever be wrong about adding wonderful Bill to any grouping? Nothing! So my 2007 quintet included Bill Coon on guitar, Lou Mastroianni on piano, Paul Rushka on bass and then because poor Dave Robbins hurt his back and couldn’t play with us, we had Elliot Polsky on drums. Elliot is a fantastic drummer and I have played a number of gigs with him as well so he slipped right into the dynamic that my band created. I had arranged a number of new tunes for the group and many of these arrangements made the piano the feature instrument and I thought that Lou played particularly well. Everyone did actually and it made for a fantastic musical experience for me personally. I always love singing at Ironworks so being in that environment was special for me again.

Now as the summer continues I really hope to write some more music. I had written a simple little blues tune for the festival but I am getting psyched up to be somewhat more creative in the weeks ahead. I will head home to my parent’s place in Saskatchewan as I often do in the summer and hopefully there the prairie landscape will inspire me as it usually does. Oh and of course the mere fact that I will be on actual holidays may help with that fact too. No chores, no responsibilities! Who can’t feel creative in that environment?

I look forward to the rest of July and August. I want to savor each and every day and not waste a second. There’s so much to do and I know these summer days are brief. Have a great holiday everyone…

Karin