Georgia Straight Jazz Society Newsletter

February 2009

Welcome to the Georgia Straight Jazz Society Newsletter, keeping you up to date on the local and Vancouver Island jazz scene and informed about your Society.

AT THE JAZZ CLUB

Dave Stewart Septet
Tribute to Freddie Hubbard

Sunday Feb 15
7:30 pm
Elks' Hall, Courtenay

Tickets:
$12 members, $16 non-members
Available at Thursday Jazz Club
and at Bop City, 211 Simms St. Courtenay

Freddie Hubbard was one of the great jazz trumpeters. He passed away December 29, and the tributes - spoken, written and musical - have been flowing steady.

Dave Stewart is bringing one such tribute to Courtenay on Feb 15. Accompanied by Dan Craven (sax), Stephen Buck (sax), Chad Geekie (piano), Jeremie World (bass) and Richard Cave (drums). See our web site article for more on these great musicians.

Dave is a 29-year veteran of jazz trumpet performance in large and small ensembles. He is one of Canada's foremost music educators, recipient of both the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence and the prestigious Keith Mann Top Canadian Band Director Award. He currently teaches music at Kwalikum Secondary School.

Open Sesame

While still in his 20's, Hubbard was playing regularly with the likes of Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, J.J. Johnson, Eric Dolphy and Quincy Jones. His solo debut album Open Sesame, with Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones was recorded when he was only 22! The next year he was playing with Wayne Shorter in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Learn more about Freddie Hubbard at freddiehubbardmusic.com. Trumpeters will enjoy his commentary in When Your Chops are Shot from Downbeat Magazine.

Every Thursday 7:30 pm, at Courtenay's Elk's Hall, September through July. No cover. Musicians welcome to sit in on the final set jam.

Feb 5 Jazz Club - Lauren Bush VIU Combo
Feb 12 Jazz Club - Jenn Forsland Group
Feb 15 Sunday Sunday Concert - Dave Stewart Septet - A Tribute to Freddie Hubbard
Feb 19 Jazz Club - Ralph Barrat Group
Feb 26 Jazz Club - Larry Hale Combo

Schedule subject to change.

Check all coming events on the GSJS web site >>

GSJS NEWS

Wondering what Bill Street is up to? This email was received Jan 1:

LETTER FROM MEXICO......To all society members A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR........ Things are holding together here in Old Mexico despite the recession and a clear lack of tourists......folks from the USA are just not here this year as yet but the Canadians are holding there own and surprisingly also a few Brits........weather as glorious as ever and the beer still cold...plentiful and cheap by Canadian standards !!!!! Alas the cost of everything else is at par with our Canadian prices. The Viva jazz trio with Armi Grano is working four or five nights a week so no complaints... If anyone is headed this way I am in Bucerias 20 kliks north of Puerto Vallarta and my hangout is SUNSETS BEACH bar...they all know me ....so come on down !!!
BILL

JAZZ NEWS

We're ahead of the curve

Ben Ratliff is jazz critic for the New York times, and author of a number of books on jazz. He was recently asked a question we hear in the GSJS ofen: why don't more people listen to jazz? And his answer indicates we're on to something in the Comox Valley . . .

Question: Why isn't there more of an audience for "straight-ahead" jazz? . . . Why is it that the general (U.S.) public have no awareness or appreciation of this genre? — Paul Loubriel

Ratliff: Paul, this is a big question. I'll try to hit some parts of it but I probably won't answer it to your satisfaction. In the last 60 years, people almost completely stopped dancing to jazz, and far fewer people grew up with pianos in the house. I think that has a lot to do with why jazz is no longer the popular vernacular art it used to be. When you dance to music (in all ways — partner dancing, stepping, headbanging — just reacting to music with your body) or when you play it, then you own it. A lot of people born since 1960 don't feel that they own jazz. Absolutely, the media . . . doesn't, by definition, deal with the kind of art that post-bop mainstream jazz has become, which is an art of tradition and very slow refinements. Mainstream publications, generally, want to run music stories about what's new or radically different, or about trends. (This could get into a larger issue about the shallowness of the general perception of "news.") With classical music, they put a lot of stock in premieres or big, notable new compositions. In jazz there are few premieres and few big, notable new compositions. One has to sniff out what's interesting, however it presents itself . . . I believe that jazz needs more jazz clubs (with small cover charges), because it's still a social music. . .

The full article is available on the NY Times web site.

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