Summery Memories and September Embers

Devon Sproule with Bernice at the The Burdock in the middle of August: complex compositions spread expediently across a team of visionary musicians.

The glory of Kristine Schmitt singing original old-time country songs with John Showman and Cris Coole can not be overstated. The Cameron has done more for real country music in Toronto this summer, with Kim Beggs and Sarah Jane Scouten also in month-long  residencies, than any other local club. 

Corin Raymond and The Sundowners are in many ways the spiritual hub of the scene for the past 10 years.

Panamania gave the whole city a chance to get charged up for no charge at all. It was impossible to keep up with the updraft of international talent that lifted the city into a mellifluous cloud of cumulative ecstasy.

Choc Quib Town from Colombia, performing on Independence Day at the Distillery Square to a flag-waving throng gave the whole celebration an anti-gravity component. 



Maqueque and Jane Bunnett brought a revolutionary jazz fiesta ambience to the proceedings.




Luanda Jones' band was a cool and soul seducing distraction from the hair-crisping heat.

And over at Nathan Phillips Square there was a night of home and native Canadian excellence, with performances by Cold Specks and Joel Plaskett neatly bracketing a half hour of torrential rainfall.

Mimi Oz brought it all back home from Brooklyn in September with a set of new songs that scintillated in the dark Cameron House back room and tickled the ear-bones immensely. Special harmonic emblazoning was provided by Jessica Stuart and Jocelyn Barth.

Ringmaster Alan Davis proves it really is a small world as he introduces Fanfarai at the currently on-going Small World Music Festival opening Thursday  Sept. 17

Braids were extravagantly joyous performing with full velocity at Lee's Palace the night after their performances at the Polaris Music Awards broadcast.

And just before months' end, up jumps Retrocity at the Mod Club evoking screams and memories with two sets of expertly arranged eighties hits for voices only. M+M's Martha Johnson was a surprise guest on a show-stopping version of Black Stations White Stations. 

September In Toronto Made Evident ~ Music for Mind and Memory

My spring and summer were Turned up to Ten with teaching 400 art students and finishing my own art show, The Perception Of Danger

which we un-hung this past weekend.

So now the sounds are back in center frame and I've been able to get lots of entertational, infomusing and emotastic music into my ears this month.

Jaffa Road performed in front of the new Visitors' Center at Fort York on the last weekend of summer. It was uplifting

to hear music explicitly promoting peace on grounds where the terror and dehumanization

of soldiery were once cultivated.

The annual harvest of beats from around the globe began at http://torontoartscape.org/ this past week with the launch of 

The Small World Music Festival.

The Roberto Rosenman Quartet inaugurated a new comfortable listening space in the building with

advanced lighting and sound enhancements.

Jocelyn Barth and Clela Errington

brought an aura of serenity to the proceedings at

TNCC's Prayer for Peace on a mid-September Sunday

in Scarborough.

Saxo pilot Paul Metcalfe levitates while expressing a contretemps 

with gravity at the On Common Ground Festival

at Fort York. 

Drumhand's new Cd, Contretemps, is now available.

Allan Fraser and Marianne Girard awed a small crowd at

http://www.lazydaisyscafe.ca/

on Gerrard with beguiling songcraft and deep focus, just prior to heading into the studio

with legendary producer Paul Mills.

The virtuosic and original Sinner's Choir, labouring in the song mines

to extract nuggets of harmony and melodic ore are

regularly rocking the Cameron House on Tuesday nights.

Seen and heard here with the maverick sax miner Gene Hardy.

Critics Circling ~ Polaris Jury debriefing ~ Julia LeConte (NOW), Mark Teo (AUX), Liisa Ladouceur (Freelance), Melody Lau (MUCH) and moderator James Keast (EXCLAIM). The verdict: they are pleased with the reactions and validations accorded to the announcement of this year's winner, 

Tanya Tagaq.

If you missed Jane Bunnett and Maqueque 

who played their last show of a 4-month tour at a packed Hugh's Room,

at the end of September you missed a lot.

They collectively established a new high water mark

for virtuosic feminine musical identity, progressive jazz in Canada, 

the generational, international pride of young performers,

the supreme inspiration of Cuban musical innovation,

and the best jamming that Jane has ever grabbed down out of the ether.

Truly glorious.