I just discovered the music of jazz vocalist Kate McGarry (view her page on All About Jazz, her website, or her myspace).
She has a really contemporary and modern sound, a bit similar to Bjork but with the passion and intensity of some of the classic “old school” vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
For the Jazz Piano Cafe “Song of the Week”, I’ve picked Kate McGarry’s track Stars off her 2005 album, Mercy Streets. Stars was composed by pianist Fred Hersch who also performs on this track. The track also features Steve Cardenas (electric and acoustic guitars), Keith Ganz (myspace, acoustic guitar), Sean Smith (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums).
You can listen to Stars at Imeem (streaming only, provided you register for a free account). It’s also on iTunes (full song for 99 cents), and available directly from the record label, Palmetto Records, or by using the player below.
Stars is a wistful and beautiful song. The impressionistic glittering of Fred Hersch’s gentle yet insistent piano explorations makes me imagine looking at a sky full of stars. Wollesen’s drums and Smith’s bass eventually reveal the hints of a sophisticated and pulsing bossa nova, that underlies McGarry’s clear, sensitive, and nuanced vocal lines. The track progresses at a meandering walking pace through many harmonic directions into a thoughtful and motion-filled piano solo, and returns again to the original groove. My favorite part of the track is the line ending in “skies are friendless” at 2:15.
Here is an excerpt from the lyrics:
It’s so much harder
I find
without the light
of endless stars.
Clear the wondrous winter sky
that casts its spell.
Warm your hand in mine.
Do you recall
who can tell
I wish I knew what I could do
to forget your face. What to do when nights are endless
and skies are friendless.
Not a star, bring back the stars, the endless stars.
I hope you enjoy this track! Stay tuned for more great songs of the week.
Last week I attended the Phil Dwyer Academy of Music and Culinary Arts (PDAMCA) in Qualicum Beach, BC, Canada. Check out Phil Dwyer’s web site for more info about the camp. It was an amazing experience, with world class faculty and very talented students.
Here are some videos from our final concert. I was playing in a combo ensemble directed by Ingrid Jensen. Feel free to use the players or the links below.
“Tristan Paxton” – a composition by James Colwell
Watch: Youtube
Listen: Mp3
“Pass The Baton” – a composition by Julian Nalli
Watch: Youtube
Listen: Mp3
Mark Adam Drum – by Joel Miller
Watch – Youtube
Listen – Mp3
I decided I am going to start a “Song of the Week” on this blog. Every week I will post a blog about a new song that I have found that I think is really great. There will be links to where you can listen to the song online and also purchase it.
Ninjaspy
The first Song of the Week (SOTW) is a track by a band based in Vancouver BC Canada called Ninjaspy (band web site, myspace).
Ninjaspy is innovative in that they combine and blend genres in their music. They are a Hardcore Punk Rock band mixed with Funk and Ska/Reggae. Fusion is something I really enjoy, whether it is with food, music, or even other kinds of art.
While this blog is primarily about jazz and jazz piano, my friends have said that I have eclectic tastes in music, and I intend to write about any sort of music that I think is good. I was listening to the tracks on the Ninjaspy myspace page in the background and was working on something else, and suddenly I thought, hey, that’s a really cool song.
The song is called Hit by a Cement Mixer (iTunes link, imeem link). It’s a hugely dynamic song, going from a gentle whisper of a city soundscape to full on Hardcore screaming, to a catchy ska groove.
The best part of it is at 1:22 in the track (and several other times where the section is repeated), where there is a relaxing lull moment (just before 1:22) followed by a burst of guitar and excited screaming that ends in a harmonically beautiful guitar cadence.
The lyrics are quite graphic and dark, but poetic. I didn’t catch all of them when I was listening to the song, but when I read them on a lyrics site I was a bit shocked. But a fairly depressing theme goes along with the band’s Hardcore and edgy roots – it’s crying out and it says something.
Last weekend I played a couple of gigs with my band, the Geoff Peters Trio, and we recorded one of them using my Minidisk player and my camcorder. The band is myself on piano, Mark White on bass, and Greg Murray on drums, and we were performing at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel Vancouver.
Here’s a treat for jazz piano lovers. I’m really excited to share a live recording of the Phil Dwyer Trio, featuring Phil Dwyer (piano), Ken Lister (bass), and Jesse Cahill (drums) performing at the Jazz Cellar in Vancouver BC Canada on May 15th 2009.
Here is a little bit more about the musicians (from their Web Sites which are linked below).
Phil Dwyer:
Musician Phil Dwyer has been a force on the international jazz scene for over two decades. A critically acclaimed composer, arranger, and musical director, as well as gifted, intuitive perfomer on both saxophone and piano , Dwyer has performed with everyone from Aretha Franklin, Ian Tyson, and Gino Vannelli to jazz greats like Red Rodney, Ingrid Jensen, Randy Brecker, Tom Harrell, Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Don Thompson, and many others.
Before returning to his west coast roots on Vancouver Island in 2004, Dwyer spent 15 years as one of Toronto’s busiest studio musicians appearing on hundreds of recording sessions, and working as a commercial composer and arranger. He also was a regular performer at Toronto clubs Top O’ The Senator and Montreal Bistro, with Dave Young, Marcus Belgrave, Renee Rosnes, Carol Welsman, Moe Koffman, Randy Brecker and many others.
Doubling on tenor sax and piano, Dwyer was a member of the Hugh Fraser Quintet when they won the Alcan Jazz Competition in 1987 and the Juno Award for Looking Up in 1988. A long-time partnership with bassist Dave Young has produced a pair of recordings including 1993 Juno Award-winner, Fables and Dreams. Phil was also arranger, composer, and conductor on Guido Basso’s 2003 Juno Award-winning recording, Lost in the Stars. Dwyer has also made three recordings with Robert Occhipinti and was a featured soloist on the bassist’s Juno-nominated Yemaya.
Ken Lister:
Ken Lister has been playing jazz bass professionally since 1983. He is currently based in the Vancouver and Vancouver Island area, where he performs and teaches. Ken has extensively toured, both within Canada and internationally; including Australia, the British Isles, Cuba and South America.
Ken is a member of the Hugh Fraser Quintet and VEJI (the Vancouver Ensemble of Jazz Improvisation). As a member of the Hugh Fraser Quintet, Ken won a Juno Award for the Best Mainstream Jazz Album of 1997.
Ken also performs with the legendary jazz guitarist Pat Coleman in his trio, with Juno Award winner Buff Allen on drums. In addition to leading his own Sextet, he has performed with many great musicians including Slide Hampton, Chucho Valdes, Kenny Wheeler, Joshua Redman, Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd, Rob McConnell, Ian McDougall, P.J. Perry, Sam Noto, Don Thompson, Tommy Banks, Carol Welsman, Kirk MacDonald, Bob McLaren, Jerry Fuller, Lorne Lofsky, Phil Dwyer, Ingrid Jensen, Misha Piatigorsky, Guido Basso and many others.
Jesse Cahill:
Jesse Cahill is known and respected as one of the foremost drummers on the Canadian jazz scene. He started playing drums at a young age and worked his first professional gigs at 16 in restaurants and clubs in his hometown of Victoria, British Columbia. In 1993 Jesse moved to Montreal to study music at McGill University, graduating in 1999 with a Bachelors Degree in Jazz Performance.
Influenced by the jazz and R&B Greats of the 1940s, ’50s and ‘60s, Jesse has worked with jazz legends like David “Fathead” Newman, George Coleman, Red Holloway, Dr. Eddie Henderson and Charles MacPherson, as well internationally recognized artists such as Eric Alexander, Joe Magerelli, Jim Rotondi, Ryan Kysor, George Colligan and Bobby Shew. He also performs regularly with top Canadian artists including Tilden Webb, Jodi Proznick, Brad Turner, Phil Dwyer, P.J. Perry, Mike Allen, Neil Swainson, Bill Coon, Ken Lister, Miles Black, Roy Styfe and many others.
Jesse is a member of the Juno nominated and National Jazz Award winning Jodi Proznick Quartet. His recording resume includes sessions with Phil Dwyer’s Sax Summit, the Brad Turner Quintet, the Tilden Web Trio and the Chad Makela Quartet. He also has two recordings in his own name: the first, “Night Crawlers: Presenting” on Cellar Live, was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2007 National Jazz Awards, and the second (which Jesse also produced) “Featuring: Red Holloway” is due out in early 2009.
Now on to the music… Phil and the band have generously given me permission to share these recordings with jazz piano lovers and music students on this blog. In his description of the concert, Phil wrote that they would be “saluting some of our favourite piano trios, including Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Errol Garner, Ahmad Jamal and others”. The concert was fabulous!
Hope you enjoy the concert (this was the first set). Please support live music in your community and check out these musicians’ live performances when they come to your area!
Also if you liked the music you can purchase the musicians’ CD’s by contacting them through their web sites: Phil Dwyer, Ken Lister, Jesse Cahill.
Phil Dwyer Trio performing live at the Jazz Cellar in Vancouver Canada on May 15th 2009.
One of my favorite bands that I am fortunate to play in is the Sybaritic String Band (see our website by clicking here). The band features Brian Hayden on fiddle, Rich Sobel (fiddle, mandolin, percussion), Barry Cole (mandolin, guitar, banjo, harmonica) and myself (Geoff Peters) on piano.
From our web site:
The Sybaritic String Band is famous for their high energy renditions of fiddle tunes from North American and Celtic traditions.
We recently spent a day doing some self-produced recordings, and had a great time. I wanted to share with you, my friends of the Interwebs, a little preview of the recording that is to come. Please enjoy, and note that the track is just a work in progress.
If you like what you hear, imagine a room full of happy people dancing together in Contradance style (with a caller and moves such as “swing your partner” and “long lines forward and back”).
We have a dance series in Vancouver the first Saturday of every month at St. James Hall in Kitsilano, and everyone is welcome (there is a lesson for beginners starting at 7:45pm and the dance starts at 8pm).
I spent Sunday afternoon having a jam session on piano with my brother Byron (drums) and friend Jason (bass). This was the first time we had played together and it was a lot of fun. I made a recording of our jam and have made the Mp3′s freely available to download (please click here).
Of course, being a jam session, these recordings are not studio quality and are not our “best”, but they will give you an idea of the kind of energy and musical ideas that we had going during our session. The consensus among the band members was that it was really fun!!
Regarding the tracks we played, I think Voyage is the most “polished” sounding, as I know the tune quite well. The other tunes I sort-of knew but I managed to fake it most of the time. We need to work on our endings!! Blue Monk was really fun, I tried playing in a “rough” style maybe influenced a bit by Thelonious Monk. There is also a recording of a new original tune of mine, Warm Day, which I wrote while taking a composition class with New York Jazz pianist Misha Piatigorsky.
This recording was made using a consumer-model Sony Hi-MD Minidisc player/recorder and a Sony stereo condenser microphone. The total cost of the recording equipment is less than $500. Considering the low cost of the equipment, the sound quality is not bad! I have written an article that describes how I made this recording using Minidisc (please click here).
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