All photos by Mini’s Memories. You can contact her at minismemories@hotmail.com
Photo Gallery: Of Monsters And Men with Lower Dens at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage
JUNO Award Winner Jazz Vocalist Diana Panton Set To Release “A Cheerful Little Earful”
One of the brightest jewels in the crown of Canada’s contribution to vocal jazz, two-time JUNO Award winner Diana Panton again brings her distinctive brand of sweet, sincere, swinging elegance straight to the hearts of young and old alike with her second album for children and families, A Cheerful Little Earful, to be released on October 18, 2019.
Conceived as a spirited encore to Diana Panton’s JUNO-winning debut children’s album, I Believe in Little Things, A Cheerful Little Earful is a thoughtfully curated treasure of sparkling gems from the Great American Songbook seasoned with universally recognized hits from Disney, Sesame Street, and more.
In perfect harmony with the authentic jazz sound and style of Diana Panton’s unforgettable voice is the splendid artistry of the album’s instrumental team who possess stellar international credentials of their own. Order of Canada recipient Don Thompson has established a secure place for himself in the galaxy of jazz greats for both his formidable instrumental accomplishments and his stylish and sensitive musical arrangements. Complementing all this talent is the superb playing of National Jazz Award-winning guitarist Reg Schwager.
Both Thompson and Schwager were members of the George Shearing Quartet, and their high-quality solos shimmer with beauty and veracity throughout A Cheerful Little Earful. The album provides a vibrant connection for kids and adults to the sound, the style, and the spirit of the world of jazz.
A Cheerful Little Earful sets the stage with the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic, “Happy Talk,” where the accompaniment creatively “chatters” along in perfect agreement with the light, bright sound of Diana’s cheerful vocals. The jazz waltz joie de vivre of “It’s a Most Unusual Day” provides a scintillating pulse for Diana’s effervescent voice, which itself gives flight to the joy and optimism of the song’s lyrics, while Schwager and Thompson blend the sounds of piano, guitar, vibraphone, and bass in a haunting reflection of that most sophisticated gentleman, George Shearing.
The Shearing sound takes another bow with a tune straight from the heart of the American Songbook, “Pocketful of Miracles,” while Diana’s a capella treatment of the opening verse of “Look to the Rainbow” brings out the pure fantasy of this song from the musical Finian’s Rainbow. Bilingual Diana sings in both English and French on “All in the Golden Afternoon” from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, her French interpretation falling gracefully within the aurally delicious parameters of the French pop chanson style.
Since the release of her first album in 2005, Diana Panton’s career has never ceased to accumulate momentum, drawing international acclaim for her ten albums as well as the impressive variety and quality of her catalogue of songs. The numerous honours garnered include JUNO Awards for I Believe in Little Things in 2017 and RED in 2015, two Silver Disc Awards in Japan, six JUNO nominations, nine Hamilton Music Awards, and a host of National Jazz Awards and Canadian and American Independent Music Award nominations. I Believe in Little Things topped the jazz charts on Amazon and iTunes in Canada and the US, rising to #1 on Amazon’s “Movers and Shakers” chart and debuting at #8 on Billboard. It was also a Top 10 Jazz Bestseller at HMV Japan and #1 Jazz Album of the Year on Books.com in Taiwan. The album received a four-star review in DownBeat magazine and was one of their Best Albums of the Year for 2016. Diana’s 2017 release, solstice/equinox, was a JUNO Vocal Jazz Album nominee, a DownBeat magazine Editor’s Pick, and was named one of the Top Albums of the Year by Ici Musique.
Toronto’s Chaotic and Catchy Art Pop / Experimental Rocker GLUTENHEAD Release “A Windy Day” Video
Chaotic and catchy by deliberately delightful design, Canadian psychedelic art pop / experimental rock vanguard Glutenhead has released his debut full-length LP, Glugen Frau — available now!
The album — and its premiere single “how it feels” — pull the curtain back on Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Benjamin Shapiro, and his distinctly multi-layered sonic style.
“The music is mostly aimed at representing the impressionistic and surreal quality of dreams and memories,” Shapiro shares. “I was studying neuroscience when I learned just how fluidly our brains construct our reality. The brain’s weakness and strength is the inability to discern what is real. There is a top-down influence on our perception, our minds simultaneously making connections between bits of information and building what we perceive.
“I learned how every word, construct, idea has weight because each has the capacity for a universe, and an opportunity for meaning. Each one holds time and place inside itself, recalling personal experience, and allowing that internal experience to unfold into the external world. Language, then, becomes a raw material to construct the experience around it.”
As he started to tire of his course load — which also included philosophy and music — Glutenhead “became an outlet for my creative and existential musings.”
“It exists as a project linked to a place and people. It’s the composite of the influence of living, writing, and recording in ‘Casa del Crusto’ — a 19th century, completely cut-up and slightly run-down Victorian home on a quiet side street in the middle of hot streak Toronto — that was always full of people moving in and out, bringing home their own kinds of mess and endeavours.
It’s a chaos that considers the coming-to of a collective thought, the friction and energy between people, their own intimacies.”
It was at ‘Casa del Crusto’ that Shapiro connected the ultimate dot: the term ‘glugen frau’ and how it fit into his musical and life experience.
“The phrase first came up in my life innocuously about five years ago,” he recalls. “I was 18, in Berlin, and sitting with a girl at a restaurant. Vintage tin cans lined the walls and the air tasted like malt, celery, and burnt orange.
“Gluten didn’t sit well with her and, at some point, it came time to let our German-speaking waiter know about her non-gluten needs. In a moment of manic, realizing I didn’t know any German, I asked for the food to be ‘glugen frau’.”
Glugen Frau — now the name of the album — translates roughly into English as ‘glimmering woman.’
“That phrase became sticky in my mind,” he shares. “Cropping up in my consciousness, it’s faint… Then jumps out when triggered, like any memory that becomes symbolic. Leaking, like a pen on the run from the law.
“That phrase and its multiplicity of meaning — both personal, temporal and external — fit as the basis of this project. The album is an exercise of living within — within a house, a dream, a city, a memory, a projected landscape — and designed to be brought through time, like a mechanism to wrap personal feelings around, create memories around, or fabricate fantasies with.
“Like honey catching flies, it’s a way to attach the internal into something that can be accessed externally. The music is not ‘on top of time,’ but inside it, and best understood by living with it.
“These songs uncover themselves as you inhabit them.”
Glugen Frau and “A Windy Day” are available now.
Prince’s ‘1999’ Album to Be Reissued With 35 Unreleased Songs
Considered one of the most iconic and influential double albums in rock history, Prince’s 1999 was released at a major turning point in the artist’s career. After years of being relegated to the R&B charts, he experienced his first true crossover moment with the mega-hits “Little Red Corvette,” “1999,” and “Delirious,“ shattering barriers with his revolutionary blend of rock, funk, R&B and new wave pop, and making history by being one of the first black artists to have their videos in heavy rotation on MTV.
The songs included on 1999 were just a small sampling of the work that was pouring out of Prince in the intensely prolific period of 1981 and 1982. In addition to his own material, he was also working up tracks that he would give to his protégés Vanity 6 and The Time, and recording dozens of songs that would be stored for possible later use, archiving them in his growing vault of unreleased material.
This November 29, The Prince Estate, in partnership with Warner Records, will reissue 1999 via all physical, digital and streaming partners, with the timeless album remastered for the very first time, along with 35 previously unreleased tracks from Prince’s legendary vault that showcase the creative flow Prince had tapped into during this era.
The reissue suite will be comprised of the following formats:
- Super Deluxe Edition (5CD+DVD / 10LP+DVD / audio-only download and streaming)
- Deluxe Edition (2CD / 4LP 180g vinyl / download and streaming)
- Remastered album (1CD / 2LP 180g Purple Vinyl / download and streaming)
The 1999 Super Deluxe Edition represents the deepest dive to date into Prince’s vault and includes a total of 65 audio tracks across five CDs and ten 180g vinyl records.
The Super Deluxe Edition brings fans all the audio material that Prince officially released in and around 1982, as well as 23 previously unissued studio tracks recorded between November 1981 and January 1983, and a complete live audio performance of the 1999 tour recorded at the late show (the second of two that day) in Detroit, MI on November 30, 1982.
In addition, both CD and vinyl sets also boast a brand-new DVD containing another complete, previously unreleased concert from the 1999 tour, recorded in multi-cam live at the Houston Summit on December 29, 1982.
The Super Deluxe Edition set also features Prince’s previously unseen handwritten lyrics for several songs from the era, including the hit “Little Red Corvette,” plus images of the analog tape reels from the vault and rare photography from Prince’s early ‘80s photographer, Allen Beaulieu. The Super Deluxe Edition is completed with brand-new liner notes by longtime Rolling Stone critic David Fricke, revered Guns N’ Roses bassist and author Duff McKagan, Minneapolis historian and radio host Andrea Swensson, and Prince scholar Duane Tudahl.
Fricke notes, “A landmark collection of vision, craft, and urgency – an unprecedented immersion in the frenetic momentum and private working world of Prince in 1981 and 1982, en route to the profound breakthrough of his fifth studio album, 1999.”
The 1999 Super Deluxe Edition shines a forensic light on the creative output of this truly unique musician, songwriter, producer, and performer at a pivotal point in his career and demonstrates why his unsurpassed body of work continues to generate so much love and passion around the world.
PRINCE – 1999 REMASTERED AND EXPANDED EDITION FORMAT & TRACKLISTINGS
SUPER DELUXE EDITION
(5CD+DVD / 10LP+DVD / Digital *)
CD1 / LP 1&2: Remastered Album
1 1999
2 Little Red Corvette
3 Delirious
4 Let’s Pretend We’re Married
5 D.M.S.R.
6 Automatic
7 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)
8 Free
9 Lady Cab Driver
10 All The Critics Love U In New York
11 International Lover
CD2 / LP 3&4: Promo Mixes & B-Sides
1 1999 (7″ stereo edit)
2 1999 (7″ mono promo-only edit)
3 Free (promo-only edit)
4 How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore (“1999″ b-side)
5 Little Red Corvette (7″ edit)
6 All The Critics Love U In New York (7” edit)
7 Lady Cab Driver (7″ edit)
8 Little Red Corvette (Dance Remix promo-only edit)
9 Little Red Corvette (Special Dance Mix)
10 Delirious (7” edit)
11 Horny Toad (“Delirious” b-side)
12 Automatic (7″ edit)
13 Automatic (video version)
14 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (7″ edit)
15 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (7″ mono promo-only edit)
16 Irresistible Bitch (“Let’s Pretend We’re Married” b-side)
17 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (video version)
18 D.M.S.R. (edit)
CD3 / LP 5&6: Vault, Part 1
1 Feel U Up
2 Irresistible Bitch
3 Money Don’t Grow On Trees
4 Vagina
5 Rearrange
6 Bold Generation
7 Colleen
8 International Lover (Take 1, live in studio)
9 Turn It Up
10 You’re All I Want
11 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute) (Original Version)
12 If It’ll Make U Happy
13 How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? (Take 2, live in studio)
All tracks previously unreleased
CD4 / LP 7&8: Vault, Part 2
1 Possessed (1982 version)
2 Delirious (full length)
3 Purple Music
4 Yah, You Know
5 Moonbeam Levels **
6 No Call U
7 Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got
8 Do Yourself A Favor
9 Don’t Let Him Fool Ya
10 Teacher, Teacher
11 Lady Cab Driver / I Wanna Be Your Lover / Head / Little Red Corvette (tour demo)
All tracks previously unreleased except **, released on the 2016 compilation, 4Ever
CD5 / LP 9&10: Live In Detroit – November 30, 1982 (midnight show)
1 Controversy
2 Let’s Work
3 Little Red Corvette
4 Do Me, Baby
5 Head
6 Uptown
7 Interlude
8 How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?
9 Automatic
10 International Lover
11 1999
12 D.M.S.R.
All tracks previously unreleased
DVD: Live In Houston – December 29, 1982 *
1 Controversy
2 Let’s Work
3 Do Me, Baby
4 D.M.S.R.
5 Interlude – piano improvisation (contains elements of “With You”)
6 How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?
7 Lady Cab Driver
8 Automatic
9 International Lover
10 1999
11 Head (contains elements of “Sexuality”)
All tracks previously unreleased
* N.B. video content is exclusive to the physical DVD and will not appear on digital download or streaming versions of the Super Deluxe Edition set.
DELUXE EDITION
(2CD / 4LP 180g Vinyl / Digital)
CD1 / LP 1&2: Remastered Album
1 1999
2 Little Red Corvette
3 Delirious
4 Let’s Pretend We’re Married
5 D.M.S.R.
6 Automatic
7 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)
8 Free
9 Lady Cab Driver
10 All The Critics Love U In New York
11 International Lover
CD2 / LP 3&4: Promo mixes & B-Sides
1 1999 (7″ stereo edit)
2 1999 (7″ mono promo-only edit)
3 Free (promo-only edit)
4 How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore (“1999″ b-side)
5 Little Red Corvette (7″ edit)
6 All The Critics Love U In New York (7” edit)
7 Lady Cab Driver (7″ edit)
8 Little Red Corvette (Dance Remix promo-only edit)
9 Little Red Corvette (Special Dance Mix)
10 Delirious (7” edit)
11 Horny Toad (“Delirious” b-side)
12 Automatic (7″ edit)
13 Automatic (video version)
14 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (7″ edit)
15 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (7″ mono promo-only edit)
16 Irresistible Bitch (“Let’s Pretend We’re Married” b-side)
17 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (video version)
18 D.M.S.R. (edit)
REMASTERED ALBUM
(CD / 2LP 180g Purple Vinyl / Digital)
CD1 / LP1&2: Remastered Album
1 1999
2 Little Red Corvette
3 Delirious
4 Let’s Pretend We’re Married
5 D.M.S.R.
6 Automatic
7 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)
8 Free
9 Lady Cab Driver
10 All The Critics Love U In New York
11 International Lover
Buffy Sainte-Marie, Sam Roberts, Tanya Tagaq, July Talk, William Prince, Whitehorse, Tom Wilson To Perform Gord Downie’s Secret Path Live In Toronto
On October 19th, Secret Path Live returns to Roy Thomson Hall. Featuring the original Secret Path band, surprise guests, dancers and artists will come together to create a fully immersive and cultural experience that celebrates Indigenous cultures and commemorates the lives of Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack.
The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund is thrilled to announce the stellar, award-winning artists that will perform that evening: Buffy Sainte-Marie, Sam Roberts, Tanya Tagaq, July Talk, William Prince, Whitehorse, and Tom Wilson. Tickets are onsale here.
Secret Path Live brings to life the true story of Chanie Wenjack as told in Gord Downie’s JUNO Award-winning album, Secret Path, through the illustrations of Jeff Lemire, and animation of Justin Stephenson. This special show brings awareness to the true history and legacy of Canada’s residential school system.
Artists will be backed by the original Secret Path band that performed with Gord Downie on the same stage three years prior; including Kevin Hearn (Barenaked Ladies), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene), Josh Finlayson (Skydiggers), Dave Hamelin (The Stills), and Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think).
Secret Path Live takes place during Secret Path Week (October 17-22); a national movement commemorating the lives of Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack and calling on all Canadians to answer Gord’s call to “Do Something” to forward reconciliation.
“The Secret Path project was incredibly important to Gord. His passion and tenacity to help tell Chanie’s story never wavered and our hope is that it will continue to inspire Canadians to get involved and support this country on the path towards reconciliation for years to come,” says Mike Downie, co-founder and DWF board member. “This night is one small example of what my brother Gord dreamed of for this country – Indigenous and non-Indigenous coming together to create a more complete, inclusive and equitable country.”
This benefit concert supports the programming at the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund. The fund continues the conversation that began with Chanie Wenjack’s residential school story and seeks to aid our collective reconciliation journey by building awareness, education, and connections between all Canadians.
The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed’s 50th Anniversary Limited Deluxe Edition Out November 1
The Rolling Stones’ groundbreaking multi-platinum selling album Let It Bleed was originally issued in late 1969, charting at #1 in the UK and #3 in the US. In celebration of the album’s original release a half-century ago, the group is offering Let It Bleed (50th Anniversary Limited Deluxe Edition) this November 1. This 2 LP/ 2 HybridSuper Audio CD set was entirely remastered in both stereo and mono by Grammy-winning engineer Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. The collection also comes with a reproduction of the 1969 7” mono single of “Honky Tonk Women”/ ”You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” in a picture sleeve. Also included are three 12” x 12” hand-numbered replica-signed lithographs printed on embossed archival paper, and a full-color 23” x 23” poster with restored art from the original 1969 Decca Records package. An 80 page hardcover book that includes an essay by journalist David Fricke and never-before-seen photos by the band’s tour photographer Ethan Russell is part of the set. ABKCO Records is also releasing the remastered stereo version of Let It Bleed as a stand-alone CD, vinyl LP, and digitally.
“No other rock & roll album of the late Sixties so embodied… the contradictions, turbulence of its time, creation and the band… than Let It Bleed,” David Fricke writes in the 50th Anniversary Limited Deluxe Edition book.
The Rolling Stones, at this point already a critically and commercially dominant force, composed and recorded their eighth long player (tenth for the U.S.) amidst both geopolitical and personal turmoil. In June of 1969, during the peak of the Vietnam War and the era’s social upheaval, the group was in the process of recording eight Jagger/Richards-penned tunes and one cover (“Love In Vain” from the canon of bluesman Robert Johnson) when they made the difficult decision to part ways with founding member Brian Jones who was found dead in his swimming pool the following month. Jones had already been replaced by 20-year-old guitar prodigy Mick Taylor formerly of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Let It Bleed stands as the only proper Rolling Stones full-length that contains contributions from both members; Jones played autoharp on “You Got the Silver” and congas on “Midnight Rambler,” while Taylor laid down slide guitar on “Country Honk” and guitar tracks, along with Richards, on “Live With Me.”
The second of four Rolling Stones albums made with producer Jimmy Miller (Traffic, Blind Faith), Let It Bleed perfectly captures the ominous spirit of the times with “Gimme Shelter,” the opening track. Keith Richards came up with the song’s hook while witnessing people scramble for shelter during a storm; it evolved to a much darker direction with background singer Merry Clayton’s cries of “rape” and “murder” on the choruses of the finished recording. The thematically similar “Midnight Rambler” was inspired by the Boston Strangler murders of 1962-1964; by coincidence the Manson Family killings were front page news while the album was being finished at Elektra Studios and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, a short drive away from both major crime scenes. Gloom and doom notwithstanding, Richards sings lead vocals on “You Got the Silver” – a first for the guitarist. With the aid of the London Bach Choir and Jack Nizsche’s vocal arrangements, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” completes the album in an epic, uplifting fashion.
“Honky Tonk Women” (b/w “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”) was originally released four months ahead of Let It Bleed. “Honky Tonk Women,” with its distinctive cowbell-centric intro, was a #1 hit in both the US and UK, and was reprised on the album in a countryfied manner as “Country Honk.”
Eleven-time Grammy-winning mastering engineer Bob Ludwig was tasked with remastering this edition of Let It Bleed and worked from Direct Stream Digital files taken from the original tapes at a 2.8 MHz sampling rate.
“When we did the first Let It Bleed remaster in 2002, our intention was to pay homage to the original work,” said Ludwig, who is no stranger to the Stones catalog, having mastered or remastered many of their classic albums over the past four decades. “When we did this new version, the purpose was to make it as great as it could possibly sound. If you listen on a good set of speakers or good headphones, you’ll hear subtle things in the background that are now much more clear that were somewhat hidden before.”
Graphic designer Robert Brownjohn’s sketches for his original cover art depicting several random round items piled onto the spindle of an antique record player (including a cake with figurines representing the band members) is reproduced in Let It Bleed (50th Anniversary Limited Deluxe Edition). The sketches are offered on two 12” x 12” lithographs, hand numbered, replica-signed and printed on embossed archival paper. A third lithograph of the finalized art, sans titles, completes the set housed in a foil-stamped envelope. Brownjohn passed away less than a year after the release of the album; his estate granted ABKCO exclusive use to manufacture his images and signature. The package also comes with a reproduction of the full color 23” x 23” poster that came with the original 1969 Decca Records UK version of Let It Bleed.
Let It Bleed (50th Anniversary Limited Deluxe Edition)
LP 1 – Stereo
Side 1
Gimme Shelter
Love In Vain
Country Honk
Live with Me
Let It Bleed
Side 2
Midnight Rambler
You Got the Silver
Monkey Man
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
LP 2 – Mono
Side 1
Gimme Shelter
Love In Vain
Country Honk
Live with Me
Let It Bleed
Side 2
Midnight Rambler
You Got the Silver
Monkey Man
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Hybrid Super Audio CD 1 – Stereo
Gimme Shelter
Love In Vain
Country Honk
Live with Me
Let It Bleed
Midnight Rambler
You Got the Silver
Monkey Man
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Hybrid Super Audio CD 2 – Mono
Gimme Shelter
Love In Vain
Country Honk
Live with Me
Let It Bleed
Midnight Rambler
You Got the Silver
Monkey Man
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
7” vinyl single – (Mono)
Side A – Honky Tonk Women
Side B – You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Here’s a GREAT Video Showing the Evolution of Paul McCartney’s Bass Lines Between 1962 and 1970
How Paul McCartney bass lines changed from 1962 to 1970, courtesy of the Lefty Bassman. Never underestimate the funkiness of Sir Paul’s playing, easy to do, I know, when you’ve also written some of the greatest songs in history.
Photo Gallery: Mary J. Blige and Nas at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage
All photos by Mini’s Memories. You can contact her at minismemories@hotmail.com
Before Peter Frampton and Joe Walsh, Pete Drake and his talking steel guitar reached the charts with his song “Forever”
Before Peter Frampton and Joe Walsh, Pete Drake and his talking steel guitar reached the charts with his song “Forever”.
Toronto’s Kensington Market Jazz Festival announces JIM CUDDY as final performer
Toronto’s acclaimed Kensington Market Jazz Festival announces today a legendary Canadian artist will feature among the hundreds of musicians taking the stage this September 13th, 14th, and 15th. Jim Cuddy is set to perform on Friday, September 13 at 7pm at Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue in Toronto. Tickets are available at the venue on the night of the show for $30.00.
“Jim Cuddy has been a lifelong friend,” says Festival founder, singer-songwriter, artist and philanthropist Molly Johnson. “He’s been a champion of the Festival since our very first year, when he performed for a Boys and Girls Club fundraiser. We’re excited to have him here!”
As one half of one of Blue Rodeo’s songwriting partnership, Jim Cuddy has one of the most recognizable voices in Canadian music thanks to omnipresent hits such as “Try,” “5 Days In May,” and “Bad Timing.” As a group Blue Rodeo has sold over 5 million records world-wide, won countless JUNO Awards, been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame and Jim (along with Greg Keelor) was invested as Officers of the Order of Canada. Cuddy has released a series of solo work and toured extensively with the eponymous Jim Cuddy Band.
Celebrating its fourth year in a row, the three-day event will feature more than 300 Canadian jazz musicians with over 100 JUNO Awards to their names, from across the country in some 150 performances throughout 23 venues drawing more than 4,000 concertgoers.
Kicking off the all-cash, no-advance-ticket music festival will be six-time JUNO Award nominee Carol Welsman, performing at Supermarket September 13th at 9:00pm.
“The Kensington Market Jazz Festival is proud to showcase hundreds of established musicians on the Toronto jazz scene, in one of the city’s most vibrant neighbourhoods, in the heart of Toronto’s heritage district,” says founder, singer-songwriter, artist and philanthropist Molly Johnson. “We are hard at work curating and preparing for what is sure to be the most exciting year yet. As we have continued to curate more and more exclusive festival performances, we fully expect to draw a much larger audience for this amazing event.”
This year’s collection of special guest venue curators include CBC Big City, Small World Host and educator Errol Nazareth (Cafe Pamenar), Dave Wall, a beloved member of the music community who specializes in community outreach and education (Kiever Synagogue), Colleen Allen, a revered saxophonist and Humber College faculty member (St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Church), guitarist extraordinaires Eric St-Laurent (LOLA) and Kevin Barrett (Trinity Common), and celebrated bassist and educator Steve Wallace.
In addition to the annual Festival, the KMJF team have brought many other projects to the Kensington Market neighbourhood, including winter and spring series in the market, two live recordings, and KMJF Kids Music, launched in 2018 in partnership with the festival’s patron saint, Tom Mihalik of Tom’s Place, Yamaha Canada Music Ltd., Discovery Through The Arts, Youth Arcade Studio, and St. Stephen’s Community Centre. KMJF has continued support from Slaight Music, Long & McQuade, Yamaha, City of Toronto, and other private donors.
Born and raised in Kensington Market, Kensington Market Jazz Festival founder singer-songwriter and philanthropist Molly Johnson O.C. had been dreaming of this festival for years. On September 16th, 2016, her dream came true. 4 years later, the original philosophy still holds true. “The Kensington Market Jazz Festival is proud to be an artist-driven, volunteer-fueled festival that has been met with overwhelming support. KMJF wishes to honour the history in the market and strives to ensure that our vision remains in-tune with that of the neighbourhood.
“We look forward to presenting more music in 2019, and invite you to join in the excitement!”
