Rev. Horton Heat, The Surfrajettes @ The Horseshoe, June 24 & 25

Rev. Horton Heat and crew rock the Horseshoe for two sweaty nights. Here are a couple of recent performances and interviews.  

LINKS
Watch Rev. Horton Heat on Art Fein's Poker Party right here and there

Happy Birthday Erkin Koray!

Remembering Turkish psych guitar great Erkin Koray with a few performances and more. 

Cassandra Wilson celebrates 30 years of New Moon Daughter @ Koerner Hall, Wednesday

Cassandra Wilson reprises the music of her acclaimed 1995 album New Moon Daughter with the musicians who cut it. 

 

Toronto Jazz Festival presents Cassandra Wilson

at Koerner Hall (273 Bloor St. West) 

Wednesday, June 24

Tickets: Starting at $95 available here. 

The Grammy Award-winning jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi makes her Koerner Hall debut with an all-star band from her critically-lauded New Moon Daughter (Blue Note) album from 1995 including Sisters Euclid guitarist Kevin Breit, bassist Lonnie Plaxico. guitarist Brandon Ross and percussionist Jeffrey Haynes in addition to Swiss-born, NYC-based harmonica ace Grégoire Maret (who has worked with Herbie Hancock, Sting, Pat Metheney).      

Critic Gary Giddins described Wilson as “a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack who has expanded the playing field” by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work. Her honours include two Grammy Awards, the Django d'Or Award, the Edison Award, and a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Ms. Wilson also performed in one of the leading roles for Wynton Marsalis’s Blood on the Fields, the first jazz album to receive a Pulitzer Prize. In 2022, she was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship and was named an NEA Jazz Master alongside Stanley Clarke, Billy Hart, and Donald Harrison.      

Wilson’s tour celebrates the 30th anniversary of her release New Moon Daughter, which artfully blended jazz and Americana, and catapulted her to a new echelon of fame in the jazz world – hitting #1 on the Billboard Jazz Chart, and earning her a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. Her Koerner Hall performance features four of the musicians who joined Wilson for the New Moon Daughter recording. 

Watch a few of Cassandra Wilson's performances below. 

Before They Were Famous: Steven Spielberg

Long before breaking big with Jaws, Steven Spielberg shot the Night Gallery pilot "Eyes" with Joan Crawford in 1968. 

The Hulagoons album release party @ The Skyline, Wednesday

The launch of The Hulagoons' new album will also serve as a tribute to the group's late singer/percussionist Teddy Hawkins. 

Watch Paul Desmond with Ed Bickert on CBC-TV's Take 30 in 1975

Watch saxophone great Paul Desmond perform with Ed Bickert, Don Thompson and Jerry Fuller on Take 30 with hosts Paul Soles and Mary Lou Finlay.

Paul Desmond with Ed Bickert, Don Thompson & Jerry Fuller on Take 30

Shot for CBC-TV's long-running news and entertainment program Take 30 in the fall of 1975, this rare performance and interview footage of alto saxophonist Paul Desmond – who composed the jazz standard "Take Five" while a member of  the Dave Brubeck Quartet and played the unforgettable saxophone part on the band's classic 1959 recording for the album of the same name – features an all-star support cast of Toronto-based musicians, including guitarist Ed Bickert, bassist Don Thompson and drummer Jerry Fuller.  

Not only is the clip a rare CBC-TV document of Canadian jazz aces at their peak, it's also historically important for capturing Desmond in action,  commanding as ever, less than two years prior to his death from lung cancer on May 30, 1977 at the age of 52. Desmond, who was a chain-smoker and known to enjoy a tipple as well, maintained his famously dry sense of humour even in the darkest moments. Upon receiving his terminal diagnosis, Desmond responded that he was delighted to hear that his liver was in tip-top condition. Unfortunately, the footage isn't the best quality but until the CBC does a proper release of the Take 30 broadcast from '75,  a rough video transfer will have to suffice. 

  

Happy 80th Birthday Eliades Ochoa!

Raising a glass to Buena Vista Social Club keyman Eliades Ochoa with a live tear through "Chan Chan," a documentary and more!