R.I.P. Terry Stamp, 1945-2026

Sadly, singer/guitarist Terry Stamp of proto-punk legends Third World War has passed away. He'll be greatly missed!

LINKS
It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine Interview with Third World War's Terry Stamp

John Hollenbeck's George @ The Rex Jazz Bar, May 14-16

Drummer John Hollenbeck's experimental jazz crew George continue their weekend stint at the Rex tonight through Saturday. 

John Hollenbeck's George

at The Rex (194 Queen St. West)

Thursday (May 14) through Saturday (May 16)

Tickets/info: https://www.therex.ca/events/george-zeawd

GEORGE is what happens when groove meets inquiry — when analog warmth and digital edge blur into something both unexpected and deeply human. Formed by composer/drummer John Hollenbeck during the stillness of the pandemic, the quartet quickly became a fully realized ensemble.

Featuring Anna Webber (tenor saxophone, flute), Sarah Rossy (voice, synthesizer), Chiquita Magic (synthesizers, voice), and John Hollenbeck (drums, composition), GEORGE creates music that lives in the margins — between vintage funk and futuristic electronica, jazz and art-pop, structure and improvisation. As DownBeat noted, “Magic happens in the margins and the middle.” As Pitchfork observed, when the band locks in, its energy is “as infectious as a perfect pop tune.”

But GEORGE isn’t just about sound — it’s about resonance.

The band is named in tribute to George Floyd — in remembrance of his life and the violence that ended it. The name also resonates with a wide constellation of Georges: the Greek georgos (“earthworker”), George Washington Carver, George Clinton, George Orwell, Georgia O’Keeffe, George Saunders, George Lewis, George Gervin. Saints and revolutionaries. Artists and outsiders. The name carries history, contradiction, groove, and gravity.

These themes are woven seamlessly into performances audiences describe as sublime, immersive, surprising, and deeply nourishing.

Their debut album, Letters to George (Out Of Your Head Records, 2023), was praised by AllMusic as “a remarkable debut” featuring “captivating, provocative compositions.” In 2026, GEORGE releases Looking for Consonance, also on Out Of Your Head Records,  recorded at Hansa Studios in Berlin. The album expands the band’s sonic world while deepening its emotional and political clarity. From groove-driven pieces like “bounce,” to the diasporic offering “Nassam Alayna-LHawa,” to “Norma (in support of reproductive autonomy),” the music moves fluidly between celebration and reflection, tension and release.

Live, GEORGE is immersive, dynamic, and deeply felt. Wordless vocal harmonies dissolve into microtonal synth textures. Tenor saxophone lines soar over rhythmic frameworks that are both tight and expansive. Drums shift from whisper to thunder. The band’s compact instrumentation belies a vast sonic palette — at times orchestral, at times intimate.

Each member brings a singular voice:

Anna Webber is a flutist, saxophonist, and composer whose interests and work live in the aesthetic overlap between avant-garde jazz and new classical music. She was recently named a 2021 Berlin Prize Fellow and was voted the top “Rising Star” flutist in the 2020 Downbeat Critic’s Poll. 

Sarah Rossy is a vocalist, keyboardist, composer and producer based in Montreal, Canada. Sarah's practice combines live electronic processing with jazz, folk, and Arabic music to create autobiographical, ethereal, and socially-outspoken soundscapes. Recent themes in Sarah's work include ancestral continua, intergenerational linkage and community healing. A debut audiovisual album, a tender autobiographical soundscape imagined through a kaleidoscopic electronic jazz lens entitled 'OF WHO WE HAVE BECOME', is set for release in 2024.

SPECIAL GUEST: Yvonne Rogers is a pianist, composer, and multimedia artist from Maine, now based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is rooted in improvisation and play, blending avant-garde jazz with contemporary composition and intuitive, textural exploration. Described as a “fresh, new voice on piano” (The Free Jazz Collective), she leads her own projects — including her 2023 debut album Seeds, a suite of lyrical, playful and collaborative music — and appears on trumpet-leader Adam O’Farrill’s 2026 album ELEPHANT, where her piano and synthesizer work contributes to the quartet’s fluid, genre-blurring sound.

Genre-crossing composer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, renowned in both the jazz and new-music worlds, has gained widespread recognition as the driving force behind the unclassifiable Claudia Quintet and the ambitious John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, groups with roots in jazz, world music, and contemporary composition. He has earned six GRAMMY nominations and has worked with many of the world's leading musicians in jazz including Bob Brookmeyer, Fred Hersch, Tony Malaby, and is well known in new-music circles for his long-time collaboration with Meredith Monk.

Together, they deliver music that is inventive yet deeply human — groove-centered, emotionally generous, and instantly engaging. 

For more info and dates, check out John Hollenbeck's site: https://johnhollenbeck.com/band/george/. Check out a couple of George performances and a recent recording below. 

The Return of Drumheller! @ The Tranzac Club, Wednesday

Nick Fraser reconnects with Drumheller pals Brodie West, Doug Tielli, Rob Clutton & Eric Chenaux at the Tranzac tonight at 7 pm.

Remembering composer/arranger Gil Evans on his birthday

Remembering Toronto-born composer/arranger Gil Evans on his birthday with a documentary and a few recordings.

90s Nostalgia: A remastered version of Eleventh Dream Day's Lived To Tell?

Seems like Eleventh Dream Day's 1991 album Lived To Tell is way overdue for a properly remastered vinyl reissue.

Here's the scoop...

The resurrection of Lived To Tell (originally titled Trips We Lived To Tell, dumbed down at the suggestion of Atlantic Records) truly beggars belief (in that your belief goes broke trying to believe the story). For many years, the band groused about the mastering of the original Atlantic release - not the recording, not the mix - the mastering. Page even got involved at one point reaching out to former EDD/Atlantic publicist Tim Sommer as to the possible whereabouts of the original tapes. A response was not forthcoming. Then one day, random fellow Fred G notifies us that he recently purchased the contents of a storage locker in California that had belonged to the late recording engineer Paul McKenna. Inside, he informed us, were a bunch of DATs from the Lived To Tell sessions. An insane bolt from the blue? Is your belief beggared? 

Fast forward to 2026, and the good people of Comedy Minus One Records (check out their entire Eleventh Dream Day product line right here) have liberated the original majesty of one of the Dream Day's very best records. Listen here to the ripened guitar interplay, the luxurious low end, the hectoring of a menacing Rizzo impossibly sweetened by Bean accompaniment. And of course the whole pulverizing attack. Am I chalking it up to the remastering? Honestly Page is not 100% clear what "remastering" means, and is easily swayed by the power of suggestion. Maybe CMO or Rick can offer the sonic context. Short of that, listen here...

The Necessary Evils vs. The Seeds

James Arthur's Necessary Evils add a greasy-grimey 90s wallop to The Seeds gem "The Gypsy Plays The Drums"

Happy Birthday Ronnie Foster!

Celebrating the birthday of Buffalo-born Hammond hero Ronnie Foster with "Mystic Brew" and more. Cheers Ronnie!