CLIPS AND COMMENTARY FROM CANADA'S BEST KNOWN UNDISCOVERED OLD WHITE BLUESMAN

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Always bring one more power bar than you need

Just back from my festival "Gig" which was my ambient electronica persona
along with my son the DJ (COI) with the addition of Rob Gray and a couple of
keyboard interventions by John Farah - a brilliant musician...and I think he
knows it. I don't know enough keyboard to say but I think this guy is the
next Keith Jarrett or Chick Corea - with an nuclear arsenal of modern sounds
to satisfy the dub-step demographic. Overheard at an electronica venue -
"Play us some sounds that we've never heard" - They're more interested in
sounds than music. But at least they're interested in something! More
audiences should be like that.

Mose Allison fulfilled every expectation - he played a non-stop selection of
tunes that he'd written interspersed with some blues, which he always
credited. The drummer was not familiar to me - I bet he came with Mose (oops, I got corrected on this when I posted this in one of the Jazz Festival updates. This is what I heard from a knowledgeable jazz fann: "Codswallop, BrianB! John Sumner is as local as you can get – unless you want to invoke his Irish ancestry – living on Isabella St. and plays regularly with Mark Eisenman and Steve Wallace. Sheesh." Apparently Mose doesn't like to be hearing a back-beat, and sure enough Sumner kept his brushes going and shuffled us along.

Meanwhile I at least knew who the bass player was - Neil Swainson...a most highly regarded player who could play anything I'm sure, but was that a bead of sweat forming on that brow? Mose had some great tunes I'd never heard - "Certified Senior Citizen" was one of them and there were several others just as funny and insightful as his well-known material. He certainly has his own approach to the blues - something I strive for myself.