XMAS TIME

Its pretty hard to believe that we're only a few days away from the big day. Wow that went fast. Before you know it I'll be hitched!

Its a been a great December with good show after good show and attendance is as good as its ever been. Although I never look at the end of December as the actual end of the year (our fiscal year ends October 31st) its hard not to reflect on what was another good year in a lot of respects and another up and down year as they all seem to be in this business.

Some highlights in no particular order:

1. ringing in the New Year with Dr. Lonnie Smith was a huge pleasure. It was incredible end to 2005 with four totally sold out days with the good Dr. and with a bit of a different band than usual. Bill Coon on guitar, Ross Taggart on sax, Bernie Arai on drums and myself on alto sax. A great way to start 2007.

2. From January 20th - 25th I attended MIDEM in Cannes, France which was not exactly a highlight I suppose other than the fact that I got a FACTOR grant as the Cellar Live owner to attend a world famous conference. The problem: I was deathly ill for the full 5 days of the conference and got absolutely nothing done.

3. February was a crazy month at The Cellar. One of the best months ever starting off with myself and my girlfriend (soon to be wife) moving in together. Performance highlights include Michelle Gregoire's Quintet, Denzal Sinclaire's CD Release Party, Chris Potter's first appearance at the club (although I would've rather had him playing straight ahead jazz) it was still an exhilerating experience, Brad Turner Quintet playing CODES FROM THE UNDERGROUND (perhaps the best show of the year). I just heard the CD of that night that JON BENTLEY recorded that night and it sounds freaking amazing. Monty Alexander and his trio rocked The Cellar on Feb 28th and March 1st and I enjoyed this appearance much more than his first appearance. I have no idea why but I just did.

4. March 24th and 25th saw ZAPATO NEGRO play their debut here at the club and sounded absolutely wonderful (more on them in July) and Ugestu released their debut CD simply entitled 'Live At The Cellar."

5. April had some great events including an appearance by vocalist Nancy King that was to die for, Mike Allen brought his NIGHT DREAMERS to the club which is a tribute to Wayne Shorter that sounded wonderful and TWO MUCH GUITAR closed out the month with their CD Release party. Packed and we sold about 85 CDs that weekend.

6. May was a fun month with an appearance by Seamus Blake, two great shows by vocalist George Evans (he is hilarious) and vocalist Lorriane Foster did a wonderful job doing a tribute to Rosemary Clooney on Mothers Day. She and the band sounded wonderful and the club loved it!

7. June started off with a bang. The return of Chris Tarry with myself, Jim Rotondi, Rob Hamilton, Joe Strasser and Brad Turner. The club was packed for three nights and it was a bit of a party for the whole weekend. We got a pretty good recording that I don't think is ever going to see the light of day. I was pretty overwhelmed being on the stage with all those cats. It sounded okay but don't know if its album material.

8. Jazz Fest is always fun and this year was no exception. Som great shows with Don Thompson and James Danderfer, The Ettore Martin Quartet from Italy was perhaps one of the festival highlights for me. They sounded fabulous.

9. Jodi Proznick started off July with her quartet featuring my new favorite saxophonist Steve Kaldestad (a CDN living in London now). These gigs were in preperation for a recording session that took place on July 4th at The Factory now available on Cellar Live called 'Foundations.' a wonderful wonderful record that I'm very proud of. I also got ENGAGED in this month. July 1st to be exact. I asked Alana to marry me! Zapato Negro also recorded a live record at the club on the 14th and 15th and it was a funny weekend because my new fiancee's parents were down to meet my parents. Sooooo, I was entertaining them at the club while trying to engineer a live record. Sounded wicked what can I say! Joani Taylor, Sharon Minemoto and I did a tribute to Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley that went really well on July 21st and 22nd. It would've been way busier except we had a heat way that weekend.

10. August was a tough month. We thought closing would be a good idea but it wasn't. I did however get a great holiday with Alana in New York City and it was absolutely wonderful. The Night Crawlers with Ian Hendrickson-Smith took their second crack at recording a live record an NAILED it. 'Presenting' is available now!

12. September was a wildly busy month with some lots of controversy but mostly wicked music. Vocalist extraordinaire Jacqui Naylor was supposed to play on labour day weekend but due to border and immigration issues was unable to make it. Wow that was a stressful couple of days and you couldn't pay me enough money to relive that day again! Frank Catalano absolutely thrilled audiences at the club on the 15th and 16th with his 'sheets of sound' saxophone playing and we hung out and had some fun. This guy is coming in February and you don't want to miss him! September 22nd and 23rd are two nights I will never ever forget. My two favorite saxophonists on the planet at the same time. Eric Alexander and George Coleman. WOW! I know music is subjective but there were some people who left the show disappointed. I will never understand that. It was colossal.

13. Two more of my favorite saxophonists graced the stage in October. PJ PERRY and CAM RYGA politely duked it out at the club and the result was some pretty unreal music. We did record and don't know if it will ever come out but the music will forever remain close to my heart.

14. Jodi Proznick's CD Relesae was fabulously attended and we sold almost 100 cds combined which eclipsed the previous record of 80 held by TWO MUCH GUITAR. My dad put together his dream band which performed on November 30th and for not having a rehearsal the sextet of Paul Rushka, myself, Joani Taylor, Sharon Minemoto and Paul Townsend did a great job!

15. And finally December with great appearances by The B3 Kings with Denzal Sinclaire. A great three nights of music with Denzal seeming more relaxed and spontaneous than ever. Michael Blake returned to the club playing some spirited music and Fred Stride and his Jazz Orchestra releasing its debut CD 'Forward Motion.'

WOW a great year and its not even over yet.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support of The Cellar and here's to a great 2007!!
Learning to play on Martin guitars
isn't that important since any acoustic guitar
will do for a while, though once you know how to play the guitar
then you might want to invest in an acoustic or electric guitar
with a higher quality sound than you started with.

Interviewing Lou Donaldson

Hey folks. Im interviewing Sweet Papa Lou Donaldson on Monday and although I have a plethora (yeah thats right) a plethora of questions I thought I would put it out there to anyone that reads this blog that have suggestions on what I can ask Lou. Email me at cory@cellarjazz.com

Odds and Ends

Again, long time no blog. Usually I'm really into posting here but lately I just haven't really felt the inspiration but there has been lots of great stuff going on at the club and with the label. First off though some personal tid bits. I went out of town this past weekend to get a little r&r with my fiancee and we went to this incredible bed and breakfast in Harrison Hot Springs. I cannot say enough about what an amazing place this is. Its called The Harrison Heritage House and Kottages. It was absolutely amazing. Sonja and Robert the owner of the place are fantastic and the place was so charming I can't even believe it. If you're looking for a little r&r this is the place to go.

I got a wonderful present for my birthday. A great book called "The House That Trane Built, The Story of Impulse Records." I cannot put the thing down. Its a fantastic book and a wonderful recount of Impulse Records. Its quite fascinating because Impule was a subsidiary of ABC Paramount who had the likes of Ray Charles and Paul Anka on the label so they gave their producers a little bit more leeway and they had a bit of a longer rope when signing and producing records. The two primary producers at the label were Creed Taylor followed by Bob Thiele both of whom were very very respected by musicians. Its quite funny to read how they kind of did everything backwards. They let their musicians record super long tracks and also weren't necessarily concerned with what was mainstream. They recorded some very very adventurous records and were continuoulsy backed by ABC. The also released these records at a very tumultuous time politically and these records seemed to strike a chord with people. I haven't read the whole thing but so far its really been a great read.

I also got a new book mailed to me from a publisher and got asked to review it on my blog. Interesting request and without really thinking about it I agreed and now I'm in the position of having to review a something. Luckily I liked it so its much much easier. The book is The Essential Jazz Recordings - 101 CDs by Ross Porter. For those of you who don't know Ross Porter he has been an integral part of jazz in Canada while at CBC as host of 'After Hours,' a brief stint launching Cool TV and now as the CEO I believe of what I hear is a successful radio station in Toronto featuring primarily jazz. I have deal with Mr. Porter on several occasions and respect his opinions. I only have a few problems with the book and albeit minor I have to mention them. First of all, the cover design leaves a lot to be desired. Its one of the reasons why jazz is thought to be uncool. It could've been so much better but it is very bland and very uncool. Now, you can't judge a book by its cover right? This book is great and Porter does a great job of stating why he likes the records he chooses and manages to keep an experienced listener such as myself interested but doesn't talk above the casual listener or inexperienced fan. The only problem I have with the book is that Porter includes collections as some of his picks so for example he uses compilations. There are no rules about what you can state as a 'great' cd but for some reason using collections or compilations doesn't sit well with me. Its kinda cheating but hey what do I know. Its a great book and its very cool to read about what someone's 101 best CDs are. I don't agree with all of his choices but thats kind of the fun of it.

Clarinetist James Danderfer just launched a brand new website that looks fabulous. You can view the site by clicking here. James is doing will living in Shanghai and although we miss him here on the scene he is learning a lot and apparently writing a ton of great music. He has a sextet date tentatively scheduled for May but when its official you can check the Cellar calendar for details.

Im getting very excited about the Lou Donaldson appearance in January. I just found out that it is in fact going to be Mike Ledonne on organ which is awesome because a) he is a monster on the b3 and b) he is a great guy. Im currently working on a telephone interview for my radio show and hopefully I will publish it on vancouverjazz.com. Its going to be an amazing three nights of music.

I have been listening to the new...well the new / old Ray Charles CD with the Count Basie Orchestra. If you haven't heard it you should. Its awesome. Basically they found the session in the record vaults and the vocal trax were pristine and beautiful but there were lots of issues with the big band track such as bad recording and some tape transfer issues so what they did is extract the vocal tracks and then the new Count Basie band went into the studio and played some newly written arrangements behind the vocals and the results are terrific. The band swinging its butt off and Ray sounds great. Im usually not into these recreation things but you can't deny how great this sounds.

Thats if for now!