Kingston jazz quartet draws inspiration from sax legend
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When saxophonist Jonathan Stewart and trumpeter Benji Perosin, along with bassist Paul Clifford and drummer Rich Bannard, put together the jazz quartet Inside Out three years or so ago, they searched for a format that would offer them plenty of room to improvise.
“In jazz, so much of the time, a lot of what’s going on is really reliant on hearing the chords as they go by to keep some sort of frame of reference for the song, but some groups have kind of taken the advantage of not having that and they use it to change and improvise,” Stewart explained.
The band didn’t have to look any further than the early work of saxophonist Ornette Coleman, around which they created the show they will be peforming Sunday afternoon.
Coleman has long been credited as a founder of “free jazz” that eschewed the traditional form.
“You would have him stating a melody, with a very definite form, and then the improvising would sort of follow those forms,” Stewart explained.
“Now you don’t necessarily hear it as easily because you don’t have these harmonic structures being laid out for you. It’s still within that style, but it’s using this freedom that they have because there are no chords locking them down to anything.”
The performance, part of the Kingston Jazz Society’s winter jazz concert series, takes place inside the Wilson Room of the downtown branch of the public library. Tickets are $20 ($5 for students) for the 2 p.m. show.
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While congratulations are owed to Queen’s University’s John Burge for his nomination for a Juno award for classical composition of the year for Piano Quartet, he’s not the only university-associated musician to be nominated.
Alumnae Nick Smith and Taes Levitt, better known to the preschool set as Splash’N Boots, have again been nominated for children’s album of the year, this time for Songs from the Boot.
And Kingston-born Bryan Adams was nominated for his album Get Up.
Many of this year’s nominees, in fact, have either played here recently (Matthew Good, Half Moon Run and Dean Brody, among others) or will be playing here soon.
In the “group of the year” category, not only will four of the five nominees grace the Rogers K-Rock Centre stage, two of them will appear on the same night as Walk Off the Earth opens for Marianas Trench on March 9. The other two, Hedley and Metric, will perform April 14 and March 20, respectively.
Also on the horizon are Young Empires (Feb. 18), The Sheepdogs (March 9), Johnny Reid (March 24) and Buffy Sainte-Marie (March 26).
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In the meantime, there are a few concerts taking place this week.
Sunday, Cantabile Choirs lead the “Sing, Sing a Song” singalong at Sydenham Street United Church at 2 p.m. The concert is free of charge, but donations to Sistema Kingston will be welcomed.
Friday evening, BrassWerks welcomes trumpeter Karen Donnelly at Cooke’s-Portsmouth United Church. Tickets are $10-$25.
The lights will be dimmed inside both the Grand Theatre and the Rogers K-Rock Centre Thursday evening. Moon vs. Sun (Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida) will perform at the Grand, while Brantley Gilbert brings his “Black Out” tour through the downtown arena.
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And if you’re a fan of the Pixies, you might want to head to the Grad Club Friday night as a few local bands get together to pay tribute to Frank Black and company in support of campus radio station CFRC as part of its fundraiser week.
peter.hendra@sunmedia.ca
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