Thanks to all who came out to the National Jazz Awards last night. I was presented with the SOCAN/CAJE Phil Nimmons Emerging Composer Award by Phil Nimmons himself. This was a kick because Phil -- a few days shy of 86 years old -- remains one of the hippest figures in Canadian jazz. With the help of the SOCAN/CAJE Jazz Orchestra, assembled by Darcy Hepner, we premiered "Hard Up On The Down Low," an anthem of global economic collapse featuring Ingrid Jensen on electronically manipulated trumpet. (Ingrid got show off her brand new Line 6 mega-rig.)
It was a real honor to perform at this event, which featured great performances by Mario Allard's band, a very good bigband made up of local student players, and closed with Joel Miller's smoking arrangement of Gil's "Time of the Barracudas," played with the assistance of the Jensen sisters and Alex Dean's killing house band.
However, I was disappointed to learn that the names of the musicians did not appear in the program. Perhaps there was not time to include them. But the players in the SOCAN/CAJE band include some of Toronto's finest musicians, and they worked their asses off to learn "Hard Up On The Down Low," which is not at all an easy thing to put together in a short period of time! They deserve serious props and I am very grateful to all of them:
WINDS
Darcy Hepner
Toby Stewart
Michael Stuart
Alex Dean
Mike Filice
TRUMPETS
Jason Logue
Dave Dunlop
Jon Challoner
Bruce Cassidy
Ingrid Jensen (solo)
TROMBONES
William Carn
Rob Sommerville
Phil Gray
Bob Hamper
RHYTHM
Joey Goldstein, guitar
Adrean Farrugia, piano
George Koller, bass
Joel Haynes, drums
More photos -- courtesy of the amazing and amazingly generous Ian Chandler -- below the fold...
Hey! I saw this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaDyvQG7UPw) of yours on Youtube, and I was wondering what the piece is and whether you plan to release a recording of it? It doesn't seem to be on the "Infernal Machines" album.
Thanks!
Posted by: Dave | 16 August 2010 at 03:02 AM