The Jazz Works: Perfect Time(s) to Explore
Two of Edmonton’s larger, and more familiar, arts festivals are on right now.
The Works has takeover Churchill Square with art, music, and right-brain thinking (which is the creative, more intuitive side of the brain).
You’ll also find plenty of art installations and showcases throughout the downtown, everywhere from building lobbies, to hotels and restaurants.
The Works is Edmonton’s annual summer arts festival. It’s a great way to explore some art, maybe dipping your toe into things before you make the leap to galleries. (Latitude 53 also has the Visualeyez festival in September which is more experimental, edgy, and performance art.)
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The Edmonton International Jazz Festival is Edmonton’s yearly celebration of jazz. Obviously.
Every summer, jazz musicians from around the world will come and play the Yardbird Suite (Edmonton’s historic jazz club), the Winspear Centre, bars, clubs, and parks. You’d be hard-pressed to make it through the end of June without bumping into some jazz.
Like The Works being an easy way to explore art, the Jazz Festival is a simple way to listen to music you may not normally jump at. Festival passes, and show tickets, aren’t all that expensive and a festival provides a more relaxed atmosphere where newbies can mix with the longtime afficionados.
That’s baby-making music
We don’t talk about jazz enough, Edmonton. And certainly not enough about jazz flute.*
Over at the Yardbird Suite tonight you can catch a session with The Jerrold Dubyk Quartet (featuring our old pal Jerrold Dubyk), and then there’s a jazz jam session.
Don’t think you’re a jazz fan? You never know, maybe you’ll end up liking what you hear.
*There may or may not be jazz flute at the Yardbird.
You stay jazzy, Edmonton
It’s that time of the year, Edmonton. Get your jazz hands ready.
Ready?
Show me…jazz hands!
I really, sincerely hope one of you is vigorously shaking your hands right now. That would totally make my day.
But it is in fact time for the Edmonton International Jazz Festival. See, I was going somewhere with all of this.
OK, so the festival officially begins tomorrow but they’ve got one of those pre-festival concerts, just like Folk Fest, with Chick Corea tonight. That’s this evening at The Winspear.
Other Jazz highlights include Nikki Yanofsky (she of the Olympic “I Believe” song), Jazz in the Park (which is free, and at Louise McKinney Park), and lots of performances at the Yardbird Suite and MacLab Theatre. Hey, you can even pick up a $99 pass to get in to any show at the Yardbird and MacLab (subject to some seat availability at the performance). And there are a lot of people playing between now and July 4. Even Kid Koala is playing.
Wait? Kid Koala?
And I thought Sally was teaching me everything I needed to know about jazz. Sally, you never told me Kid Koala could play turntables at a jazz festival!
So, anyway…the jazz fest is on. Enjoy.
June’s first kick at the can
The first June weekend of the year is here and let’s see what’s in store for us.
You could see a movie. There are four new ones in theatre this weekend.
Nextfest has begun. It’s the annual celebration of young, youthful artists in Edmonton. There will be plays, dance, films, visual art, music and lots more. And it’s all from young, and up-and-coming Edmonton artists.
Pay attention, some of these names will be in arts and culture coverage for years to come. Plus, you can check things out right now and be able to say you saw so-and-so’s first show back in 2010.
This weekend also marks the beginning of the month-long Edmonton Community Challenge. 20 21 of Edmonton’s community leagues will be eating pancakes, cleaning neighbourhoods, fixing bikes, collecting food for the Food Bank and recyclables for YESS, and scavenging for photos, all to try and win $15,000 for a capital project in their community. I’ll be reporting more on this, from the front lines, as captain of the Strathcona Centre team.
Dreamspeakers Film Festival is still going on. So is the International Children’s Festival.
Tonight, at the Avenue Theatre, Christian Hansen & The Autistics will impress you with their musical talent. You’ll be there at 8pm.
Is that all I’ve got? Yes.
But that’s not all ShareEdmonton’s got:
The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO) is going to the Oscars this weekend.
It’s Movies on the Square time again! Tonight you can watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on a giant screen in Churchill Square. Tomorrow it’s Alvin and the Chipmunks 2.
If you head to Naked on Jasper, Saturday night, you can support aspiring musicians, including one of our favourites, Lyra Brown. Lyra is also going to be playing Nextfest on Tuesday. See what I said about the best and brightest young stars?
Eddie Vaan Shaw Jr. will be at the Yardbird. (This is one of those newfangled yeglive.ca tie-in events I mentioned last week.)
If you’re in the centre of the city this weekend you might want to check out the Heart of the City festival. It’s two days of music, music and music. All at Giovanni Cabot Park, and all free.
Edmonton Twitter music notables Erica Viegas and Lisa Nicole Grace play Saturday night.
Let’s end January with a bang
Still safer than a Toyota. It's also my way of mentioning the Edmonton Motorshow is this weekend.
Let’s see…what can we do this weekend to make this first month of 2010 worth it?
O.M.G. It’s already the end of January.
This really makes the weekend feel needed.
As you probably already know, I’m going to be a little fancier than normal and partake in some higher art. I’ll try not to embarrass you.
If you’ve got your ticket you can go to the grand opening of the Art Gallery of Alberta. I wish I’d heard about this more, so I could have known it was this weekend.
Maybe you want a little music this weekend. Our old friends The Omega Theory are playing the Starlite Room, with nice little Winnipeg band Inward Eye.
If you’re feeling jazzy, check out Karl Schwonik at the Yardbird. He’s a (just about) local drummer who’s been bouncing all around the world.
And the Respectfully Elvis Fan Club is putting on a 75th birthday party of sorts at the Kingsway Legion tonight at 8pm.
What a busy weekend you have
There will be martinis.
Ah, the weekend. Our brief taste of freedom each week. Let’s enjoy it, Edmonton.
How about you get your thoughts provoked over at the Global Visions Film Festival? I believe it’s Canada’s longest-running documentary film festival.
The first Saturday of the month means time for the Handmade Mafia to provide you with awesome goods.
The Yardbird Jazz Festival kicks off tonight. Sweet.
Over at the TransAlta Arts Barns, the Night of Artists takes over for the weekend.
The Barns close out the weekend with a Yogathon for Charity.
Perhaps you’re feeling a bit peckish. Well, you can head over to the Shaw Conference Centre for the Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival.
The Likwid Lounge is hosting a veritable smorgasbord of aweseome Saturday, with a fundraiser show for a new independent record label. The lineup includes The Joe, A.O.K., Zebra Pulse and Audio/Rocketry.
As mentioned in the headlines this morning, Farmfair International IS ON.
The Alberta Ballet kicks off its Edmonton season with Romeo and Juliet.
The Edmonton Classical Guitar Society has “Between Two Continents on Eight Guitars,” or G8.
Maybe you’d like to see what Grant MacEwan University has to offer. There’s an app for that.
You can always see what Edmonton’s ChangeCampers are doing to change things around here.
If you’re a fabulous lady 50 or older there’s the “Fabulous at 50 Experience and Martini Party” (as noted in the sign above).
Perhaps you want to get rocked gently, by Andy Kim at the Century Casino?
With Remembrance Day coming up the Cosmopolitan Music Society presents “Lest We Forget: A Musical Tribute” at the Winspear Centre.
Finally, Said the Whale plays Brixx tonight.
And while it’s not exactly a weekend event, in the new week you’ll be able to listen to/download the new podcast from The Unknown Studio, with guests me and Sally. I shower the Unknown Studio boys with love until they blindside us with their 60 Minutes-style questioning.
The Jerrold Dubyk Quartet, or, Sally discovers the Yardbird Suite
Do you guys remember Jerrold Dubyk, the local jazz saxophonist who so graciously gave us a quick Coles Notes(TM) on how to tell good jazz from bad jazz?
I checked out his band’s CD release this weekend. It was my first trip the Yardbird Suite, and oh. my. god. If you haven’t been there, you need to check it out. It’s amazing. I wanted to take pictures to share it with you, but it was too g.d. dark for me to get any that don’t make you feel like you have cataracts. Case in point:
Anyway, take my word for it, it’s great. And so was the Jerrold Dubyk Quartet!
Lookit us, #yeg, expanding our collective horizons. Although, in fairness, Jeff was already on the jazz train. He’s loved Duke Silver for as long as I can remember.
Jazz 101 with Jerrold Dubyk
Edmonton Jazz Saxophonist Jerrold Dubyk
When I get Edmonton jazz saxophonist Jerrold Dubyk on the phone, the first thing he tells me is I’ve caught him recovering from a weekend camping trip with buddies, fraught with, amongst other things “poker and meat”.
“I’m just done,” he laughs. “Done with meat until Christmas”
This surprises me. When I think of jazz musicians, I think of dudes with pompadours and cravats, smoking pipes, wearing velour jackets…y’know, “Yazz Flute” kind of guys. Not guys who camp in the Alberta wilderness and consume vast amounts of steak. But this is precisely why I’m so psyched to talk to Jerrold: I need somebody like this to dumb down jazz for me. (more…)
