Cory Weeds - The Scene

I can’t seem to pull anything out of my mailbox these days thats anything less than brilliant!  Kudos first to Steve Bellamy and his new label Addo Jazz Recordings! They have three new releases out; Kirk MacDonald: Songbook Volume 1, Fieldtrip: No Destination and Ted Quinlan: Streetscape.  All of them are wonderful.  The best thing about Kirk’s new CD other than the great playing is the fact that its called Volume 1.  This would indicate that there are going to be further volumes which would be welcomed by this jazz fan!  Pat Labarbera stages it perfectly in his liner notes; “MacDonald needs to be heard on the world stage, I hope this CD will find its way to those who book festivals & tours & will give Canadian musicians of this stature a chance to perform & share their music in places other than their homeland.” This quartet of musicians burns from the get go!   I haven’t made my way through the whole Ted Quinlan offering yet because when I got to track 3, Go West I just kept hitting repeat!  With instrumental tunes its a real art to convey the title with the sound of the music. This tune conjures up exactly what one would think you’d experience “going West.”  Ted Quinlan is a virtuosic guitarist and am looking very forward to hearing the rest of the CD.  Fieldtrip is  or was a powerful trio but they have added some more fire power here with guitarist Jim Head and saxophonist Kelly Jefferson. I get a kick out of listening to Colin Power (alto sax) and Jefferson go back and forth. Its obvious that they are inspired by one another.  In the words of my good friend Chad Eby “who says contemporary jazz can’t swing?”

All of these CDs have been recorded at Humber College’s brand new studios with Steve Bellamy at the helm and the sound quality is superb.

Smalls Live has finally been launched and are out of the gate with 6 fantastic titles.  Ian Hendrickson-Smith is the mix engineer for all Smalls Live releases so you know they are going to sound incredible.  They are working through some kinks on their websites but the stuff is available so go and check them out. I have heard excerpts from all the releases and they all sound killing especially Steve Davis’ release.  I heard an alto solo from Mike DiRubbo on that CD that I will not forget!  I have yet to receive the releases but when I do I will go on in more detail about them. For those of you that don’t know Smalls Live, its run out of Smalls Jazz Club in New York City under the auspices of my good friend Spike Wilner!  Check it out and buy every single one of the CDs, they are all going to be great I can assure you!

I made my regular stop at Silver Platters during my frequent trips to Seattle. I wasn’t really in a CD browsing mood but Im glad I persisted because I came across a couple of things that really got me excited.  One that isn’t exactly rare is STANLEY TURRENTINE - Dearly Beloved on Blue Note with Shirley Scott on organ and Roy Brooks on drums.  As were all of Stanley’s Blue Note dates this is seriously hard swinging affair.  For me the essence of what jazz is supposed to convey and feel like.  Great tunes and nice to hear Shirley without the support of a bass player!  She is really killing it. The title track is especially cool.  Does anyone know of a Stanley T. date on Blue Note that is anything less than spectacular?  My second find was one that was unexpected.  On  my recent tour with Jim Rotondi the name Art Farmer came up quite a bit. Of course I know Art Farmer and have some of his stuff but haven’t ever really keyed in on him.  This record is called The Time And Place and its Art’s quintet live at The Museum of Modern Art. The band is Jimmy Heath on tenor, Albert Dailey on piano, Walter Booker on bass and Mickey Roker on drums.  The band is really on fire.  Seriously going for it and not worried about making mistakes or sounding pretty. Everyone is really blowing and I had always thought of Art as a mellower more subdued trumpeter but on this date he is really hitting it hard!  Check it out!

The last 4 to 5 days have been a complete whirlwind. Im not sure when I last wrote (don’t have internet aceess at the moment) b ut on Monday morning (Oct. 5^th) we checked out of our hotel and went to York Univeristy to do an afternoon concert. After the show at around 2:00 we had to get in the van and basically drive as fast as we could to Ottawa. It took us exactly 5 hours to get there. We pulled up at the National Arts Center, 4^th Stage and were treated first class by the organizers of the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Bassist Paul Rushka joined us from Montreal and sounded superb! He has been studying at McGill for the past few years and it was great to hook up with him and play with him. He did a great job! After the gig and I mean right after the gig we had to hop back in the van and drive back to Toronto because we had a clinic the next day at 1:00 in Hamilton!

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes buy

The clinic at Mowhawk in Hamilton was great and from there Jim flew to back to NYC and Ross, Jesse and I began our trek to NYC. We actually did pretty well in that we made it to Kingston (about an hour and a bit out of the city). On Wednesday we were up early and I began my first driving experience in NYC. Oh my god. Not something I would wanna do an a regular basis. I got Jesse and Ross to Rudy Petschauer’s in Brooklyn and then made my way to 125^th Street where Ian lives.

A Cinderella Story

I was pretty nervous but very excited about our gig at SMOKE. I have spent many a night at SMOKE in my many visits to the city. It is by far my favorite club in NYC. I got there nice and early and Frank (co-owner) and I had a really great chat about all things business. The gig went really well. The band played great and to get a chance to play with John Webber (bass) again was fantastic. Him and Jesse hooked up beautifully and it was just an awesome night. The only drag is that it was GAME 1 of the ALCS and the Yankees were playing. The crowd was decent but not what we were all hoping for .

The band at SMOKE!

After the gig I took a cab back up to Harlem and went to PERKS where Ian Hendrickson-Smith (tenor sax), Brian Charette (organ) and Joe Strasser (drums) were playing. Band sounded killing and I played a few tunes, had a drink and got home around 3:00 am. I had to be up at 7:00 to make the 2.5 hour trek to Harford, CT where I was doing clinic at the Hartt School Of Music. It was set up by trombonist Steve Davis. Hart is the program that alto saxophonist Jackie McLean started and his legacy lives large in the Jazz Department. I met his sone Rene and a few of the other teachers before doing the 2 hour masterclass. The students really seemed to dig it and had lots of questions about the ins and outs of running a jazz club and label etc. It was a lot of fun. After the clini Stevie D took me out for lunch and we hung out. He really is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. Just a very gracious and generious guy.

Playing with the kids a Hart

After lunch we visited Integrity N’ Music, a very well known record store in Wethersfield, CT. Bought a few things including a 1993 recording of Dr. Lonnie Smith’s called The Art Of Organizing. It’s a great date with Peter Bernstein on guitar and Billy Drummond on drums. It was just released now almost 16 years later because of a ‘technical issue.” Great CD! After that I had to make the dreadful drive back to NYC. I was so tired and actually thought about getting a hotel because I felt myself nodding off. I managed to brave the crazy traffic and made it back to the city at around 9:00. As much as I wanted to go out, I was just too bagged. I was in bed at 11:00! Off to Montreal today.

I am now officially confused about the purpose of my blog.  I have been thinking about it for quite some time and its pretty obvious by my sporadic postings that the frequency has definitely declined.  I started thinking about it again the other night at my gig at Chalkers. Mark Miller came up and introduced himself and said that he reads my blog. I know there are lots of people out there that read my blog but Im not quite sure what I’m supposed to be writing about.

I know I do a lot of stuff and generally have a lot to say about everything and of course one needs to be careful about what gets written but Im just not to sure exactly what to write.  Any thoughts about what aspect of the blog you enjoy would be welcomed. Email me at cory@cellarjazz.com

Last night was disasterous in terms of turnout.  Maybe 15 people.  There were some special guests however; my sister Cindy and her partner Michele, and trombonist Dave McMurdo.  I forgot to mention that great Toronto drummer Joel Haynes was at the show briefly on Saturday.

Today we play a concert at York University in North York.  There will be some pretty happening musicians in the crowd for that one. Kevin Turcotte, Kelly Jefferson, Barry Elmes, Mark Eisenmann. They are all on the faculty at the school so I guess I better bring my ‘A’ game.  Then right after that we drive straight to Ottawa for a gig at the National Arts Center. There was a great article in the Ottawa Citizen that you can view here.

We have to get right back in the van and drive back to Toronto because we have a clinic/concert in Hamilton tomorrow in the early afternoon. Gonna be a tiring day no doubt!

Gotta go!

Redemption: A Mile from Hell the movie

Leg 2 is officially underway. We played Chalkers Pub last night in North York.  I was hoping for a much bigger crowd especially given the amount of press that the show received.  I did an interview on Jazz FM91 with Walter Venafro (two couples heard it and came down), a Critics Choice in the Toronto Star, apparently it got mentioned in the NOW and I did an interview on Rob Fogle’s radio show (the station escapes me at the moment).  All that great press only to get out 38 people?  I know that press doesn’t always directly relate to bums in the seats but I got some good press!  It didn’t help that there was a massive thunder/rain storm about 30 minutes before we played but still.  This is Toronto! There are 4 million plus here. Is it unfair to assume that with the kind of press we got that I should’ve expected more than 38 people?  Okay enough of that, lets get to the special folks that were there.  Shannon Gunn (and old Vancouverite, singer who taught me at Cap College), Iris Page (mother of Bill Coon), Fern Lindzon and Maureen Kennedy (two great Toronto singers that I have become friends with), Mark Miller (the fantastic Canadian writer). He’s coming out with a new book in November on Herbie Nichols! Rob Fogle (radio host and jazz maniac). Doug Randle who is a friend of Ross Taggart’s. Colin Story (friend from Vancouver who now lives in Toronto and is studying at U Of T). The people that were there dug the hell out of the band (for the most part) and it was good to see some friends supporting us in the audience.

Im not too sure if Im the guy to ask about how it went musically. Everyone in the band seemed to dig it.  Pat Collins (bass) sounded great. The piano was horribly out of tune but Ross being the great sport that he is sucked it up and sounded great. Jesse was happy because he had his endorser (Cannopus) bring down a set of drums, Jim always sounds good.  I hung in there. I was tired and stressed about making sure everything was cool.

It barely seems like I was home for a week. I guess because I wasn’t. It was only really 5 days. I find myself on a plane again with Taggart and Cahill meeting up with Rotondi in Toronto for the beginning of leg 2. I have to admit I’m kinda of excited. I really felt like we got into a great musical rhythm if you will. It’s a real drag that Ken Lister (bass) couldn’t join us on this leg (thanks Canada Council). Pat Collins, Paul Rushka and John Webber are going to be great don’t get me wrong but when you do 10 gigs in a row with same band you get some shit together! I had planned on practicing at least for 30 minutes every day I was home. Georgia Rule I didn’t pick up my horn once! I also planned to go to the gym every day as well. I made it zero times!

I’m kind of excited about all the gigs on this leg but would be lying if I wasn’t extra excited and nervous about the New York City gig at Smoke. If you have read my blog at any point since it started you’d know that Smoke is my favorite club in the world. I just love the vibe. You never know who is going to show up there to listen. Its gonna be a gas! I also can’t wait to get my hands on the 4 – CD set that they produced there. Chalkers tonight and tomorrow will be fun as well. The National Arts Center in Ottawa will be a great gig as well. Jesse has played there before and apparently its fantastic!

Musical selections for this leg at least from my standpoint are: Johnny Griffin: The Storyville Collection (4 CD set), George Colmean – Amsterdamn Ater Dark, George Coleman Octet – Big George, George Coleman/Tete Monteliu (spelling?) – Duo, Freddie Hubbard – Without A Song, Jim Snidero – Crossfire, Gary Smulyan – With Strings, Duke Pearson – Honeybuns and The Right Touch.

It was great spending some time with Noah and Alana. My kid is getting more classic by the day. I was excited for opening night of Hockey Night In Canada. It was only the second time Noah has worn his Canucks jersey that Ross Taggart bought him. Unfortunately the result was the same as the last time he wore it. We got hammered!

• Herostratus ipod

Oh well, he’s getting into it. He only lasted till the 10 minute mark of the 1^st period before falling asleep but we were already down 3 – 0 and unlike his old man he did the right thing and went to bed. I painfully endured the rest of the game only to get my hopes up slightly of a comeback until Dion Had Eneuf put it away for good!

It will be good to play Chalkers tonight in Toronto. Im hoping to see some old friends!

This pretty much sums up how we’re all feeling after leg 1 of the tour.  Just kidding, all in all it has been a fantastic tour with highlights including The Old Firehall in Rossland and a fun gig at Selkirk College in Nelson.  Zac is fantastic at The Old Firehall. What a great place. I forgot how small Rossland is. Only about 3200 people. After the gig I was being really lippy to Jim about how great a pool player I am. He proceeded to lay a severe beating on me 3 - 0.  We were at the Steamshovel for a few late night cocktails. Hanging out with the locals (the young ones anyway) was quite an experience.  The band is quite tired as we had a crazy couple of driving days.  on Thursday after our Cranbrook gig we had to drive 3.5 hours to Banff where we slept for about 5 hours. We then had to get up and drive to Edmonton to do a clinic at noon at Grant MacEwan College.  We had to be on the road at 730 for the 5 or so hour drive to Edmonton. We got  to the clinic in plenty of time and the clinic was actually really good. The kids were really into asking me about all the business stuff which was cool. We got to the hotel really early and all had a chance to sleep. I had a great dinner across the street including perhaps one of the best bowls of red borscht I have ever had in my life. Wow!  Then it was of to The Yardbird Suite. What a fantastic club.  It was very cool because Senator Tommy Banks and PJ Perry were hanging out in the front row and for once I didn’t get wigged out. I remember the last time I played at the Yardbird with Denzal Sinclaire, PJ was hanging out.  We got out to play our first tune and I counted it off and started playing the wrong tune and then my ligature came loose and my reed fell off.  I remember looking out and just seeing the expressionless look on PJ’s face. Classic! Not this time. The band was cooking and it was fun hanging with those guys.

Its off to The Beatniq tonight before heading home to hang out with Alana and Noah! I can’t wait for that.

Night 5 tonight in Whitehorse as part of the Jazz On The Wing Jazz Concert Series. So far so good. Scott Wilson and Jazz Yukon are fantastic!  We flew up after driving home right after the gig in Kamloops last night.  The gig was fun but it would’ve been nice to have a few more people considering the amount of press we got.  We had about 80 people which is pretty good but were hoping for about 100 or 120.  The people that were there however loved it and it was an enthusiastic and well received show. Sold about 17 CDs which is more than we can say for Pender Harbour.  The gig at The PH Jazz Festival was awesome.  The little music school was a perfect venue and despite the 85 + crowd, we only sold 4 CDS. Its funny the way that works! The accoms were fantastic!  The Sunshine Coast Resort.  Beautiful suites on the on the water and we had a great barbeque dinner before the show.  Here is Rotondi doing up the grilled zucchini.

Here we are at the Pender Harbour School Of Music.

The two nights at The Cellar were fantastic although the crowds were a little bit light.  Once again the people who were there really seemed to enjoy it. The band gets such a great response which is always nice.  To be able to play music with the same people night after night is such a treat. Heck we’re only on gig 5. We still have 6 to go on the first leg!

This picture is us doing a clinic at New West Secondary School.  Jesse’s wife Kelly Proznick is the band teacher there and it was a good clinic. The kids were very enthusiastic and they seemed to enjoy it.

We have a few clinics along the way; Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton and Hartford.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on dvd

My Blue Heaven pspThe Day the Earth Stood Still movie download

The lack of posting is certainly not due to a lack of things going on. Its been a bit of a whirlwind and it shows now signs of slowing down. We’re in the midst of our 9 year Anniversary celebration at The Cellar with the venerable Dr. Lonnie Smith and his trio. What a huge treat to have Bill Stewart playing drums.  I was so excited when I knew he was coming to the club and he did not disappoint.  What a powerful keeper of time and so amazingly creative without sacrificing one ounce of groove.  Peter Bernstein tears it up as usual and as I have mentioed many a time, he to me, is simply the best guitar player on the planet.  Then of course there is the Dr.  Gracious and generous as always.  He thoroughly entertained everyone this weekend. What can I say?  He is a special man.

No sooner do I get those guys back to Seattle and I being a long tour of my own. Could be one of the longest or at least most gigs I have ever had on a tour. It all gets started on Wednesday and Thursday here at The Cellar.  I really hope some people come out as it would be drag to get the tour started off on a sour note so to speak.  Jim Rotondi will be joining us for the whole tour and to share the front line with him for what is about 20 gigs is  so exciting.  The most challenging part of the tour will be leaving Noah!  I haven’t been gone longer than 6 days without seeing him so this will be a tough test.  It will be 9 days  and then 8 days!  Crazy!

I will post some pictures of this weekend soon.Betrayal movie

The Life of David Gale the movie

• Cherry Falls the movie

The dog days of summer!  I love this time of year and thats because I can actually almost count the days unti the summer is done on on my fingers…ALMOST.  All in all its been a very good August so far but July was a bit weird.  Oh well, its gone, done, in the past!  August has been great and this weekend is gonna be a blast with Harlem B3 Organist Seleno Clarke.

This week was particularily gratifying for me in terms of response to my album Everything Is Coming Up Weeds. First off I got home to an email from Lisa Reedy of Jazz Promotion who handles all of my radio tracking saying that NPR.og has done a feature called Oh Canada Jazz From The North where they feature a track from my record called Biru Kirusai.  There are 5 albums mentioned: Oscar Peterson- Trail of Dreams: A Canadian Suite, Diana Krall - Girl in the Other Room. Sophie Milman -Take Love Easy and fellow Vancouverite (at least for another month) Amanda Tosoff - Wait and See. I can’t explain how flattered I am to mentioned with these artists! So the second email from Lisa is regarding a review from Rick Erban, KIOS Omaha. To say its a good review would be an understatement:

Every now and then an album comes along that jumps right out at one – hittin’ on all cylinders. Such is the case with this new release from Cory Weeds. Weeds is owner of the Vancouver, BC Cellar Restaurant and the Cellar Live record label that has been issuing numerous sessions recorded at his venue. He is also a fine tenor saxophone player, as evidenced by this recording – his second (preceded by last year’s “Big Weeds”). “Everything’s Coming Up Weeds” is a marvelous post-bop session that showcases the saxophonist in a quintet setting featuring a great group including trumpeter Jim Rotondi, pianist Ross Taggart, bassist John Webber and drummer Willie Jones III.

“Bailin’ On Lou” is an in-the-pocket cooker, this time giving John Webber a chance to solo; Taggart’s “Cyclaman” is a tender ballad and Weeds’ “The Pour” a number reminiscent of Art Blakey And His Jazz Messengers. There’s a lot to like on this fine recording by Cory Weeds and company.

To top it all off there were a succession of email telling me the various cities and stations that Everything’s Coming Up Weeds has been added to the Top 10:

CHRW 94.9 FM London, ON

CHUO 89.1 FM Ottawa, ON

KCHO Chico, CA

KRCC 91.5 FM Colorado Springs, CO

KWCW 90.5 FM Walla Walla, WA

WCFM 91.9 FM Williamstown, MA

WECS 90.1 FM Willimantic, CT

WNCW 88.7 FM Spindale, NC

WNMC 90.7 FM Traverse City, MI

Im pretty excited about the response to the record and even more excited about the upcoming tour!

Long time no blog!  Its been a bit crazy with JazzFest, then the heat wave and of course Noah doesn’t exactly give me a lot of spare time!

Well here we are smack dab in the middle of summer, the most dreaded time of the year for me!  We had a near record breaking jazz festival and after that things just got plain weird!  Weekdays = very buys and weekends = not very busy at all. Quite odd. I know there are a lot of reasons it could be like that but based the decent summers we’ve had over the past two years, this change is very odd.  We’ve had some amazing nights of music at The Cellar and as is often the case we just have to put our heads down and plough through and hope that the minute September hits it starts to pour rain!

Im getting ready for the this big cross Canada tour for my latest record Everything’s Coming Up Weeds.  Im so thrilled that it cracked the Top 10 on the JazzWeek Charts

View from the Top rip

.  It will take a bit of a hit this week and go back down to #23 but to crack the Top 10 is a pretty big honor and I’m very excited.  The tour will be hitting The Cellar, Pender Harbour, Kamloops, Whitehorse, Rossland, Nelson, Cranbrook, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and New York.  For complete details you can check out my website.

I have actually gotten back in to a bit of routine with practicing.  Its been hard to maintain any sense of inspiration musically when you have to brush the dust off your horn just to get the thing out. Im happy to say that I have put in some good time at least 3 times this week. I even wrote a tune and transcribed anothe so hopefully I can find someway to keep it up. Its good for the soul.