The multiple-award-winning Hutchinson Andrew Trio (HAT) is a vital and distinctively western force on the Canadian and international jazz scene. Winners of the prestigious TD Grand Jazz Award at the 34th Annual Montreal International Jazz Festival and a four-time Western Canadian Music Awards nominee, HAT brings a unique perspective to their music inspired by the vast prairie landscapes and majestic Rocky Mountains that surround them. Downbeat Magazine made the group an Editor’s Pick and called them “a terrific listen, with great musicianship throughout.”
The Senator pays tribute to the the Honourable Tommy Banks (1936-2018), a jazz legend who was both a world- class musician and a champion of the performing arts in his community. Banks – a pianist, conductor, arranger, composer, TV personality, actor, producer and politician – had an unparalleled, multi-faceted career spanning more than 60 years in virtually every aspect of the entertainment industry in Canada. A professional jazz pianist at age 14, he went on to lead his own bands, conduct symphony orchestras around the world, direct musical ceremonies at international events, host his own long-running television show, and act in film and television. He also served nearly 12 years in the Canadian Senate.
Supported by the CKUA radio foundation, this album is a tribute to Banks’s legacy as an artist, but also to the important marks The Senator left on Alberta and Canada as a community leader, politician, and champion of the performing arts.
The Senator was released worldwide on Friday, September 15th on Chronograph Records.
Home is the latest release for Edmonton based pianist, Chris Andrew. The title of the album speaks clearly to the inspiration for the compositions Chris crafted for this thoughtful exploration into his world. Spending time back and forth between his home base in Edmonton, Alberta and the University of Auckland in New Zealand where he was finishing his master’s degree in early 2020, Chris began to discover was most important to him in both his life and his art; family and community. As Chris comments, “Having a safe place surrounded by my family and my community has brought me a much-needed sense of security and stable foundation which allows me to do what I am doing as an artist. This has never become more clear than over the past few years with the challenges all of us have been facing in the world.”
Bringing together influences ranging traditional to contemporary and inspired by some of his heroes including pianists Joey Calderazzo to Aaron Parks, Chris has created what he hopes is a clear statement to the people in his life that have given him the security and support that they are part of this musical journey.
Recorded in Auckland, New Zealand in February of 2020 as the world was beginning to change more than anyone knew at the time, Chris employed some of the great talents of the University of Auckland’s jazz faculty. The record features 7 original contemporary jazz compositions in a trio and quartet setting with Chris Andrew (piano), Ron Samsom (drums), Olivier Holland (bass) and Roger Manins (saxophones).
Redline Trio’s cohesiveness and musicianship is immediately evident on your first listening. Their musical concept is unabashedly straight ahead with repertoire that favours the traditional head-solos-head format. Each musician has contributed their own compositions to this recording, and the album is filled with fresh new sounds. Redline Trio is composed of Calgarians Jeff Sulima on drums, Steve Shepard on bass, and Mark DeJong on tenor saxophone. On this date, they’re joined by Vancouver’s titanic talent Brad Turner on trumpet and New York’s Steve Hudson on piano.
They have also burnished their group’s sound in a way that’s not very common anymore: for the past six years, they’ve been playing together every week at a Calgary venue called Betty Lou’s Library. With several Western Canadian tours with Turner and with Hudson under their belts they headed into the award-winning OCL Studios in Chestermere, Alberta.
A note on the recording itself: The session was tracked by Josh Rob Gwilliam at OCL and then mixed and mastered by the group’s trumpeter Brad Turner, who is himself a highly gifted recording engineer and record producer. The sound quality of this final product is beautiful: each instrument’s tone is clear and warm, the balance between the instruments is perfect, and the musicians all sound as though they’re playing in the same room together. If, like me, you treat yourself to listening to this album with headphones on, you will appreciate the recording quality even more.
As with many artists, the pandemic shutdowns of 2020 became a time of soul searching for saxophonist and composer Keith O’Rourke. His sophomore album the ‘Imperfect Perfectionist’ is a direct result of this unexpected and prolonged period of self-reflection, practice and composition.
Keith began shaping the concept of a smaller ensemble as he realized that featuring a larger group with reopening of the arts industry might not be the most responsible way to re-enter live performance. Keith started writing for a chordless trio, putting aside some of the other projects he had on the go with this in mind. Keith immediately understood that this trio project was at once both exhilarating and a daunting challenge. On one hand, there was the freedom offered by the space that is left behind with less musicians interacting. On the other, every musician in this reduced setting needs to be active and interactive to effectively fill the space.
Keith approached the creation of this ensemble with an acute need to create a full sound with minimal instrumentation. Sanah Kadoura was his first choice for the drum chair as she is known for her fearless playing and endless creativity and chops. Double-bassist Kodi Hutchinson was a natural choice with his wealth of trio experience and his ability to take calculated risks to augment the sound of the band making three sound like more.
For the music itself, Keith has penned several fresh compositions and arranged a variety of standards that shine with this new trio.
Always the perfectionist, Keith strives in his own imperfect way to take us a journey through his life through music.
Saxophonist PHIL DWYER joins forces with his son BEN DWYER and East Coast Drummer MARK ADAM to form their new group the BPM TRIO to release their debut live album, AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM on Chronograph Records
Album available March 19th, 2021
Press/media: Physical & digital copies available, please write to [email protected]to request your copy
“Audi Alteram Partem” is the legal principle whereby all sides be heard and accorded a fair right to reply. It is most certainly an apt principal central to great jazz, but here also references where Canadian music icon Phil Dwyer was in the fall of 2016.
Dwyer, the perennial award-winner and member of the Order of Canada, was embarking on a distinct career shift. He was in the midst of his law studies in Fredericton, NB and was somehow fitting in concerts here and there on Canada’s East Coast. He brought together this trio of himself on saxophone and piano, his son Ben Dwyer on bass and Mark Adam on drums, for a series of four concerts in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Mark had an inkling that it might be good to bring a small recording rig along so each night, after he got his drums set up, he managed to put up some mics. You know, just in case!
And so here we are, with the evidence of these wonderful concerts – one in Moncton, NB and one in Sackville, NB. Hosted by legendary Canadian trumpeter Roland Bourgeois, the trio played a blend of intimate, fearless, tender, on the edge music. The audience was perfect, encouraging the artists to keep saying what they needed to say. It was a great chance for old friends and new to share some road time and music together. This is the story of three Western Canadian musicians and an amazing home away from home.
Audi Alteram Partem will be released on Friday, March 19th 2021 on Chronograph Records.
About the Album:
BPM Trio – Audi Alteram Partem
Full length CD – Cat# CR090
Summer Night (9:21) – Harry Warren, Al Dubin
Bright Mississippi (6:42) – Thelonious Monk
Just Open Your Heart (7:12) – Barry Harris
Airegin (7:00) – Sonny Rollins, arranged by Phil Dwyer
Misty (10:41) – Erroll Garner, arranged by Phil Dwyer
My Melancholy Baby (6:35) – Ernie Burnett, George Norton
Narcolypso (7:43) – Phil Dwyer
Some more info about the BPM Trio
Phil Dwyer (saxophone/piano) Appointed as a Member of the Order Of Canada and a Royal Conservatory of Music Honorary Fellow, Phil Dwyer has appeared on ten JUNO Award-winning recordings, and over thirty nominated recordings. A practicing lawyer, with his own law firm in Nanaimo, B.C. Phil remains active as a performer, teacher, recording artist, curates “Phil Dwyer’s Jazz Canada” for CBC Radio Music, and is a partner in SeaWind Musical Instruments.
Ben Dwyer (bass) is a young bass and saxophone phenom who grew up in a musical household on Vancouver Island. The son of Phil Dwyer, Ben has recently moved to Toronto from Montreal. Though very much rooted in jazz, Ben is a versatile bassist with a strong sense of feel, melody, and sound production. This has led him to perform around the world with some great artists of different genres.
Mark Adam (drums) is a drummer and percussionist who performs, produces/records, composes and teaches from his home base in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He is an Associate Professor of Improvisation, Percussion and Contemporary Music at Acadia University who has worked with Canadian jazz icons such as Mike Murley, David Restivo, David Braid and Laila Biali.
For more information on AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM and the BPM Trio please contact:
Congratulations to Audrey Ochoa for winning the 2020 Western Canadian Music Award for Jazz Artist of the Year! The awards were presented virtually on September 25th.
Baritone Madness is #1 in Canada on the jazz radio charts for the second time since it’s debut in the top spot! The album also has charted #1 for the entire month of October. It keeps climbing the US charts, and currently sites at #11 on the national college jazz charts! Pretty great for an album that Le Devoir, Montreal, calls one of the top 10 of the year!
Poor Nameless Boy is taking his 4-piece band on the road all across the UK! From London to Glasgow to Bath and Birmingham, they will perform for brand new folk audiences on his “Tour Like a Tourist” trip – just in time for the video release for his third single from Wake Up Call, “The Tourist.”
October 25 – North Yorkshire
October 27 – Saltaire
October 31 – Bath
November 1 – London
November 2 – Brigg
November 3 – Glasgow
November 8 – Bromsgrove
November 9 – Norfolk
November 10 – Birmingham
Whitehorse-based Fritzen has a storied cultural background. She has lived and performed all over the country, including all three of Canada’s northern territories. She embodies Canada’s diversity with her mixed cultural roots of Chinese, French, and German, singing in her three ancestral languages as well as English. Raised on folk, classical, and musical theatre, Fawn was a latecomer to jazz. The bug bit her hard, and she quickly garnered accolades, such as the Julian Award of Excellence for Emerging Jazz Artists in 2014.
“I am honoured to be joining Chronograph Records, whose roster includes some of my favourite Canadian artists. I’m grateful to have the support of this respected label, and so excited for the artistic growth that will be possible with this partnership,” explains Fawn.
She has released two previous LPs, and a host of singles, including the beautiful Mandarin ballad, Green Island Serenade from Taiwan.
Pending release in Spring 2020, How to Say Sorry and Other Lessons will be Fawn Fritzen’s third full-length album. It is her first album consisting entirely of original music, most of them co-written with JUNO-winning pianist David Restivo. The songs draw on life lessons learned during a period of upheaval, combining singer-songwriter truth bombs with jazz sophistication. Listeners will be invited through a series of musical stories that explore themes of feminism, failure, redemption, and true love. A mix of live-off-the-floor and studio tracks, the music is sure to inspire conversation about conflict, consent, vulnerability, shame and connection.
Catch the premiere of her new live video for “Make a Little Noise” from the upcoming album, out now! https://youtu.be/KWQAHUXXCg4
Fawn makes her debut as a Chronograph artist at BreakOut west this week, with two official showcases:
October 2, 7:45pm: Opening Reception, MacBride Museum of Yukon History
“Erin and Larry have seamless communication as players that allow them to clearly share their point of view with the listener. Their shared experiences fuel their creative process and adds depth to their music,” says Kodi Hutchinson, President.
WCMA winners and JUNO Award nominees, Propp and Roy’s upcoming album is set to be released through the label in 2020.
