The Dirk Quin Quartet is a  high energy Jazz/Funk outfit from Philadelphia.  Dirk Quin on guitar is the group leader supported by Rory Flynn on electric bass and Cody Munzert on electric piano and synth. The outsider in the group is the lone Canadian Charan Singh (aka Andrew Austin) on drums. Charan currently spends significant time each year in Columbia, South America, soaking up the indigenous  rhythms and percussion techniques of that part of the world. The music presented was ablaze with funky leads, rhythms and keyboard explorations. Here are some images from the evening………  in the Green Room ……. Rory Flynn (Bass), Cody Munzert (Keyboards), Charan Singh (drums).

On stage:

Thanks again to all the sponsors, volunteers and organizing committee for another fine jazz concert series.

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Gabriel Palatchi Trio at Studio 64 in Kimberley , September 8, 2018, 8pm. This is the first concert of the 2018 Winter Jazz and Blues Concert Series.

Keyboardist Gabriel Palatchi is a citizen of the world. He is an Argentinean with Jewish, Turkish and, given his surname, Italian Roots. He is a ceaseless wanderer touring the world, performing and studying the many musical cultures  he encounters along the way. His recent forays into Spain and Morocco included the study of Flamenco piano music.

“Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1982, Gabriel Palatchi started his first piano lessons at the age of 8. He spent his formative years in Buenos Aires studying classical piano, and being mentored by some of the great maestros of blues, tango, jazz and Latin jazz.  After graduating in 2007 from Berklee international School, Argentina, he spent several months in Cuba where he studied Latin jazz with the master Chucho Valdez. Gabriel subsequently became a composer when he moved to Tulum, Mexico in 2008, and his life experiences up to that point influenced the composition and production of his first solo album “Diario de Viaje” (Travel Diary) in 2010. The album received critical acclaim from music industry journals, and was chosen as one of the best Latin Jazz albums of the year by JAZZ FM Toronto.   He went on to record a further 3 albums that cemented his unique sound, culminating in his 4th and latest album, “Made in Canada” (2017), which also happens to be his first live recording. Gabriel’s songs are a representation of the many cultures which have influenced his music over the years, with a deep core in Latin Jazz.

For the past 8 years Gabriel has been performing at major international music festivals, touring throughout Mexico, Canada and Europe.  His music is broadcast across radio stations all over the world from Alaska through to South America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia  It has been reviewed and featured in the Rolling Stone Magazine, Latin Jazz Network, Ejazznews, All About Jazz, Jazz Caribe, The Toronto Star, Salsa Son, Timba Columbia, Newstime South Africa and inside World Music, among many others.

“Trivolution” was selected as the Gold Medal Winner in the Composer/Album categories; achieved TOP TEN status in the 2015 “Global Music Awards”, and also featured in the “Emerging Artists” section of the April 30^th, 2016 issue of BILLBOARD MAGAZINE.”   – This info is from Gabriel’s website.

In the past he has performed in Kimberley. In 2015 his band was included in that year’s Jazz and Blues Concert series ( http://www.rodneywilson.ca/2015/09/13/its-a-long-way-from-buenos-aires-the-gabriel-palatchi-band/ ). I must commend the organizing committee for setting aside their “no repeats rule” to invite Gabriel back to the Studio 64 stage. In that particular performance Gabriel was joined by West Kootenay musicians Doug Stephenson on bass and Tony Ferraro on drums for a collection of some familiar material (Juan Tizol’s Caravan and Ahmad Jamal’s Poinciana) along with his original compositions. This time around the other members of the trio were Cameron Hood from Vancouver on 6 string Tobias electric bass and Luis “El Pana” Tovar on drums. Luis is originally from Venezuela and is now a resident of Calgary. The program for the evening was all original material. As can be imaged, rehearsing such a scattered group of musicians is a challenge. It was done by exchanging mp3’s across continents followed by only three days of rehearsals before the tour. Cameron assures me that the music is fiendishly difficult and for him to nail the exotic piece “in sevens” required many hours of solo practice. Cameron explained that the piece was in 7/8 (perhaps a nod to Gabriel’s Turkish roots) but it was complicated by mirror images of the rhythm. 123 4567 followed by 1234 567 – three and four followed by four and three. On top of that there was all the salsa, Latin and funk overtones. I confess as an Anglo the names of all the Spanish tunes just flew by me. “Oh yeah. There was that thing in sevens. Then there was the Flamenco piano piece and the piece with fragments of Astor Piazolla’s Libertango but as to the names of the tunes they just flew by”. No matter. The music was a tour de force of Latin, Funk and not to be forgotten Nuevo Tango.

In Argentinean Nuevo Tango, drum kits do not figure prominently in traditional performances . Luis “El Pana” Tovar stepped up to the plate magnificently, particularly in the Tango pieces. That style of music is noted, among other things, for its shifting rhythms and structural complexities. It’s enough to make you wonder if a thorough grasp of rhythm requires being born south of the equator. Luis is a noted conga player and percussionist and that may account for some of the musicality in his performance. Or is it perhaps because the guy appears to be almost seven feet tall? Maybe from that height the rhythms of the world are more understandable.

Here are some images from a spectacular night of music.

As with the previous concert in 2015 the music was outstanding. So much so I hope the organizing committee will once again put aside “the no repeats” rule if Gabriel decides to return.

As always, thanks must go to the volunteers, the organizing committee, The Burrito Grill for feeding the musicians and “A B&B at 228” for the musicians lodgings. Oh, by the way, the bassist Cameron Hood would love to come back this way with some of his fellow Vancouver musicians.

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STAGE 64 WINTER JAZZ AND BLUES CONCERT SERIES  : Melody Diachun and her Quartet.  Saturday October 28, 2017, 8pm  

Black Orpheus (Portuguese: Orfeu Negro) is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director  Marcel Camus and starring Marpessa Dawn and  Breno Mello. It is based on the play  Orfeu da Conceicao by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice , set in the modern context of a  favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. The film was an international co-production among    companies in Brazil, France and Italy. The film is particularly noted for the musical soundtrack by two Brazilian composers:  Antonio Carlos Jobim , whose song “A Felicidade” opens the film; and  Luiz Bonfa, whose  Manha de Carnaval  and Samba de Orfeu  have become bossa nova classics. ….. Wikipedia.

In the early 1960’s that Brazillian film made its mark on me and the world of cinema and music. On it’s release it won an Oscar for the best foreign film of the year and the sound track introduced the world to the wonders of Brazilian music. I remember the film well. After all, I saw it on the big screen about seven times in the first year of it’s release, and over the years I wore out a VHS copy and I still have a DVD version on my shelf at home. For Jazz players the music was a revelation. Here was a form of music that used jazz harmonic language and improvisational techniques along with new sophisticated melodies and rhythms. The words may have been in Portuguese but the musical language was challenging, sensual and, in some ways, the antithesis of the Hard Bop jazz style of the day. Brazilian classical guitarist Laurindo Almeida and Californian saxophonist Bud Shank had explored and recorded Bossa Nova as early as 1953 but it was the album Jazz Samba by the jazz tenor sax player  Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd, along with the hit single  Desafinado,  that was the start of Bossa Nova as it is now generally understood. Stan Getz gained the benefit of Charlie Byrd’s 1961 serendipitous tour of Brazil. Byrd had fallen in love with the music while on tour there and when he returned to the USA he sought out Stan Getz, played him the discs he’d brought back from Brazil, and suggested they get together and record their own album in a Brazilian style. The rest is history. The  Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd collaborations were monumentally successful and Jazz musicians adopted the style with a vengeance. They were the first of many musicians to do so and to this day Bossa Nova still continues to hold a grip on the imagination of jazz musicians. It may have been a craze at the time but it is one I knew would last.

On, the other hand, around that same time “The Fab Four” (aka The Beatles) launched their own musical craziness on the pop world. At the time I didn’t think the music would survive the teeny-bopper hysteria that almost drowned it out. Another case of music so loud you can’t actually hear it.  I couldn’t see the hysteria or the music lasting. I guess I was wrong. The hysteria faded away and the music did survive the craziness and in this day and age their songs are standards that rate right up there with the tunes in the  “The American Song Book”.

That brings us to the Melody Diachun concert on Saturday night at Stage 64 in Kimberley. Her premise for the evening was to bring together the music of the Bossa Nova era (mostly the songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim) and the music of the Beatles into a night of pulsing rhythms, beautiful melodies and great lyrics delivered with artful arrangements and solo improvisations by a group of stellar musicians from the Nelson area. The drummer Steven Parish and bass player Mark Spielman anchored the band for the rhythmic, melodic  and harmonic  adventures of Melody Diachun on vocals and shakers, Clinton Swanson  on tenor sax and flute  and Doug Stephenson  on nylon and steel string guitars. Most of the Bossa Nova material was from the pen of Antonio Carlos Jobim and included Quiet Nights (Corcovada), If You Never Come to Me, The Girl from Ipanema, Samba do Aviao, One Note Samba, Dindi,  and a nice mish/mash of  Insensitive with the Beatles tune Yesterdays. Most of the songs were sung in English with the occasional foray into Portuguese. Although not exactly a Bossa Nova song, but never-the-less appropriate for the evening, the group performed Horace Silver’s jazz classic  Song for my Father. Horace’s father came from the Cape Verde Islands that, coincidently, has a rich Portuguese based musical heritage similar to Brazil. Interspersed among Jobim’s songs there were the following Beatles songs Hard Days Night , Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird, Let It Be,  All you need is Love and John Lennon’s Imagine. The only song that was really outside the box was Cole Porter’s Night and Day and that was still a good fit for the evening. Melody’s vocals were in top form and the soloists were a joy to hear. Doug Stephenson’s nylon string and steel guitar work was a revelation as, in previous Kimberley concerts, he had been  masquerading as a bass player. Because he looks like he is having way too much fun to be legal I do worry about Doug. Clinton Swanson has performed in Kimberley a number of times and his full bodied tenor sax solos, as always, were spot on. Melody’s introductions to the songs were delightful and entertaining.

Here are some images from a magical evening of music.

The band and the audience would like to thank Keith, the organizing committee, the volunteers, Ray on sound and lights, the Burrito Grill, A B&B at 228 and the Stem Winder for the support that made this concert series possible. On a final note a comment from my buddy Bill St. Amand summing up the evening  …….

“IT DOESN’T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS”.

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