1000th show in 2026?

1

At Zameen Art House last Friday, I was delighted to fill in for Tim Reinert and introduce the 500th Infidels Jazz show. It was an edition of the New Thing series, with La Syrie Libre: Emad Armoush on flutes and vocals, James Meger on upright bass, and Kenton Loewen on drums. The small place filled up for this trio, which played freeform music dotted with a couple folksong-like structures. The volume was quiet on the spectrum of Kenton Loewen gigs.

Armoush, who also played Jazz at the Bolt last month with his group Rayhan, brought three albums on CD: Fragrance and Distilled Extractions by Rayhan plus his Electritradition project with a series of duos. "La Syrie" is a track on Electritradition, featuring Armoush with cellist Marina Hasselberg. Armoush plays both ney flute and oud string instrument on record, though he had no oud on the gig:

Infidels reached 500 shows in roughly three and a half years. At the show, I enjoyed one presenter of an occasional but long-running series' remark that he hadn't yet hit 500 in over a decade. Given that the current pace is about 25 shows per month except in certain more laid-back stretches, it's quite possible that Tim presents his thousandth show before the end of 2026.

2

At the VIFF Centre on Saturday, to kick off a big birthday weekend for Cole Schmidt, I heard Kevin Romain's trio play a set and then saw the documentary Beware of Mr. Baker. The trio played the music of Going Back Home by the Ginger Baker Trio with Bill Frisell and Charlie Haden, plus a crowd-pleasing snippet of "Sunshine of Your Love". My favourite numbers were my favourite tracks from the album: "Rambler" and "When We Go" by Frisell plus "Ramblin'" by Ornette Coleman. I found a live set of the Baker trio on YouTube:

Cole played with a rounder guitar tone than Frisell's but launched into just as much distortion when needed. The VIFF Centre sounds great at any volume I've heard in there so far, deadened like a studio. Cole and Kevin played with Olive Shakur on bass, whom I'd never heard before but enjoyed in the Haden role.

If you don't know much about Baker the terrible human, haven't seen the documentary, and are curious, start with the Rolling Stone story by the film's director.

3

At The Hargrove on Sunday, the fun continued with Cole and Kevin's Lost Dog Sundays series, featuring the Bruno Hubert Trio. The turnout was strong and lively, especially because the cover charge was nonexistent and the birthday snacks and drinks were aplenty. The set break must have been an hour.

The trio played their latest album Fire Waltz, like I wrote to you at jazzfest time last year. Bruno tuned the piano extensively before the gig, coming into the non-insulated Hargrove room twice to give it some love. Hearing Meger play swinging straight-ahead time with Joe Poole less than 48 hours after Friday's show was quite something. The man has range.

Bruno brings the trio back to Frankie's this coming Wednesday.

4

At Brentwood Presbyterian Church's Jazz Evensong on Wednesday, vocalist-trumpeter Bonnie Northgraves led a quintet through her Alice in Wonderland suite of seven or eight pieces, many of them songs. The quintet consisted of Brent Mah on tenor saxophone, Dean Thiessen on piano, Wynston Minckler on bass, and Seth Kitamura on drums.

I'd already heard this music once, but with only the consummate pros Dean and Wynston accompanying Bonnie. I heard it during the 2022 jazzfest at the 2nd Floor Gastown. Bonnie was at the time the booker and music host, and she had enlisted me to cover that hosting role for her while she performed many jazzfest shows, but she did come back to the venue to play this new suite.

Brent on tenor is fun and has some Ben Webster vibes; I'm used to hearing him on alto. Seth was a solid and responsive drummer, immediately matching the rhythms thrown at him.

Bonnie comes from the Fraser Valley trad-jazz scene and is an expert entertainer, bringing well-thought-out phrases on the trumpet, powerful vocals, and across the suite itself a wide range of grooves and satisfying arrangements. She talked between each tune about the Alice references, with Jazz Evensong dropping its spoken intermission to accommodate the long musical runtime. The originals she writes are as logical and pleasing as standards.

Bonnie plays a few more times this weekend, including New Westminster's Uptown Swing Collective monthly series on Saturday and the White Rock Traditional Jazz Society on Sunday.

5

I read a long report about our national live music industry called Hear and Now, published by the Canadian Live Music Association and developed by the consulting firm Nordicity. The fine folks at ShowHub brought it to my attention. You're welcome to check out either the short or long version:

I feel prevented from taking it seriously, though, because of this incredible sentence (the bold text is theirs):