Jesse Cahill

More Peter Bernstein

This is Pete’s arrangement of Love For Sale. Check out Tilden’s piano solo!

Up next Vincent Herring at The Cellar. Perhaps we’ll see you there?

Benny Golson Visits The Cellar Jazz Club

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After my recording session with Steve, Chris and Peter I dropped my gear off at home and raced down to The Cellar to catch a rare appearance by living jazz legend Benny Golson. I only caught two and a half songs but it was worth the effort. Benny is still on top of his game and it was a pleasure to hear Ray Drummond again. He’s such a musical bassist who has that big beat you just can’t get enough of. The group also featured Jason Marsalis on the drums and Sharp Radway at the piano.

One could go on about the accomplishments of Benny Golson and about what he has contributed to jazz music but I think I’d rather listen to him play so here’s a little video tribute starting with The Jazz Messengers in 1958 and ending with last night’s show at The Jazz Cellar (courtesy of Cory Weeds).

Jazztet! Lex Humphries. So tough.

How about this one, is that Roy McCurdy on drums? Also Tough.

Benny’s classic Along Came Betty with our good friend Mike Ledonne at the piano:

And last but not least here he is Monday night at The Cellar:

While we all know and love Benny for his tenor playing as well as his writing and arranging on so many classic recordings it should also be noted that his radio, film and television resume is of equal distinction. After all, he did do the arranging for one of my all time favourite TV shows: M.A.S.H.

Check out his credits HERE

Next up more from my gig with Peter Bernstein…stay tuned.

Weekend Report

I’m not sure how best to describe the playing of New York City guitarist Peter Bernstein with out getting carried away with the adverbs. He really is quite extraordinary. I’ve been listening to his recordings and recordings featuring him as a side man for years so to be on the band stand with him for the first time was quite a thrill.

I really appreciated that that chose repertoire so well suited to the group. Familiar songs with a few surprises thrown into the mix like Yesterdays and Love for Sale (both in 6/8), Django by John Lewis, Stairway to the Stars, Wee and Hank Mobley’s classic This I Dig of You kept us on our toes to be sure but weren’t so obscure as to keep us from stretching out.

Fortunately I have one last chance to play with Peter today in the Studio. Chris Gestrin will be joining us on B3 and we’ll be putting down some music for Steve Kaldestad’s new quartet record. And speaking of recordings (I almost forgot) all of the sets from this weekend were recorded and will at some point be available for download-only purchase from Cellar Live Records.

Here’s an original blues of Peter’s:

One quick photo from the weekend…doesn’t this make you wish it was summer?

Peter Bernstein Live Recording @ The Cellar Jazz Club

If you don’t have plans this weekend come on down to the Cellar Jazz Club and check out Pete Bernstein! Pete is one of the finest guitar players of our time and we are very lucky to have him in town for a weekend of music and recording. The band will feature Tilden Webb on piano, Jodi Proznick on bass and myself at the drums. Hope to see you there.

If you aren’t familiar with Peter’s playing check this out:

My Inconvenient Week

I’m having a bit of an inconvenient week. What constitutes and inconvenient week you ask?

To start things off our loft flooded and as I type this I’m surrounded by industrial drying fans and R2D2 shaped dehumidifiers. With all this stuff whirring away it’s been a bit hard to concentrate let alone compose a decent blog post. Have you ever been in a float plane? It sounds like that but with the smell of wet drywall.

Next up on my list of complaints is the sharp object that has taken up residence in my foot. I hope it doesn’t stay long, it’s making me walk like a pirate.

And to complete my trifecta of grievances we have a lovely flu-ish cold. Just in time for this weekends live recording with the great Peter Bernstein. Swell.

But you don’t come here to read about my problems right?

Here’s some photos I took this week. The first three are of the Benny Green Trio and the second set is from last night’s Morgan Childs Quintet show at the Cellar. Jazz.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A Whitehorse Saturday Night

The only chance I had to walk around in Whitehorse was at 9:00 on Saturday night. It was twenty below so I didn’t last to long. It’s funny because at that time of night in February it looks like a ghost town when really there’s a ton of stuff going on. The bars, the movie theatre and the music festival were all jammed with people.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Nightcrawlers Return to The Cellar Jazz Club

Whitehorse Photos

Whitehorse is one of my favourite places to perform. The city has a strong community of artists, musicians and supporters of arts and culture. As such you can always count on having an enthusiastic audience and great hospitality. This last trip came about through a collaboration between Jazz Yukon and the folks at the Frostbite Music Festival.

Friday night we (Paul Pigat, Jodi Proznick and myself) performed as the Paul Pigat Trio and Saturday evening we played a set of music from Paul’s Boxcar Campfire project. Over the last few years most of the playing I’ve done with Paul has been with Cousin Harley so it was great to step outside of that context and perform with him in an even looser setting. Jodi’s playing as always was outstanding.

In between performances we spent some time teaching and giving workshops. Particularly impressive were the efforts of a high school band director (who’s name is eluding me) and three of his students who came out for our Rhythm Section Workout masterclass. It’s always encouraging when young musicians and their teachers show up with a desire to learn and are clearly having a good time in the process.

In between the shows and the teaching I caught a few acts a did a little walking around. Check out the photo of the super gnarly snare drum head. One of the worst I’ve ever scene. Best thing was the sound guy saying “The snare head has a bit of tape on it so we’ll get you a new one”. Tape was the least of it’s problems!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The walking around part was somewhat limited by the fact that it was -25 or so but i did manage to take some ok photos of Whitehorse at night in the winter and I’ll be posting those tomorrow.