Photo: Tourism OntarioMusicians perform for the crowds during the Toronto Jazz Festival.
BY TOBY SALTZMAN
Few cities can boast live jazz 365 days a year, not to mention five annual jazz festivals. Toronto's rich abundance of live music in clubs, concert halls and main stages has thrived since the historic day when the city's jazz scene vaulted to international status on May 15, 1953. That's when Massey Hall was the setting for a show since dubbed "The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever." It featured five of the seminal bebop giants: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach.
Since then, Toronto has become "Canada's equivalent of the Big Apple for jazz musicians," says Jim Galloway. The renowned soprano saxophonist, famous for his inimitable swing style, has worked here with the great names in the earlier styles of jazz. Toronto, he observes, "has been the hub and favourite homing ground for firmly established visiting musicians and jazz stars from across Canada since the heydays of the 50s and 60s, when the Colonial Tavern, the Town Tavern and the Palais Royale drew all the big bands."
Back when those places began fading, this writer and other jazz buffs lingered long into blissful nights at George's Spaghetti House, listening to Moe Koffman improvise phrases of his Swinging Shepherd Blues. A few years later, dining in the Royal York's Imperial Room, we were spellbound by singers Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald and pianist Oscar Peterson. Over time, city jazz aficionados were also honoured with appearances by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins.
Like all celebrated music cities, Toronto has cultivated its own stars: flutist Koffman, vibraphonist Peter Appleyard, flugelhornist Guido Basso, composer Phil Nimmons, guitarist Ed Bickert, multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson and saxophonist Galloway. Though jazz here tends to be mainstream - as epitomized by Rob McConnell's Boss Brass Band - the traditionalist Climax Jazz band has pleased crowds for 32 years.
As the culturally diverse city blossomed into a place of pilgrimage for the world's best jazz musicians, the downtown core incubated a multicultural mix of styles. Music, after all, transcends ethnicity, and Toronto cultivated an eclectic genre of jazz musicians reflecting Canadian, American, European, African and blues music from traditional to swing, bebop, sultry smooth and rousing klezmer jazz. The new breed of talents includes soprano saxophonist Jane Bunnett, known for her distinctive hybrid of jazz and Afro-Cuban music, and guitarist Kevin Breit, who mixes jazz with the folksy twang of country.
Meanwhile, Toronto also sprouted remarkable educational music programs whose graduates have since become the vital musicians, composers and technicians who support the city's burgeoning film, radio and advertising industries.
Today, Toronto is an essential stop on the world tours of most notable jazz bands. The city is now so intrinsic to the global jazz scene that it recently attracted 7,000 members of the International Association for Jazz Education to its first-ever conference held outside the U.S. in 30 years. Undoubtedly, attendees drank in the atmosphere of local clubs that habitually host the world's jazz greats.
The city itself scored high in a recent international online poll of jazz aficionados run by ejazznews.com. According to the website's Toronto-based editor, Bill King (who, incidentally, is also director of Canada's National Jazz Awards), Toronto ranks second for "the world's most extraordinary nightlife" behind first-place New York and ahead of New Orleans (third) and Paris (fourth).
Boosting the city's jazz profile even further are the annual festivals, held from May to September. Toronto's newest festival, the Distillery Jazz Festival, which overtook the "new" Distillery Historic District with resounding success in 2003, occurs annually in May. Formerly known as the Gooderham and Worts Distillery, North America's best-preserved example of Victorian industrial architecture is now elegantly restored to house galleries, artists' studios and eateries.
An internationally renowned musical institution for some 18 years, the 10-day Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival, held annually in June, showcases more than 1,500 international artists. It attracts some 700,000 music lovers to venues across the city, from intimate clubs to the huge Hummingbird Centre, where the eminent Ray Charles sent chills through the crowd with his renditions in 2004.
For one week every July, the cognoscenti swing over to the Beaches International Jazz Festival, where events often spill over from the east end to clubs in the city's core. Come August, it's off to the western fringe of Toronto for the Downtown Oakville Jazz Festival, and, in September, the Southside Shuffle Blues & Jazz Festival in Port Credit.
But if you miss any of the festivals, don't fret. Year round, Toronto boasts three jazz clubs entirely dedicated to presenting the most stellar names in jazz, places at which it's not unusual to find the likes of Wynton Marsalis jamming.
It's hip to dine at the Torch Bistro (AKA the Senator Steakhouse) on the main floor, just to guarantee seating upstairs at The Top O' the Senator. Toronto's home to contemporary jazz, the intimate space evokes the blues clubs of the '30s and '40s, with topnotch performances by everybody from Canada's own Diana Krall to Terence Blanchard's Septet. You may find yourself rubbing elbows with visiting icons of jazz's golden era or movie stars in town to film in "Hollywood North."
The Montreal Bistro - which is arguably more serious about jazz than food - often features some of the world's most celebrated jazz pianists. Patrons still gush about past performances by Oscar Peterson and George Shearing. The chic eatery regularly hosts Kenny Barron, Jay McShann, Junior Mance and Joanne Brackeen, along with locals like saxophonists Phil Dwyer, Roy Styffe and Perry White, trumpeter Kevin Turcotte and guitarist Reg Schwager.
The retro-style Rex Hotel Jazz and Blues Bar is famed as much for its huge variety of draught beer as for its incredible volume of acts (some 17 a week!), running from locals to legends. At Tuesday night's "Rex Jazz Jams," you may find the house packed with some of Toronto's highlights: vocalists Melissa Stylianou, Emilie-Claire Barlow and Leah State, bassist Dave Young, guitarist Michael Occhipinti, Ron Davis's Swing Street Trio or the Chris Gale Quintet.
Meanwhile, every night finds musicians improvising, nurturing their own personal idioms, at places all over town. Hooch - a quirky lounge-cum-dance club known for cutting-edge styles - dedicates Thursday nights to swing, with big band, jazz and blues numbers that invite dancing. AlleyCatz Live Jazz Bar is a cool spot for a martini at the bar or dinner during sets of smooth jazz. For really classy performances, check out the Art Gallery of Ontario: some nights, it hosts the city's hottest talents (start off the evening by dining at the AGO's chic Agora Restaurant.) Saturday afternoons, C'est What serves up traditional New Orleans jazz with comfort food. And since Toronto is one of a few cities with an internationally acclaimed jazz-only radio station, tune in to what's happenin' at Jazz FM 91. Want to hear about jazz in Toronto? Just listen!
For more information on this or other Canadian destinations, visit the Canadian Tourism Commission's website at www.travelcanada.ca.
source: Canadian Tourism Commision
This reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor has it been made in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
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