I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm a music fanatic, I have listened to, collected, researched and obsessed about music for most of my life.  I've done a Jazz Radio show (The A-Trane on CFRO) since 1986 but in that time I've also guest-hosted blues, folk, bluegrass, afro-reggae, gospel and other programs.  I've owned a record store (Black Swan Records), given guest lectures, written articles/reviews and volunteered for a number of arts organizations including being on the board of Coastal Jazz/Vancouver Jazz Festival for several decades.

Where’s your head at these days?
Hanging in, hoping that things will get back to normal someday soon. Getting better with more sun and good weather, got to get outside and exercise more!

What are you working on these days?
I do all the planning, programming and production for the A-Trane, a weekly 3 ½ hour radio show which features historic and contemporary music loosely tied to the jazz and black music tradition although I do go pretty far afield if something is interesting. For a number of years I’ve also done The A-Trane Calendar which is a compendium of local jazz/folk/arts events in the lower mainland for the radio show, a mailing list of about 1,500, vancouverjazz.com and social media - currently on hiatus along with most live events. More recently I’ve continued to develop an open-source Jazz Birthdays database - updated and distributed daily on email and social media. (Not to mention my family and a day job doing cybersecurity for SAP.)

What/who are you listening to these days?
I receive dozens of releases every week (physical CDs and downloads) so I spend a lot of time previewing stuff for the A-Trane, although I also have a fairly large personal collection there’s always something to listen to! E.g. Synth pioneer Malcolm Cecil passed away recently so I’ve been listening to Tonto’s Expanding Head Band and some of the collaborations that he did with Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron, Isley Brothers etc.

If you were given the task to curate an event bringing a local (Vancouver or Canada) and an international artist together for a collaborative performance at VIM House next month, who would you invite?
Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn for the incredible volume of incredible music which they wrote, produced and performed.

Miles Davis for always producing music at the highest level while searching for different ways of structuring it.

John Zorn for the variety and quality of the music that he’s produced, collaborated on and enabled.

Who would I invite? Many of the core South African artists have passed (Abdullah Ibrahim is still around) but Chris Schilder, Louis Moholo and many of the new crop of artists building on that tradition would make for some nice collaborations.

Given that we’ve lost so many elders in the jazz community in the last year, it would be great to see some of the ones open to collaborative projects like Anthony Braxton or Wadada Leo Smith who are still at the top of their creativity come and work with local folks.

John Hollenbeck’s Songs I/You/We Like projects would be great to present with Hard Rubber for instance especially with Kate and Theo. Lots more ….

Any book and/or movie about/on music that you find inspiring and recommend to us?
Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century - Nate Chinen

What a Wonderful World: Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years - Ricky Riccardi

The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums - Will Friedwald

Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke - Peter Guralnick (one of the best music bios I’ve ever read)

White Bicycles - Joe Boyd

Do you have a quote on music or arts (or one by a musician or artist) that you love and are inspired by?
“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.” - Charlie Parker

“When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone in the air. You can never capture it again.” - Eric Dolphy

What are your memories of attending your first live music event? Where? When?
When I was mid-teens in Toronto (late 1960s) I had some much older musically-inclined friends (Young Socialists!) who took me to see Thelonious Monk at the Colonial Tavern (way underage!), Jimi Hendrix at Maple Leaf Gardens and Led Zeppelin at the Rock Pile before my 16th birthday.

What is (are) your favourite music venue(s), local or abroad, past and current, as an audience member or performer? Why?
The (pre-renovation) Vancouver East Cultural Centre, The Landmark Jazz Bar, The Plazzazz Showroom in North Van, Rossini’s on Yew, The Cellar on West Broadway, The Shocter Theatre in Edmonton - varying sizes but all with great acoustics and a sense of ambience that made me comfortable even before the music started.

What is one live performance that you cannot forget? When? Where? Why?
Hard to get just one but The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet (John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Rick Kilburn and Bobby Previte at the Landmark Jazz Bar in 1989, Abdullah Ibrahim solo at A-Space in 1974 and The Dedication Orchestra w. Louis Moholo at the Cultch (2006?) are good candidates.

Who is your favourite Vancouver musician/ artist? Why?
Vancouver is blessed with many great musicians (who I’m missing a lot these days) - Cory Weeds, Brad Turner, Chris Gestrin, Gord Grdina, Paul Plimley

Any thoughts/ message about VIM? What's your relationship to the VIM, why you got involved, what you care/ like about the project, what are your hopes and fears for the future?
I'm very committed to live music and community - up until the pandemic cancelled most gatherings I collated and distributed an extensive weekly compendium of live musical events in the lower mainland as The A-Trane Calendar. I've seen many performance venues come and go and lament the lack of support for welcoming spaces with good acoustics around which it might be possible to build musical communities. The space envisioned and planned for as the VIM project has the potential to give musicians a great place to play as well as giving music fanatics opportunities to find a home to build a community around. And to do so in a way that ensures some long-term stability both organizational and financial. Definitely a project that every music-lover should get behind!

Where/how can we follow you and your music? (website, social channels, etc)
I’m on Facebook, occasionally at www.vancouverjazz.com and on the air at 100.5FM or www.coopradio.org every Friday afternoon between 2pm and 5:30pm!

(June 2021)

Caveat: I listen to quite a wide variety of music from obscure to popular, from historical to hot off the presses, from entirely composed to completely improvised, from cerebral to down home funk. So these ten (well, eleven, sorry thirteen) selections while near and dear to my heart might be completely replaced by a different ten (or eleven or thirteen) next week.

1 | Bra Joe From Killimanjaro - Abdullah Ibrahim/Dollar Brand +3 w. Kippie Moeketsi
I’ve had a long-standing love of South African music which started in 1974 when I saw Dollar Brand at a concert in Toronto that was totally life-changing. This is a hypnotic piece which intersects with Kippie Moeketsi’s anguished alto saxophone cry.

2 | MRA - Brotherhood of Breath
More South Africans who escaped to Europe in the late 60s and changed the history of improvised music in Europe. The BoB was led by pianist Chris McGregor and joined former South Africans like Louis Moholo, Mongezi Feza and other former members of the Blue Notes with English free improvisers like Marc Charig, John Surman, Mike Osborne etc. This is a Dudu Pukwana composition arranged by McGregor which manages to swing like crazy!

3 | Misterioso - Sonny Rollins (w. Thelonious Monk/Horace Silver etc)
Great intro from Monk’s measured opening building tension against Art Blakey’s press rolls, won’t be hurried until Rollins jumps in with one of the greatest releases in modern music. For the piano solo, Monk slides out and gives Horace Silver a shot - great solos all round, an all-time classic.

4 | Martin Carthy
Famous Flower of Serving Men Epic story of betrayal and magic told by a linchpin of the British Folk scene, one-time member of folk-rock pioneer group Steeleye Span, Brass Monkey, The Watersons and many others.

5 | Kecak - Ramayana Balinese Monkey Chant (David Lewiston recording)
The Nonesuch Explorer series was my early introduction to music from around the world and Lewiston’s recording of the performance of the story of the Monkey King coming to the aid of Prince Rama from the epic Ramayana gripped me then and now.

6 | Stefan Grossman - Tightrope
Stefan Grossman learned to play the blues from the elder masters like Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt and Son House during the revival of the 60s and put out a few records of “how to play the blues” with Rory Block. He later synthesized it all into his own style like this virtuoso guitar piece.

7 | Trevor Watts Moire Music Ensemble - Mr. Sunshine
Moire patterns are the patterns you get when shifting overlapping patterns like window screens; that’s a good description for the sonic effects coming from British improvising saxophonist Watts large ensemble - overlapping sections that combine to joyous effect. Not on Youtube

8 | Jaki Byard - Amarcord - Amarcord Nino Rota
Byard could play anything from authoritative stride to the most out stuff ever - this was part of (and bookended) a Hal Willner tribute to my favourite Italian film composer.

9 | Boops Here to Go - Sly and Robbie - Rhythm Killers
Sly and Robbie bridge the worlds of reggae and old school funk, this piece leans more towards the latter (with some in jokes) and squeezes in a little Henry Threadgill!

10 | Duke Ellington/John Coltrane - In a Sentimental Mood
Meeting of giants with one of Ellington’s most gorgeous ballads and Trane at his most soulful.

11 | John Hollenbeck w. Kate McGarry & Theo Bleckmann & HR Big Band - Wichita Lineman
Hollenbeck is a master arranger who can produce gems from anything; this is somewhere in the middle of his “five levels” of arranging but the performance takes it to another level.

12 | Miles Davis - Right Off! - Tribute to Jack Johnson
Miles tells John McLaughlin to play guitar like he doesn’t know how to play guitar and ends up with a workout that’s equal parts jazz, rock and funk.

13 | Jefferson Airplane - Spare Chaynge - After Bathing at Baxter’s
Actually a subset of JA - Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and Spencer Dryden in one of the great psychedelic studio jams taken from “How Suite It Is” from the Airplane’s best and most fully realized album! Jorma and Jack would form a spin-off project called Hot Tuna that also produced some incredible music.

(Sorry, I couldn’t stop …)