For those who haven’t guessed already, the reason for my excursion to Toronto was to see Lenni Jabour. Had so much fun, but I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say publicly about the main event. Instead I’ll err on the side of caution and note the number of interesting people I met while I was there. Curiously, they’re all “J”s:
- Jameson (aka “J”), a music producer and recording engineer who’s worked with a number of well-known and up-and-coming acts, including several to which I’ve got only one degree of separation. Cool guy, and a whiz (as I suppose one would expect) on both the 48-track board and Logic Pro.
- Jane, a Juno Award-winning, Grammy-nominated Officer of the Order of Canada. I’ve been a fan of hers since I saw her at the Montreal International Jazz Festival several years ago, so it was cool to chat with her and listen to her play.
- James, an English musician who’d arrived from London five hours earlier. He’d been flown in to play a concert the next night, based in part on the popularity one of his songs has gained by being featured on Smallville. When someone pointed out that the piano he was tinkling away on had been played by the likes of Oscar Peterson, he pulled back from the keyboard and just stared at his fingers in awe… which would’ve been my reaction too, if I’d had the nerve to touch it in the first place.
Also had a chance to catch up very briefly with Claire J and Jo-Ann, as well as non-“J” folks like Drew, Mark, Adrean, Michel, and Dylan… and, of course, Alex, who’ll also be playing with Lenni at the Heliconian in a few days.
