Music

I’ve always been a bit into good new sounds. After I picked up the trumpet and worked away at it during my high school days and into my university years, I started to accumulate a lot of diverse jazz records. My CD collection kept growing during my undergrad and during my 1999/2000 gap year in Australia. Thereafter, Napster and MiniDiscs helped me to keep the music alive while planting trees in Northern Ontario and on Vancouver Island (+/- 900000 lifetime trees planted). After my PhD field research in Tanzania and Senegal – when Lauren and I came together in late 2007 – we learned that we were both iTunes addicts. We stockpiled a lot of world music during our year together in New Zealand (2008) and over the tenure-track/PhD student/Cameroon phase that followed (2009-2015). In our busyness we totally failed to consolidate our collection. I finally got around to organizing our favourites into genre and activity playlists in 2019. Below I offer a few insights on some of the music that envelops our lives….

A Note on Local Sources of Recent Inspiration

Toronto’s listener-supported Jazz.FM91, the KW Jazz Room, Jazz Bistro, Hugh’s Room Live, the Rex Hotel and The Pilot are some of the most inspiring sources of new sounds in our area.

Jazz

Brad Barker, Walter Venafro, John Devenish and Heather Bambrick put some great music out there on Jazz.fm (donate!). Artists often in our mix at home include: 2024 top listens: Phi-Psonics; Svaneborg Kardyb; Jasmine Myra; Greg Foat; John Carroll Kirby; Amanda Whiting; Mette Henriette; Matthew Halsall (Gondwana Records!); Mansur Brown; Robert Glapser's 'Let Go'; Jaime Cullum's BBC2 show; Bremer/McCoy; Sven Wunder; Spencer Zahn; contemporary - Roy Hargrove; Manu Katché; Joey Alexander; Theo Croker; Chip Wickham; Dinner Party; Joe Locke; Eric Alexander; Warren Wolf; Erik Truffaz; Takuya Kuroda; Jukka Eskola; Kait Dunton; Lee Ritenour; Alexis Baro; Larnell Lewis; Till Brönner; Christian McBride; David Sanborn; Bob James; Joey DeFrancesco; John Scofield; Pat Metheny; Lyle Mays; Steve Tibbetts; GoGoPenguin; Jan Garbarek; Metropole Orkest; Robert Glasper; Steve Gadd Band; Snarky Puppy; Michael & Randy Brecker; Tom Harrell; Russell Malone; Ibrahim Maalouf; Keyon Harrold; Brandee Younger; Wolfgang Haffner; Lars Danielsson; Omar Sosa; Kenny Barron; Kenny Garrett; and Gregory Porter classics - most anything recorded at Van Gelder Studio; Quincy Jones; Antonio Carlos Jobim; Count Basie; Freddie Hubbard; Herbie Hancock; Stanley Turrentine; Jim Hall; Art Farmer; Hubert Laws; Chet Baker; Guido Basso; George Benson; Ed Bickert; Miles Davis; Wes Montgomery; Jimmy Smith; Kenny Burrell; Clark Terry; Oscar Peterson; Ramsey Lewis; Rob McConnell; Chuck Mangione; Gene Harris; Horace Silver; Bags; Pops and every so often the trumpet gods Maynard Ferguson and Bill Chase....Apple Music: Jazz Chill, Jazz Scene: UK, ECM Essentials etc. When it's Dinner Time - You can’t go wrong with the listener-supported Dinner Jazz on Jazz.FM91. Duško Gojković (Samba do Mar; Samba Tzigane); Mark Isham’s Blue Sun; Roy Hargrove with strings; Lee Ritenour‘s many great albums; Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’; Mike Herriott & Sean Harkness H2 Flights; Dorothy Ashby; Paul Desmond; Don Thompson and basically anything beautifully arranged by Claus Ogerman or Don Sebesky or put out by CTI Records....Apple Music Playlists: Jazz Sunrise, Jazz Chill

Café Sounds

José Padilla; Nightmares on Wax; St Germain; Cantoma; Tom Middleton; Lux; Thievery Corporation; Sade; Slowly Rolling Camera; Cinematic Orchestra; Greg Foat with collaborators; Soulstance; Tycho; Monte la Rue; James Bright; Atjazz; Fila Brazillia; Steely M; Herb Alpert (Second Wind & Colors); Burt Bacharach; John Barry's many soundtracks; Mark Isham; the Café del Mar Jazz compilations & Groove Salad from listener-supported soma.fm....Apple Music: Downtempo Essentials, Ibiza Chill Essentials

Funkier World

The RH Factor; Ezra Collective; Kokoroko; Hugh Masekela; Roy Ayers; Maceo Parker; the Souljazz Orchestra; Groove Collective; Fela’s Egypt 80 & Seun Kuti; Femi Kuti; Mafikizolo; Ebo Taylor; Antibalas; Menahan Street Band; Cheikh Lô; Donald Byrd; Apple Music: Club Jazz

Gym

Joey Negro; Awadi; Café del Mar; Yemi Alade; Apple Music: Afro House Nation, Deep House Haven

Yoga

David & Steve Gordon; Shaman’s Dream....Apple Music: Any of the yoga flow lists....

Meditation/Sleep

Jim Butler, Marconi Union, Tom Middleton; Toumani Diabate; Moby’s Long Ambients; Al Gromer Khan; Ballaké Sissoko; Steve Reich; Apple Music: Ambient Sleep, Sleep Sounds; Jazzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Trumpet

Yup. The trumpet. The pandemic brought it back in a big way in my life. When I was active I played with the Georgian Sound Big Band and joined the Queen's University Bands. I also fell in with the party band Franklin's Fault and my work made it on to two CDs. In August 2003 I also performed in the pit band for the original stage production of Evil Dead: The Musical. I'm back working on it....