The festival before the festival | 10 Things, June 2025

I've been at outdoor stages and in clubs so much these past few weeks that I feel like I got a whole festival before the one to come:

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On Sunday, June 15, I was in Gibsons and took in two outdoor grass amphitheatre shows from the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival And Beyond (that name is about locality, not genre, because the rest of the Sunshine Coast wants you to know that they'll host some shows too). I heard a diverse pairing of the Jon Bentley Quartet and the Mary Ancheta Quartet. Earlier that day, Miles Black played a brunch with singer Trudi Diening at the Gibsons Public Market; later, the band Tumbling Tumbleweeds took the stage. Trumpeter Heather Anderson, a coast local, closed out the day by hosting a jam at the 101 brewpub.

As for Bentley and Ancheta, they were as pro and fun as ever, though the style of show and live sound didn't do either of them many favours, especially for the saxophones: Bentley is arguably best heard in a jazz club, while Ancheta's quartet can rock a bigger popular music club as Dominic Conway's energy on the horn matches the high-powered groove of bassist Matt Reid and drummer Paul Clark. (Ancheta's Betty Davis project might've been too edgy for some of these folks, but it would have crushed sonically and visually.)

Bentley had Bill Coon on guitar instead of Tristan Paxton, and played Coon's tune "Zattitude", which I remember fondly from Jazz Cellar days. He didn't play "Still Crazy After All These Years", that would've killed here.

I enjoyed witnessing a reunion between Bill Coon and Réjean Marois sidestage. I had seen the CapU faculty legend more recently than he had, only due to me catching him in town while reheasing for his jazzfest show last year.

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The day before that, on June 14, I went far south of the Fraser for the White Rock BIA's White Rock Jazz & Blues Festival, programmed by friend of the website Casey Thomas-Burns.

I spent much of the day with Dean Thiessen, who will come up again later in this column. He played solo piano at a couple stages, covering his own compositions as well as old, old standards in a relaxed stride piano mood. He also wrapped up my afternoon with his set in the Company B Jazz Band: trad- and wartime-jazz from co-leaders Bonnie Northgraves, Juhli Conlinn-Weiss, and Shannon Scott, alongside Dean, saxophonist Jens Christiansen, and bassist Russell Sholberg. The sunshine came out for this band, who delighted one of the bigger audiences that I saw accumulate.

Surrey-born and raised Colin Sankey hit on one of the main stages mid-afternoon. He maintains his band closely and almost never subs anyone out: Brent Mah on tenor, Seb Chamney on guitar, and Eliot Doyle on drums. (They just didn't bring Winston Matsushita on keys this time.) He played Smash Mouth's "All Star", and the audience was definitely too old to laugh at the memes. He nevertheless entertained with his power stance, bass heroics, and well-honed arrangements. The band sounded quite good for a small PA on a windy day.

I also caught bits of the White Rock Rhythm Kings with Jerry Cook on saxophone; the Ruby Lane Organ Trio with drummer (and noted writer about the national jazz scene: I have yet to connect with him on that!) Marke Andrews, organist Erik Reimers, and guitarist Jim Flaming; and vocalist Rocky Riobo's duo with Kelly Brown, who charmingly took over for Dean at the Laura's Coffee stage with standards and originals.

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On June 7, The Shorties – Cindy Dai-Thiessen, Kaya Kurz, and Sydney Tough – played a release show at the Wise Hall for their debut album, In Every Season. Their backing band was Dean Thiessen on piano, Francis Henson on guitar, Jamison Ko on drums, and Katie Stewart on violin. We also heard the additional string section of Shannon Saunders on violin plus cellist Franki Lemon on a few tracks, including my possible favourite track from the album, "Too Much". I'd heard most of these songs before at the group's annual December concerts, but the poignancy that Kurz always brings to the lead vocal got captured particularly well on record.

"Love and Affirmation" is the signature Shorties song and a soulful closer for both album and show. But the rest of the tracks (other than the instrumental jam "Sing Reprise", which they did render at the show) are folkier than that: more Wailin' Jennys than Lake Street Dive. The sky is a key symbol, as are living-room spaces, warm beverages, and open invitations to hang.

Dai-Thiessen told a story on-stage about how an old friend heard her song "Teenage Bliss" and texted her with the correct identification of who it was about. But, she says, she's been happily married to a member of the backing band for a long time, so it's all cool. That sums up the Shorties experience: vulnerability, relief, laughter, repeat.

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Singer-songwriter Amanda Sum opened that night at the Wise. (She also joined the band for a company number at the end, which to my great amusement was Shania Twain's "You're Still the One". I don't even think any of them were at Green Auto on May 22nd!) Sum started by accompanying herself on electric guitar, where she had a softer presence. She then switched to keys and dug into her confessional performance style, letting loose even more. My brief podcast episode with her from 2022 is a piece of the record that I hold tenderly, as it predates the passing of her close friend, the engineer Olivia Quan, by a couple months.

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On June 6, I heard saxophonist and guitarist Briggan Krauss, keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, and drummer Dylan van der Schyff improvise together at Zameen Art House for Infidels Jazz's New Thing series. They got loud and noisy, but only in choice moments, taking long journeys there and back. Krauss switched from sax to guitar and back to sax. Tim Reinert announced that this concert would be the NOW Society's last as a partner, and indeed, the August New Thing featuring Clyde Reed sports the Vancouver Jazz Orchestra Society logo instead.

Krauss and Horvitz played together as Pigpen. (Horvitz had a Pigpen sticker on the back of the keyboard he played at this show.) I found three 90s records online: Halfrack, Miss Ann, and Daylight. One of the bands Tim told me to listen to before Horvitz's role in last year's jazzfest was the funky and riffy Zony Mash. Krauss played saxophone in this group when they became Zony Mash with Horns, on what I think is their last album.

Horvitz and van der Schyff play together on Intersection Poems with Ron Samworth, Peggy Lee, and Bill Clark. Barking Sphinx co-produced the concert that spawned this album in 2003, at the Cultch; Brad Turner recorded it. I bet Krauss and van der Schyff have collaborated before, but I didn't find any recorded works yet.

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None of the recently-announced Western Canadian Music Award nominees in jazz are strangers to us here: Jon Bentley, Montuno West, Peggy Lee and Cole Schmidt, Raagaverse, and the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra. We've covered all of them already! Nice. I was a WCMA juror last year but didn't return for this year.

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On May 30th, I went to the West Vancouver Memorial Library to hear the Vancouver Jazz Orchestra play with organist Brian Charette. I've been working with everyone involved: the Cellar Music Group and the Vancouver Jazz Orchestra Society, who teamed up to record a studio album by the big band and featured guest that weekend. It was big, loud, toasty, and packed. The library's point-person joked about how she'd never be allowed to book a band of this size again.

The VJO's concept was to play local artists' tunes, on recent albums too, arranged by other locals. I particularly enjoyed Sharon Minemoto's tunes in the band, including the first track of her 2023 album Dark Night, Bright Stars, "As Luck Would Have It". Perhaps because of the fixed positions of few microphones on the bandstand, only a couple of individuals took pretty much all the solos: David Sikula on guitar, Steve Kaldestad on tenor, and especially Julian Borkowski on trumpet, plus Charette of course. Borkowski had a big night, heading downtown to play Frankie's After Dark with Nick Wise afterward. Speaking of which...

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After going to that VJO show, I made it to Frankie's to hear four tunes from the second set by Kate Wyatt's quartet with trumpeter Lex French, bassist Adrian Vedady, and drummer Louis-Vincent Hamel. The Montrealers were in town for a while and also played for Infidels Jazz at Zameen Art House. At Frankie's they closed with the title track of their 2022 album Artifact (it's Jim Doxas drumming on the record). Their playing was as patient, sensitive, and fun as only a working band can consistently be. Vedady plucks (and bows) his instrument precisely but more firmly than most. Wyatt, who is quite tall, has a distinctive posture at the piano where she seems to pull out chords with a relaxed joie de vivre. French and Hamel were subdued in the pieces I heard, floating around with the spirit of the moment and indulging playful bits of intro-outro to every piece. I'll watch for their next album.

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One of my recurring personal talking points here has been that Dean Thiessen is our generation's Hugh Fraser: the creative lynchpin who gets us all in the same room when he writes for large ensembles, the one who's the life of the musical party. I said it last time Dean's Stranger Friends Orchestra played the Fox, which is when they recorded their live EP out now on the Infidels label, Live at the Fox Cabaret. I'm saying it again now, after we all reconvened there for a May 31 release show.

The 31st was a huge night, also featuring the Hard Rubber Orchestra several blocks east at the Rio, but my cohort of friends and old schoolmates turned out in droves. On the bandstand, the newly back-in-town saxophonist Ardeshir Pourkeramati subbed for Adam Kyle, who was out touring with local indie-country artist Spank Williams. The percussion chair was vacant despite talk of someone filling Jason Winikoff's shoes.

The band played seven pieces from last year's show, including all four tracks on the EP. The new pieces were the additional movements of Dean's multipart composition inspired by John Steinbeck. My favourite number is still probably the yet-unreleased "Purple" with its crunchy major-key piano riff from Suin Park. "Someone Told Me" is also a nice fanfare for the band. I wonder if I'm one of the many cheering at the beginning of the track?

Special shout-out to my friend Anthony Cenerini for recording the music at the Fox and mixing it afterward. Anthony also engineered my second album, and through his former studio in New Westminster called 12th Street Sound – down the hill from the sweltering-hot, second-floor Vancouver Special suite where in covid I atrophied but ultimately sobered up – he was the first person to take out little sponsorships from me here to support my media journey. He moved back to his native Winnipeg last year, and I miss hanging with him.

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Rhythm Changes turned 5 years old yesterday, June 19. Carson Tworow and I hung out earlier this week and made an in-person episode of our Upsample video podcast to celebrate the anniversary. Watch it here for some stories that shaped me but that you might not have heard before. Thank you very much for all your support.