Jeff Healey – The Best of the Stony Plain Years: Vintage Jazz, Swing and Blues

JEFF HEALEY

The Best of the Stony Plain Years: Vintage Jazz Swing and Blues

Stony Plain

stonyplainrecords.com

As I noted five years ago in my review of Jeff Healey’s Last Call, “The late Jeff Healey (1966-2008) was – with great reason – one of Canada’s most popular blues-rock guitarists and an exciting bandleader. He was also an expert on the hot jazz and swing of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s – I remember some great radio shows he hosted on the CBC playing old 78s – and, in the last decade or so before cancer took his life, went public as a traditional jazz singer, trumpet player and guitarist, touring and recording a series of fine albums with the Jazz Wizards, a group distinct from his blues-rock band. As much as I enjoyed hearing Jeff play blues-rock, I much preferred hearing him in the jazz context.”

The Best of the Stony Plain Years: Vintage Jazz Swing and Blues compiles 11 terrific tracks from Healey’s traditional jazz albums – including Last Call – and adds “Sweet Georgia Brown,” a previously unreleased track included on a Stony Plain sampler in 2006.

I’ve got Healey’s jazz albums (and the Stony Plain sampler) on my shelves so there was nothing new for me on this CD. Still, it’s a terrific reminder of the real joy Healey had playing the music he loved.

Among my favorites – I do really like the whole CD – are “The Wild Cat,” an instrumental featuring Healey on guitar and Drew Jurecka on violin sounding like Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in their prime (with modern day sound quality); “Sing You Sinners,” a swinging gospel spoof recorded live at Hugh’s Room in Toronto with British trombone legend Chris Barber sitting in with the Jazz Wizards; a version of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Hong Kong Blues,” that’s all Jeff on vocals and two guitars; and the rousing finale of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” another tune with Barber from the same Hugh’s Room show as “Sing You Sinners.”

This collection clocks in at 53 minutes but leaves me wanting more. I think I’ll go pull out the original albums.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Jesse Winchester is coming to Toronto, Hamilton and Montreal

Once upon a time I got to see a bunch of Jesse Winchester concerts every year. That was back in the days when I was running the Golem, a folk club in Montreal, and Jesse was playing three night stands there two or three times a year and selling out virtually every show. This was before the amnesty for Vietnam War-era draft resistors which allowed him to return to the U.S. to play concerts after 1977. So although he was already becoming known as a major league singer-songwriter, and although he occasionally ventured off to play in other Canadian cities, it was almost like he was all ours in those days.

Jesse moved to Montreal in 1967 and I began to see him early on when I started going to folk clubs and concerts as a teenager in the late-1960s. In 1972, I began producing folk music concerts in Montreal and Jesse became one of my favourite artists to work with. He played at Dawson College at my first concert series and was a regular headliner at the Golem, the folk club I ran in Montreal for much of the 1970s and ‘80s. And more than just one of my favourite artists to work with, he’s remained one of my very favourite artists to listen to. I never pass up opportunities to be in his audience.

Jesse, true to his Southern roots, is as soulful a singer as I know and there is a quiet power to his

performances that is unrivaled by any other performer I can think of. He silences and draws in the audience no matter what the circumstances or conditions. I’ve seen him do it in small coffeehouses, at outdoor festivals, in concert halls and in big rock clubs. In 1999, he played the Spectrum in Montreal when he returned to performing after a 10 year hiatus. More than 1,000 people were packed into the place and I never, in all the many shows I attended there, heard it be so quiet and the audience be so riveted. It was like being back at the Golem in 1974 – the only time I ever thought that at the Spectrum.

That Jesse is one of our greatest songwriters is without question. As well as his own fine recordings, his songs have become staples in the repertoires of so many other artists over the past four decades.

There was a major health scare in 2011 when Jesse was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. But, he fought the disease and won. And he returned to the concert stage sounding as great as ever. When I saw him a year ago, none of that quiet, intense power in his singing and performance seemed diminished.

Jesse remarried and moved back to the United States about 10 years or so ago – so Jesse Winchester concerts can’t be taken for granted as in those old days when he was all ours.

Jesse will be performing at Hugh’s Room in Toronto on Thursday, Friday and Saturday April 5, 6, and 7 and at the Pearl Company Arts Centre in Hamilton on Thursday April 11.

Then he comes home to Montreal when Hello Darlin’ Productions brings him to Petit Campus on Saturday April 13. And I’ll be coming home for that one too.

You can read an earlier post of mine about the quiet power of Jesse Winchester, which includes a great video of Jesse singing “Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding,” by clicking here.

You can read my Montreal Gazette review of Love Filling Station, Jesse’s latest album, by clicking here.

And you can read my review of Quiet About It: A Tribute to Jesse Winchester, by clicking here.

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--Mike Regenstreif

The Way We Feel – The Songs of Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot was still in the relatively early stages of his career as a major folk-rooted singer-songwriter when my own musical interests began to centre on the folk scene. His third LP, Did She Mention My Name, was the first of Lightfoot’s albums that I bought new when it first came out in 1968 and I quickly acquired the first two and many of the ones that followed. His 1960s albums, and several from the ‘70s, still resonate particularly strongly with me.

Over the past decade, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Jory Nash has organized an annual tribute concert at Hugh’s Room in Toronto, in which a revolving cast of artists, and a house band, each do a pair of Lightfoot songs. Lightfoot himself has shown up occasionally and performed a couple of songs – including last Sunday, the third of a three-night stand.

Last night, Jory Nash brought The Way We Feel – The Songs of Gordon Lightfoot to Centrepointe Theatre in Ottawa. Interestingly, although there was overlap, the roster of artists was substantially different from the Hugh’s Room shows last weekend.

MC David Newland, who opened the show with a song and did a great job of keeping the show flowing, and the superb house band – guitarist Jason Fowler, pianist David Matheson, bassist David Woodhead, and Christine Bougie, who switched between drums and lap steel – as well as featured artists Lori Cullen, John Wort Hannam, Jory Nash, and Andy Maize & Josh Finlayson of the Skydiggers, were on the Hugh’s Room bill. The additional artists in Ottawa were Cadence, Rick Fines, Oh Susanna and Suzie Vinnick (fresh from winning a couple of Maple Blues Awards last week). Band members Jason Fowler and David Matheson also took turns in the spotlight with a couple of songs each.

In the hundreds of songs Lightfoot has written and recorded over his long career, the artists had a wealth of material to choose from and included several of his best known songs and several of the more obscure.

Certainly, the evening’s high point was when the entire cast gathered on stage at the end for gospel-style version of “Rich Man’s Spiritual,” which Jory Nash pointed out was the first song on Lightfoot’s first album. Each verse was led by a different artist or group of artists, with everyone else joining in and leading the audience on the call-and-response parts. It was a joyous moment and a perfect finale.

Among the other highlights were Jory’s solo version of “Mother of a Miner’s Child,” Lori Cullen’s jazz ballad version of “Rainy Day People,” Rick Fines’ soulful rendition of “Ribbon of Darkness,” which included some sublime slide guitar playing, Oh Susanna’s country version of “Early Morning Rain,” John Wort Hannam’s lovely solo rendition of "Your Love’s Return" and Suzie Vinnick’s electrified take on “If You Could Read My Mind.”

In all honesty, there were a couple of arrangements that didn’t work for me. Lori Cullen’s disco version of “Song for a Winter’s Night” robbed the song of the beauty of its quiet intimacy. And I really wished that a cappella quartet Cadence had just concentrated on the lyrics to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” instead of also using their voices to imitate the musical instruments – the net effect was to lose much of the impact of the song’s story.

In a concert that included just 22 songs, there were so many great Lightfoot songs left unsung. No wonder this show can be mounted annually without losing its freshness.

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--Mike Regenstreif