Pianist channels keyboard greats as part of jazz festival

Robin Munro is digging into the past to bring the best to jazz aficionados in Simcoe County this month.

The godfather of the Barrie Jazz and Blues Festival is fully aware that jazz is no longer a popular art form, so he’s channelling pianists from a couple of centuries back to provide a link between what is deemed “classical” and the beginning of jazz as listeners knew it in the first part of the 20th century.

“We’re making history here,” Munro tells Barrie Today, “investigating similarities between the masters of the piano of the 1800s – Chopin, Debussy, Ravel – and the 1900s, like Scott Joplin.

“I mean, you could pick up a guitar and play, but mastering the piano takes time, and work, discipline and practice, and some, like Debussy and Ravel, worked jazz inflections into their playing. So, we’re tracing that continuum between the early masters and the jazz players of a later era.

“Also, Duke Ellington studied composition, and was influenced by the work of (Hector) Berlioz”.

In particular, Munro cites a New Orleans-born prodigy, Louis Mareau Gottschalk (1829-1869), who assimilated a number of musical styles and dazzled audiences as a teenager with his playing. He tried to make a go of it playing in Europe, only to have teachers at the Paris Conservatoire reject him for his nationality. Though winning musical acceptance in his native land, he had to flee amid a scandalous affair, lived out his life as a vagabond and died of yellow fever in Brazil at age 40.

It is through Juno-winning pianist Matt Herskowitz that Munro believes Gottschalk comes alive, and invites the public to come and hear for themselves Friday night at 8 p.m., at the City Hall rotunda, in a concert called “The Missing Link.”

Munro, a drummer by temperament, points to Joe Morello, who kept time for Dave Brubeck (Take Five, Blue Rondo a la Turk). He also promises this year’s festival will get back to celebrating the greats of the past – Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Errol Garner (whose “Concert by the Sea” will be commemorated during the festival).

The festival, running Thursday, June 8 through Monday, June 19, will also feature tributes to Cole Porter, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, and the Big Band era, at venues spread out throughout the area, not only Barrie, but Alliston, Bradford-West Gwillimbury and Jackson’s Point as well.

To learn about this event, click here.