West Vancouver Community Arts Council presents the 17th annual Jazz Waves Festival May 27 to July 22 at the Silk Purse Arts Centre. Tickets: $22 each for open seating (special Thursday morning concert July 13 - tickets $15 each); $120 subscription passes: six admissions to use throughout the festival. More info: silkpurse.ca/jazz.
Free jazz, blues, Dixieland, R&B, gospel – the Silk Purse will be offering a smorgasbord of jazz music for your listening pleasure on the Ambleside waterfront this summer.
Organizers of the 17th annual Jazz Waves Festival have curated a lineup of local jazz talents, who will perform in the intimate Silk Purse venue most Saturdays and a couple of Thursday evenings from May 27 until July 22.
Jazz and blues singer-songwriter Jennifer Scott opens this year’s Jazz Waves with her signature emotive, powerful singing and insightful storytelling. Joining Scott are Juno nominated guitarist Bill Coon and veteran bassist Rene Worst, who happens to be Scott’s husband.
For Scott, being back on the North Shore is a homecoming of sorts for the jazz artist who developed a love for the genre while growing up in Blueridge. Her first introduction to jazz was through her chorale teacher at Windsor Secondary, Dennis Colpitts.
Scott benefited from Colpitts’ friendship with Carson Graham Secondary jazz choir director Peter Taylor, who put on the school’s annual invitational jazz festival which attracted jazz greats.
“I actually met a lot of well-known jazz musicians at that festival, so that was sort of a big formative time,” says Scott, when reached by phone this week on Hornby Island, where she just performed a show.
It was the late 1970s and Scott was 13 years old when she sat up close in the Carson gymnasium and heard those exuberant sounds created by legendary bebop trumpeter Clark Terry. Vancouver’s “first lady of jazz” Eleanor Collins also played the Carson jazz festival.
“I remember seeing her sing and that was a big deal,” recalls Scott.
As for what turned her on to jazz, Scott says she enjoys the improvisatory nature of it. After high school Scott studied jazz at Vancouver Community College, where she reunited with Taylor, who started the first jazz choir at a post-secondary institution in Canada.
“When I went to university, Peter Taylor was the big guy,” she says.
Scott then went on to study classical music at UBC.
After being at it for close to 30 years, Scott likes to keep a steady tempo with her music career.
“I think it’s slow and steady wins the race as far as I’m concerned,” she says. “I’ve always just been in the trenches doing the work. I’m also a piano player, which has been helpful.”
Since releasing her first album, Interactive, in 1998, Scott says she has become more sophisticated and thoughtful as a lyricist. But what has remained constant is her muse.
“I would say probably the human condition, most of all,” says Scott of what inspires her music. “And how people feel about things – emotions surrounding birth and death, those sorts of things.”
Personal feelings of grief and loss weigh heavily in some of Scott’s lyrics. Two big blows she was dealt in 2011, when her sisters died prematurely, made Scott a more prolific lyricist.
That same year, her husband battled prostate cancer.
“Yeah, it was quite a year,” says Scott.
A couple albums were borne out of those adversities, including Dream a Little Dream. Beginning with the breezy scene and palm tree on the cover, Dream a Little Dream offers familiar comforts. The songs are covers of famous songs, from a catchy Wizard of Oz tune to a Leonard Cohen classic, which Scott makes her own.
“Well I always like to choose songs that aren’t necessarily in the mainstream of jazz banter,” says Scott. “Obviously with the Leonard Cohen stuff there’s a Canadian connection. But also I wouldn’t call myself someone who only sings from the Great American Songbook. I always like to find an eclectic mix of tunes.”
Scott also recorded an album with her husband, called Duets. Scott and Worst met during a gig and were friends and bandmates for many years, which later evolved into a romantic relationship. The two of them have teamed up with another couple to form the San Francisco-based Novo Tempo, a Brazilian/jazz fusion group.
“There’s a lot of fun involved, I will tell you that,” says Scott of touring with Novo Tempo, including dates at the Monterey Jazz Festival. “I’ve always enjoyed Latin music.”
Scott has performed extensively across Canada and the U.S., even once sharing the stage with her idol Terry, whom she met all those years ago at Carson Graham. In addition to playing the Vancouver jazz festival, this summer Scott will teach jazz workshops in Colorado, California, Washington state and Vancouver Island, where there’s always performances attached.
Rounding out the Jennifer Scott Trio is guitarist Bill Coon, a big player in Vancouver’s jazz scene who teaches in the jazz program at CapU.
Scott, who currently lives in Kitsilano but “dreams of returning to the North Shore at some point,” is clearly excited about her upcoming show at the Silk Purse located in John Lawson Park along the Seawalk.
“It’s just a joy to be back at another beautiful piano and a beautiful room,” she says. “You barely need to be amplified, so it’s a wonderful experience.”
The audience can expect music from the heart, promises Scott.
“And they can expect music from three people who have done a lot of playing together,” she adds. “And they can expect a very interesting mix of usual cover tunes. But they can also expect some really good jazz.”
A dedicated jazz room is hard to come by these days in Vancouver, Scott agrees.
“I think there used to be a lot of jazz clubs per se. I think that jazz has become a concert situation or it’s become a background thing in a restaurant. And I think Vancouver goes through cycles. There’s times when there are three or four really busy jazz clubs operating at the same time, that’s worked really well. And in that cyclical fashion, there will be another time when there’s more jazz clubs.”
Frankie’s Jazz Club remains one of the last standing jazz joints at the moment. The Cellar Jazz Club, owned by CapU jazz alum Cory Weeds, closed in 2013.
Speaking of Weeds, the well-known saxophonist takes the stage with his band, as part of the Jazz Waves Festival June 10. Other acts with a strong North Shore connection include the award-winning gospel singers The Sojourners, as well as the Kristian Braathen Trio.
“With 13 concerts ranging from jazz and blues songwriter Jennifer Scott and her trio to Dixieland by Blackstick, from the unique jazz blend of Mimosa and their tribute to Canadian composers to award-winning gospel singers The Sojourners, Jazz Waves 2017 offers something for every taste,” says Jennifer Lord, executive director of the West Vancouver Community Arts Council.
