Music

Calling all Country music fans! Direct from Las Vegas, "Kenny and Dolly: Together Again" is the ultimate tribute to country music’s favourite couple...Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton! This international touring show stars the incredible Marty Edwards, who truly captures the look, sound and charisma of Kenny Rogers in concert, alongside the dazzling, talented and sexy Wendy Engler as the legendary Dolly Parton...backed by a sizzling, all-star band! Together, they combine to create an “on-stage magic” in the style and timeless tradition of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. You'll hear all your favourite Kenny and Dolly hits including “The Gambler” “Jolene” "Coward of the County," "Working 9 to 5"  "Lucille," "Here You Come Again" and of course the classic duet “Islands In the Stream” amongst the many audience favourites. Get your tickets early for this one, and don't miss this world-class tribute show when it comes to London!

To experience a Matt Alber concert is to experience the gift of music, magic and inspiration. A musical genius, driven by profound social conscience, a champion for youth and an advocate for the rights of all people, the two-time Grammy Award winning artist brings talent, enthusiasm, vulnerability and all of his heart to every stage. This December, join the Aeolian Hall for an historic night of song and celebration. Inducted as an Honorary Patron of the Aeolian El Sistema Program in July 2017, Matt is generously giving his voice, time and passion to this extraordinary fundraising project for El Sistema. While his energy will light up the stage, his commitment to youth, to universal access to musical education, and to social justice will light up the hearts and minds of the El Sistema participants he works with for a few weeks every year at the Aeolian. Together with the Prime Time Big Band, Matt will recreate Mel Tormé’s Swingin’ on the Moon. Leave your boots behind because you will want dancing shoes (you won’t be able to dance as it is a recording though….) to kick-off your holiday season with a “Moonlight Cocktail”. First released in 1960, the album had global success for Tormé – each piece a romantic wish upon our own lunar fantasies. You will experience a “Velvet Affair” after the intermission with holiday hits, standards and classics. The concert will be recorded and available for purchase in 2018 in support of El Sistema. If you have never experienced the magic that is a Matt Alber concert, do not miss this performance. Who knows, somewhere between “How High the Moon” and “Moonlight in Vermont,” it may very well even snow holiday romance over Aeolian Hall – most magical at Christmas.

The Carn Davidson 9 was formed at the beginning of 2010 as a collaborative project between JUNO nominated artists, trombonist William Carn and saxophonist Tara Davidson. CD9 draws on the body of compositions by its co-leaders. This collaborative project is an opportunity for both artists to “reimagine” their compositions for this chamber jazz instrumentation, shining new perspective on their existing repertoire. This 9-piece chord-less ensemble utilizes its seven horns as both melodic and harmonic devices, anchored by bass and drums.

The Carn Davidson 9’s unique sound is made stronger by an all-star lineup of prominent Canadian artists who are all exceptional ensemble players as well as outstanding soloists. In 2014, the CD9 was nominated for a JUNO for its debut recording NINE. The CD9 has already been featured at Toronto’s Rex Hotel Jazz Bar and the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival.

CD9 is…

Tara Davidson, Woodwinds
Jason Logue, Trumpet
Alex Duncan, Bass Trombone
Kelly Jefferson, Woodwinds
Kevin Turcotte, Trumpet
Jim Vivian, Bass
Perry White, Woodwinds
William Carn, Trombone
Ernesto Cervini, Drums

In a world where we are constantly defining the sum of our lives through the filter of another’s gaze, genuinely unchained artists like Winnipeg-bred Hamilton-based singer-songwriter IsKwé (pronounced iss-kway) are becoming a rare breed.

Named one of the ‘Top 10 Artists to Watch’ by CBC Music, IsKwé (which means ‘woman’ in her native language) is fostering an unmistakable sound that weaves together her Irish and Cree/Dené roots with poignant politically charged lyrics, dark soulful R&B rhythms, electronic flourishes, and trip hop breakbeats.

“I have always gravitated towards darker, deep-cut, bottom-heavy sounds,” says IsKwé. “That’s just what resonates with my creativity. I am hugely influenced by that fundamental darkness that came alive in bands like Massive Attack and Portishead as part of the Bristol sound, but I also love strong, bold women like Bjork and Erykah Badu.”

Captured fully on her brand new single “Sometimes,” which is the first release off of her sophomore album The Fight Within (Summer 2017), the song is a brooding and introspective anthem to an ex that sees IsKwé drawing upon the poise and power she felt in learning to let go of love.

“I think that in any relationship, even the unhealthy ones, it’s important to own yourself and to be able to say, ‘Okay, I’m making the choice right now to stay’ or ‘I’m making the choice to leave,’ and then feeling confident in that decision because it’s yours. This song is very much about the power I felt in leaving. Even though there was anger and sadness inside me when I wrote it, it wasn’t born out of animosity––I was really pulling from a place of empowerment on this one.”

While Iskwé’s music is undoubtedly a source of deep personal strength it is also a form of protest––protest against the continued hardships of the Canadian Indigenous community and protest against the fallout she has faced as a female speaking out on the subject openly in the music industry.

“There are people who assume that I won’t feel strong enough to speak my mind about my own culture and gender and that’s fine, but I won’t be silenced,” says IsKwé. “I’ve never been timid or shy about addressing those sorts of topics in my music because that’s not my spirit and it doesn’t reflect me inside.”

Bridging cross-cultural aesthetics while exploring her own struggle to both fit into and breakaway from modern Western archetypes has been an important part of IsKwé’s artistic vision since the release of her self-titled debut album in late 2013. Her debut single “Nobody Knows,” which was produced by Juno Award nominees The Darcys and is currently being featured in the Netflix series Between, captivated audiences by turning a stark spotlight on the more than 1200 missing and murdered Indigenous women here in Canada.

The song, which perfectly paired IsKwé’s signature downtempo tones with harsh reality, revealed an artist whose true beauty and undeniable appeal lies in her ability to find strength in the weight of her emotions.

“This new album, and most of the things I write, are rooted in an emotional place that’s not quite sadness,” explains IsKwé. “I think the strength in whatever I’m feeling is generally where I write from and I really try to embrace it all rather than seeing weakness in those emotions.”

During her live shows, IsKwé pairs her songs with elaborately adorned face paint both as an homage to her ancestral roots and as a platform upon which her message really comes to life. “Painting was one of my first loves. Incorporating it into my live show has not only become a way for me to expand my creative expression but it is also very much an act of reclaiming tradition.”

Inspired by both Dené and Inuit facial tattooing, IsKwé views the face paint as an act of rebellion against cultural appropriation and the limitations that have been imposed upon her as an artist. “Even if it isn’t entirely understood, painting my face prompts people to ask me, ‘Why?’ If I were to be subtle about it, I’d risk the message being lost in translation but when I’m loud and over the top with it, I think people find it harder to look away. That’s important to me because it prompts dialogue and it lets me know that the conversation is still very much alive.”

Unafraid to challenge the convictions of her detractors by honouring her heritage, standing steadfast in her viewpoints, and embracing her sexuality, IsKwé’s artistry knows no bounds. Blending soulful, breathlessly delivered lyrics that are coloured by the many shades of human nature with a sonic palette that takes its queue from the shadowy atmospherics of the 1990s Bristol sound, IsKwé’s music revels in her strength of self and that is her true rallying cry.

Allison Au refuses to be defined – or as All About Jazz reviewer David Wayne put it: “Au is an artist with a mind of her own. She panders to no-one.” Born to a Chinese father and a Jewish mother, and raised in multicultural Toronto, Allison soon turned to jazz as an outlet for self-expression and artistic experimentation.  Her music weaves a mosaic of influences into a seamless and soulful sound, a concoction steeped in the tradition of jazz, but skillfully laced with elements of classical, pop, R&B/hip hop, Latin and world music.  A lot of Allison’s music is also drawn from images of nature.

A graduate of the Humber College Music Program, Allison was selected as one of eight international participants for the 2011 Metropole Orkest’s Arrangers Workshop held in the Netherlands.  Her work has been featured by everyone from Hilario Duran’s Latin Big Band (Canada), to Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Roberta Gambarini and The WDR Big Band (Germany).  Lance Liddle of the world jazz blog Bebop Spoken Here proclaimed, “Canada has found a new jazz ambassador.”

Since 2009, the Allison Au Jazz Quartet (Allison, saxophone; Todd Pentney, piano; Jon Maharaj, bass; Ethan Ardelli, drums) has taken its “imaginatively written and performed modern jazz” (Mike Gates, UK Vibe) across Canada and the U.S., and “with compositions as strong as you’ll hear coming from anywhere in 2016” (David Wayne), earned a JUNO Award for its album “Forest Grove”. (The band’s 2013 debut release, “The Sky Was Pale Blue, Then Grey,” also was nominated for a JUNO.).  Allison says the latest recording allowed her to get in touch with feelings of nostalgia for her childhood, especially for “Forest Grove,” the beautiful Toronto neighbourhood where she grew up, surrounded by trees and nature.

This year, Allison made CBC Music's first annual list of the 35 best Canadian jazz artists under the age of 35.  Other recent honors include the 2017 TD Grand Prix de Jazz at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the 2017 Stingray Rising Stars Award at the TD Halifax Jazz Festival, and a 2017 Finalist for the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Jazz Artist Award.

The Allison Au Jazz Quartet was a standout at TD Sunfest ’17 and we’re thrilled to welcome the group to the Sunfest World Music & Jazz Series 2017-‘18.

Eddie Bullen’s Caribbean Jazz Collective

Pianist Eddie Bullen and percussionist Joaquin Nunez Hidalgo, have brought together a group of premier musicians of Caribbean descent to form the band ‘Caribbean Jazz Collective’ (CJC). The group performs beloved music from the Caribbean with a jazz twist. Members include; bassist Andrew Stewart whose background is Jamaican, saxophonist Neil Brathwaite who hails from Montreal via Barbados, steel drum player Gareth Burgess born in Canada with strong Trinidadian roots, Eddie Bullen from the spice island Grenada, and Joaquin Nunez Hidalgo from Cuba to add that hot Latin flavour. The collective always aims to give their audience a few rays of sunshine through the music of the Caribbean.

About Eddie Bullen:  Eddie's lengthy career has yielded an abundance of awards and recognition for his outstanding talents as a pianist, composer, arranger and producer. From his first album, 'Nocturnal Affair' to his most recent ‘Spice Island', Eddie gives his audience a taste of contemporary jazz, flavoured with Caribbean rhythms.

Since his move to Toronto in 1980 from Grenada, Eddie has worked with Caribbean, Canadian and American artists like Melba Moore, Anslem Douglas, Byron Lee, Maestro, David Rudder, Liberty Silver, Deborah Cox and Dee Dee Bridgewater.  He is also a composer and arranger for TV, Radio and Films. His work has been heard on City TV, YTV, Love & Hip Hop (American Television Series) and Wine TV Australia.

To date Eddie Bullen has produced over 150 albums and is currently working on several new ventures through his record company Thunder Dome Sounds and publishing company QDB music. Eddie is always on the lookout for cutting edge new innovative artists.

Amelia Curran is a Juno-Award winning songwriter, activist and mental health advocate from St. John’s, Newfoundland. Curran’s music is distinguished by her intricate and elliptical lyrics, geologic in their resilience and oceanic in their depths. Over the course of a decade, Curran has built a shoreline of song, a place of radical, perpetual collision of matter and form. Even as she leads us to the ever-eroding lip of the abyss, Curran’s music helps us make sense of the heart’s imperceptible, relentless attrition.

Watershed, Amelia Curran’s newest album, marks a threshold, a shake-up, a directional change. The tenor of this new album is openness (not to be confused with optimism), a reflection in part of Curran’s increasingly public efforts to battle the stigma of mental health issues in the arts. As a whole, the album calls for compassion and unification as a breakwater against the sea of cruelties we inflict upon each other, and upon ourselves.

In keeping with Curran’s off-stage commitment to raising her voice, Watershed is co- produced by Curran and replete with songs that speak to themes of vocalization. Curran establishes a core feminist dimension to Watershed’s theme of speaking up with “Gravity” and “No More Quiet,” two of the album’s standout – and vigorously feminist – songs. “Gravity” is a two-and-a-half-minute precis accented by horns and bass-y power chords. On this song, Amelia’s noted lyricism gets a shot of feminist rock grit – think Chrissie Hynde meets Ron Hynes. “No More Quiet,” is a powerful take down of gender tokenism, and slams the door on those who perpetuate inequality with a soaring soul outro by the larger-than-life vocals of blues singer Shakura S’Aida.

From the opening notes of the title track throughout the album, waves of distorted guitar batter Watershed’s softer shores. The surges of electric riffs create a strong undertow, churning and roiling as Curran’s lyrics express agitation, frustration and exhaustion with fighting the currents. “The root of advocacy is somewhere near exhaustion and rage. I am tired and I am angry,” Curran has said of her mental health advocacy. Certain songs on this album, such as “Try” and “Stranger Things Have Happened,” address a similar fatigue and hostility with the music business. “It’s no place for art,” is all Curran will say.

Watershed is the result of a convergence of autobiographical and political fault lines, as in recent years, Curran has become more involved with political and humanitarian work focused on mental health awareness and acceptance. Curran is the founder of It’s Mental, a grassroots community organization based in St. John’s. She also produced and directed the film “Gone,” an exploration of art and suicide. The documentary, which will air nationally in 2017, recounts the loss of several close friends and Curran’s own struggles with depression, treatment and self-acceptance. Curran’s willingness to end her own silence on the subject of mental health has also formed the basis of recent speaking engagements in schools and music conferences across Canada.

In addition to the release of Watershed, 2017 will see Amelia Curran’s first literary publication, a collection of lyrics and other notes, confirmed for the new year via Breakwater Books.

Six Shooter Records is proud to release Watershed on March 10, 2017.

THIS CONCERT WILL FEATURE A SPECIAL ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE BY JULIAN TAYLOR!

What a pleasure it is to find in the monoculture of the current musical moment a group of musicians bold and talented enough to be various. In an era when music lovers seem to be required to like one thing, one style, one genre we get the protean of the Julian Taylor Band confident enough in their own abilities to delimit the genres and let the soulful beats resound from wider horizons. Here we have rhythm and blues, hard rock, thoughtful folky songs, and even a little hip-hop. In one way it signals something new —an exciting amalgamation of musical styles too long held apart. But in another way it’s a return to roots – the roots of the Toronto sound. You can’t listen to this album and not recall that Toronto has always been “the meeting place”. And just as many tribes and peoples always came through the nexus of this landscape so the musical tribes have continued the tradition. Not surprising then that this collection of songs erupts from the same musical epicenter that gave us Blood, Sweat & Tears, The Band, and Buffalo Spingfield hand-in-hand with cultural heavies like Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Steppenwolf and Joni Mitchell. Julian Taylor is a natural heir to this rich tradition– something he shares with two other proponents of the Toronto sound, Drake and The Weeknd. His music arises naturally from deep steeping in the historically mixed musical milieu that begat it. It has the comfortability of an open mind a wide palette and an experienced and inspired musical talent. So, welcome to the smorgasbord. I think you’ll find it very flavourful. Or as the song says “Ooh that spice is nice.”

Behind the stage name KROY is Camille Poliquin. Drawing influences from both trip-hop (Goldfrapp, Portishead) and modern pop (Vampire Weekend, Youth Lagoon), KROY is set to release her debut full length album on September 23rd 2016. The first single, “River”, offers a glimpse into KROY’s musical landscape- a captivating universe of hypnotic rhythms and analogue synthesizers.