Canterbury Music



RK, Laila Biali, George Koller and Ben Riley

 Just after coming back from New York I went into Canterbury Music in Toronto to record a few more songs. Lately, I have been both writing and adapting classical music with jazz. One piece in particular which I wrote last year called St. Johann has been particularly problematic especailly coming up with a drum part. Ben Riley in some ways is the perfect player for this music as his mother and uncles are all classical string players and his dad an accomplished jazz musician. Strangly,we have never played in Toronto together but we have toured in China twice, once with erhuist George Gao and another time with Dadawa. Laila and George also perfect in the way they share the sensitivity to both jazz and classical.

The Iridium Club

The Iridium Club is a music venue on Broadway and 51st street in the Times Square entertainment area. The club is well known for presenting Jazz fusion music and for its long association with the legendary Les Paul, “The Father of The Electric Guitar." Of Jim's band only Steve Lucas and Jesse Gress had played this place before. When we went downstairs for the soundcheck there was a huge group of high school kids being serenaded by the waitresses singing pop karaoke like Britney Spears and Katy Perry.  We played two sets one at 8pm and another at 10pm. It was a lot of fun and the audience was filled with many New York area musicians. Annie Haslam from Renaissance was there as well and it was a pleasure to meet her.

At The Strand

This trip was to play with the Jim McCarty Band again. John Hawken from the Strawbs was joining us again and since he lives in nearby Metuchen the drummer Larry Crowe and I stayed at his place during this trip. Our first gig was in Lakewood New Jersey at the historic Strand Theater. I actually had played in this theater before as a headliner with Ray Hickey in the late 90's. The Strand is still as nice as ever. This concert was the first with the American guitarist Jesse Gress joining the group. Jesse has played with Tony Levin and also in Todd Rundgren's band and is well known in the guitar world for making transcriptions and various other music books. His soloing was so amazing at the show I found it hard to concentrate on my own parts.

New York, New York

It has been quite a while since travelling down to the New York area. Actually, I haven't been there since before 9/11. There is a decidedly different mood from what I remember of the various periods I have visited. Times Square has lost its seediness in exchange for a Disney Theme Park family friendly safeness. Crime is down and the panhandlers are almost non-exsistent, yet New York doesn't seem to display the same confidence I remember. I wonder if it is just my perception has changed since I have visted so many more Asian cities and now New York seems rather tame.

Aidan's Birthday

My good friend Aidan Mason turned 60 on April 26th. The night before a gathering of his friends and colleagues turned up at the Laisy Daisy Cafe in little India to celebrate. Aidan is a Chinese-South African guitarist who came to Canada and played in Anne Murray's band for 30 years until she retired. As many of his circle are musicians, spontaneous noise was of course naturally going to break out. Here you can see Aidan far left with Jorn Anderson on percussion, Carlos Lopes on guitar and RK on the flute.