A decent jazz festival tries to give the people what they want, a nice representation of all musical styles, from straight ahead to progressive fusion, to even some world beat and pop. A winning jazz festival drops a few surprises here and there.
The inaugural Jazz on the Mountain at Whistler festival—which just wrapped up a jam-packed, impossibly perfect sunny summery Labor Day Weekend—sought to, and in many ways fulfilled, both objectives.
Artist-in-residence and Year of the Guitar Master Class Series Dean, Kevin Eubanks, wrote songs on the fly for an hour and a half during his Solo Jazz Series, not knowing where his mood would take him next, but trusting that those in attendance would follow.
International superstar Stanley Jordan power-drove his electric guitar and concert grand piano simultaneously in a mind-blowing Solo Jazz Series. Oh and then there was this thing with his neck...
Montreal singer-songwriter Julie Crochetiere (Julie C) took a 1934 J. Fred Coots/Sam M. Lewis pop song, “For All We Know” – made wiltingly clear by the late Donny Hathaway – and brought the audience to its trembling knees, not a dry eye in the theater of mountain, valley, and sky.
Multi-talented Vancouver club owner/record label producer/radio host/saxophonist/funny man Cory Weeds elevated straight-ahead jazz to a cool, mass appeal while riffing humorously about playing this gig in a bank (the North Shore Credit Union to be exact) in between standards and solos. “I’m gonna close the club and open up a bank. At the club [I own], people have drinks and appetizers. At a bank, people deposit money. It’s surreal.”
Eleven-member Five Alarm Funk, which bills itself as “Vancouver’s champions of the party-funk orchestra,” nearly stole the entire three-day event from the headliners with a high-energy, sweat-spraying, dancing-room-only outdoor party full of fierce attitude and endless, infectious groove.
The Rippingtons took to the Whistler Olympic Plaza stage with a roar, but it was perhaps their astounding Dutch bass player Rico Belled who stepped forward with the ultimate bass-slapping, foot-stomping throw-down harkening the best of Mark King, Stanley Clarke, and Marcus Miller. Belled would do it again later that night on keys, switching it up with a downbeat/up-tempo bit of sonic foreplay at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler-Mallard Lounge nightly jazz jam.
Baby boomers all remember 1970s-‘80 jazz fusion band, Spyro Gyra, and their two major Top 40 hits, the calypso-friendly “Shaker Song” and “Morning Dance”—a staple of every surfer documentary from Malibu to North Shore. On Sunday night, Cuban guitar phenomenon Julio Fernandez reminded the audience of his stupendous ability with uncommon, shifting scale and pleasant, memorable strength of melody in his “Falling Walls” composition (from the band’s critically acclaimed 2011 “A Foreign Affair” album). And Trinidad drummer Bonny Bonaparte (Bonny B) charmed the children in the audience into spontaneous giggles with his reggae rap-meets-Stevie Wonder and James Brown, when he wasn’t conjuring up the spirits of every drummer before him, practically levitating his kit onstage, feet flying but hands barely flickering.
This is probably all music to Arnold Schwisberg’s ears. Schwisberg is the hard-working man behind the Whistler Jazz Festival. In 2004, a vacation led the Toronto lawyer/jazz promoter to the ski destination, where he couldn’t help but notice the music festival potential in one of the best pedestrian layouts anywhere. (Schwisberg had helped launch the Montreal and Toronto jazz festivals, so he kind of knew his stuff.) He had to do his homework, dot every I, cross every T, anticipate every counter argument before finally making his case to the right people – Tourism Whistler, Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), Whistler Blackcomb, etc. – in August of last year. Three hours, a unanimous vote, and several months of earnest, comprehensive on-/offline social networking promotions later… a unique jazz festival on the heels of the 2010 Winter Olympics was born.
Schwisberg believes in this festival, to the point where he’s risking complete and utter failure, and more than one liquor licensing snafu. “I don’t want to exaggerate but I truly believe that this event has the potential to be recognized as a world-class signature event in the sense that people get in the plane and come here. It has ingredients that you won’t find anywhere in North America. [PIQUE, 'Meet the jazz man' by Stephen Smysnuik, September 1, 2011]”
The first of anything presents some challenges: how to blend the right mix of free and ticketed events, as well as local talent with international anchor stars, how to fill those seats with enough activities and events for the entire family, not to mention for a variety of musical interests (not everyone is a hardline jazz-o-phile expecting Chick Corea with his Yellowjackets and this is not that kind of jazz festival anyway).
It’s why organizers purposely sought out a variety of artists, not just hardcore jazzers: 19-year-old vocalist/keyboardist, heavy on the indie, soft on the jazz, Whistler’s own Ali Milner – the next Sara Bareilles, if you’ve ever heard her live; the famous Montreal jazz pianist Oliver Jones, 76, who came out of retirement just for this gig; Chicago guitarist Stan Samole, slightly this side of modern jazz into the realm of swing, pop, reggae, blues and folk… and on and on.
In the last ticketed event of the Labor Day Weekend, Spyro Gyro leader Jay Beckenstein reflected the sentiments of those behind the Jazz on the Mountain at Whistler, as well as those in attendance enjoying the wide variety of music amidst the million-dollar mountain views in God’s country. In between accidentally sucking a moth up in his sax on the intake during one solo, and trying not to cringe at a clam he made during bassist Scott Ambush’s featured song, he said: “I just wish the festival the best. Hope it grows and grows.”
To be the best, any jazz festival needs time to grow, make memories and yeah, some missteps, generate buzz, and give voice to deserving artists. For Whistler’s first time, it’s not a bad start.
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