Pat Blythe – Here comes summer!!

March 30 was the last column I wrote for this site…..the “Canadian edition” and finale of my jazz series. It’s now been six week since DBAWIS was able to publish due to some serious computer issues. There’s a wee bit of catching up to do. Live music is happening again, the camera seems to have found its way back into my life, the whole England move has been sliding sideways, reviewing photographs (not just Chris’s, but mine too) has sent me down several rabbit holes, and life generally, has been pretty busy. So…..let me just dive right in.

Pat Blythe – All That Jazz VII – The Canadian Connection

Jazz was birthed in the U.S. but it didn’t take long to head north to Canada. It was first introduced to Canadian audiences in 1914, when a New Orleans band The Original Creole Orchestra performed a matinee gig at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg. The stop was part of their western Canada tour. The band of six musicians included one of jazz’s early masters, cornettist Freddie Keppard. Jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton performed in Vancouver cabarets from 1919 to 1921. Canada and the U.S. share the longest land border in the world so it was no surprise Canada quickly became the first country outside the U.S. to cultivate its own jazz scene.  “In Canada, as elsewhere, musicians took to jazz and made it their own, although not before they’d had the benefit of good tutelage from touring U.S. musicians – mostly black – for whom “Canadian time,” as they called touring north of the border, was a relief from the constant racism of the U.S. and a new, quite profitable source of revenue.” – Quill & Quire

Pat Bythe – All That Jazz Part VI

This is going to be a long one…….

For the early students of jazz, there were no books or educational courses. The best a young musician had was listening to the music live, following by recordings. You couldn’t take a live performance home, and recordings could be scarce, or simply out of reach financially. As jazz grew in popularity throughout the decades, more and more recordings made this rapidly changing genre more available and attainable.

Pat Bythe – All That Jazz – Part IV

The other day, I was asked what this week’s column was going to be about. I had no idea, and often I find myself starting one thing that completely morphs into something entirely different. Later that day, I caught up with another friend and during our phone conversation, she mentioned jazz artists. Looking back, I realized I had not completed this series, a writing project I started in 2020, while we were in the initial throes of the pandemic. Jazz, in any form, was a genre of music that was rather foreign to me. It wasn’t played in the house growing up. It wasn’t until a close friend introduced me to jazz in all its glorious forms that I began to listen and learn and fall in love with the music. Here we go again!

Pat Blythe – Technology vexations…..and a tune or two

This will be a very short column this week. I am facing serious technological challenges and limitations. To call the past few days frustrating is an extreme understatement! Being without my third arm (or second brain) is akin to a floundering fish gasping for water. In my case, I’m gasping for my laptop. I am lost and bereft without it, and the tiny screen of my phone doesn’t cut it. It sounds ridiculous I know, but when absolutely EVERYTHING we do is dependent on technology, when we don’t have access to it, it become a crisis of world proportions.

Pat Blythe – Where do we go from here? ……and music

Throughout the past two years we’ve all tried to predict, guess, envisage, calculate, even hope what the future of music will be, once we are no longer struggling and fighting this global pandemic. We have been living in a world that seems surreal…..like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from, just by rubbing your eyes. That anything like this could happen in the 21^st century seems rather absurd and unbelievable. Thing is…..it did. We are not impervious, but we are arrogant in thinking that we are. Lately, events have proven that we still have a long way to go. There remains, in all parts of the world, a whole level of uneducated obtuseness that exists even after we’ve heard from Archimedes, Aristotle, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Einstein, Stephen Hawking and their ilk. Baby…..we have a looooong way to go.

Pat Blythe – Indie Week…..Julian Taylor….podcasting……and music

I’m missing the live music, the clubs…..but most of all the people. It’s been two years now since I’ve trolled Toronto’s club scene, traveled with the ONES show and visited the many stages of the various festivals in Ontario. I loved it all….every second of it! I met some of the most incredible people, heard some fantastic music, and was honoured to a part of a scene I had been away from for so long. I made new friends (and lost a few), learned new skills, and was gifted with the opportunity to write this column…..it was a whirlwind six years. Then Covid decided to rain on our parade. The Pandemic Interviews allowed me to stay connected to many of the musicians I met during those five years.

Pat Blythe – Snow….After Life…..and music

I make big plans, a list even, of what I want to write about. Then something forces me to make a sharp right (or left), and I find myself tapping out something completely different on the keyboard. I’d make a lousy novelist, as I can’t seem to stick to one thing. My wildly wandering imagination would take far too my detours. The ending would have absolutely no relation to the beginning! ….and so it begins with today’s offering.

Pat Blythe- Catch up…..Christmas kiboshed…..and music

This week’s column is a bit of a mish mash. It’s been six weeks since my last writing and so much has happened (or not happened)! Where to begin?? Let’s see….another variant tanking Christmas and New Year’s Eve for so many of us; a giant roast turkey all dressed up with nowhere to go; dating my couch; a quiet but lovely New Year’s Eve; Christmas decorations still hanging about, and the storage bins to put away; the closing of “indoor damn near everything”; back to dating my couch, but now we’ve got a threesome going with the fridge…..yep, so much has happened!

Pat Blythe – England, a surprise…..and Christmas music

I’m supposed to be writing a column today (Tuesday). I almost forgot. Not because I don’t like writing (I love it), I’m in the middle of a swarm of projects, and it currently looks like Christmas exploded all over my house. As well, getting back into my former world of telecom is akin to performing the Highland Sword Dance which involves finesse, footwork and a delicate balance, making sure you don’t touch the swords. Now that it’s “end of year” for most businesses, the almost palpable whoosh of calendars rapidly opening has generated a ripple effect creating a tsunami of meetings and conference calls. “Man the decks…..it’s everyone for themselves!”