>>PREVIEW
JAZZ ON THE LAKE
July 21 to 22
Heritage Park Historical Village
Cast your mind back six years to the birth of Jazz on the Lake performances aboard the SS Moyie sailing the Glenmore Reservoir. You may recall it had a Dixieland vibe. It was in June and, well, June being what it is in Calgary, you could experience rain and blustery weather. Fast forward to last year – torrential rain in Calgary and some heavy challenges for the organizers of Jazz on the Lake. Now, a challenge is one thing but when your event is in a boat on the lake and you’re suddenly without a lake, that’s a bit extraordinary.Fortunately, event organizer and musician John Reid, was able to laugh and get innovative.
"We got a call on the day of the event last year, saying, you know, we have bad news and good news," says Reid. "Bad news is in light of the rain that is predicted to be coming, the city has drained the lake because they needed to have capacity for it to fill. It certainly did. It rained and as a matter of fact it overflowed on those two days. The good news is that we’ve reserved Gunn’s Dairy Barn, and so the bands jokingly referred to it as Jazz Near the Lake."
So, in many respects, the events of last year signalled a new beginning for Jazz on the Lake. First, the organizers decided to move the event from June to July, a weighty decision because it had always been under the wing of the Calgary Jazz festival marketing. As it turned out, going solo was for the best anyway with the demise of the jazz festival this year. Second, since Jazz on the Lake has always been a JAZZIS Society gig, its musicians decided to revamp the event format.
JAZZIS musicians are frequent players around town, and if you’ve seen their ensemble, you know they tend to come out of that hard bop tradition – not the typical Jazz on the Lake fare. That’s changing too, as the organizers are broadening the playlist to include their hard bop repertoire.
"It kind of opens up an interesting possibility," says Reid. "Here we are in 2006 and there’s lots that’s happened musically. It’s a little hipper I think." |
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