| June is turning up the heat, jazz style with the New Calgary Jazz Festival. That, and a lot of great acts blowing through town both before and after the festival are guaranteed to encourage the weather. Take Bomba for example, playing Beatniq on June 15. This Latin jazz group with its mix of song styles and improvisation always generates high energy. This year’s performance will feature Bomba with special guests Emilio Rios, Aldo Aquirrer, Raul Gomez Tabera from Cuba, and Peruvian born percussionist and vocalist Luisito Orbegoso .
Summoning points south, Paul Kype and Texas Flood will be playing the Red Onion on Macleod Trail on June 15 and 16. Kype’s band hails from Lethbridge, but their sound is heavily influenced by Texas blues and R&B. The band also draws inspiration from the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters.
A few days later, the jazz fest starts. One of the most interesting acts to play this year is ZMF on June 20 at Cantos. Billed as "somewhere between old-school free jazz, contemporary composition and improvisation," this new project with Jesse Zubot, Jean Martin and Joe Fonda is going to push a few boundaries. The band’s debut 2007 release, Circle the Path, was recorded only four days after the band members started making music together. How was it? Zubot laughs at the question. "It was refreshing, exciting and dangerous," he says." (We were) ready to take the challenge and it was just exciting and it was the only way we could make an album because we all live in different cities so we had to do it like that. We just went for it. We really didn’t think too much about it you know." Expect more of that same drive and improvisational heat when these guys play Cantos.
Rounding out that week, watch for another infusion from the south – Andrew Jr. Boy Jones from Dallas, Texas. Playing the Red Onion June 22 and 23, Jones (ex of the Thunderbirds) and Charlie Musselwhite, are considered living blues legends. |
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