Calgary bassist Simon Fisk is launching his CD this weekend, with gigs at Beat Niq on Friday, June 13 and Saturday, June 14

I was recently reminded of the Ornette Coleman album The Shape of Jazz to Come. Turns out, this title accurately describes the amazing jazz slated to hit Calgary over the next few weeks.

The Calgary Jazz Festival runs from June 24 to June 29, but festival headliner Dave Brubeck’s one-night appearance in Calgary sold out weeks ago. Clearly, Calgarians are primed for the fest.

If you’re looking for gigs before then, though, there’s still plenty to see. Bass player Simon Fisk, for example, is launching a CD this weekend, and if anybody’s shaping jazz in Calgary, he is. In the few years since he moved here from Vancouver, he’s founded Plunge Records, done some major recording and gigging with locals like Gerry Hebert and seems to be just about everywhere in Calgary’s jazz scene. If you’re into a sound that’s inspired by the likes of Keith Jarrett or early Bill Evans, then check out Fisk’s CD launch gig at Beatniq on June 13 and 14.

Fisk proves that jazz bass players are every bit as vital as other instrumentalists, and Calgary will host one of jazz’s most prominent bass players later in the month. If you know Ornette Coleman’s work, you know Charlie Haden was the original bass man on The Shape of Jazz to Come in the late ’50s. While Haden made his rep with that recording, he’s never stood still. He’s been pushing musical boundaries ever since, sampling and experimenting with everything from avant-garde to world music. Haden brings his Quartet West group with him to Knox United Church on June 25.

Local guitarist Steve Pineo is equally reluctant to rest on his laurels. Known by many as the writer of Paul Brandt’s hit “Canadian Man,” Pineo is also the winner of a Prairie Music Award and former member of the Co-Dependents. Citing influences as diverse as John Lennon, Tom Waits, Hoagy Carmichael and Herb Ellis, Pineo is defying genres later this month by leading a jazz trio with Tyler Hornby and John Hyde at the Wild Rose Brewery on June 24.

Of course the “shape” of jazz is more than just instrumental, so it’s fortunate that the Calgary Jazz Festival is spotlighting two of the best vocalists around: jazz giant Andy Bey and Cheryl Fisher. Born in Newark in 1939, Bey remains one of jazz’s most underappreciated artists. He’s played the legendary Apollo Theatre and gigged with everybody from Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington to Horace Silver and McCoy Tyner. Legend doesn’t begin to describe him. Bey will be joined by Calgary’s Hutchinson Andrew Trio at SAIT on June 25.

Fisher was raised in Calgary, but her career has been anything but local. She has trained with American jazz giant Mark Murphy, studied and gigged in Paris for two and a half years and performed at many major jazz festivals. She was honoured at the Montreal Jazz Festival and billed as “Canada’s New Diva of Jazz.” Fisher will be performing with her quintet at Cantos on June 27.