Musicians Gallery
Canadian Jazz Artists
Many Canadian jazz artists and groups have achieved national or international prominence and have received critical or audience acclaim in Canada and abroad. These performers include Oscar Peterson, Lenny Breau, Moe Koffman, Guido Basso, Gil Evans, Rob McConnell, Maynard Ferguson, Kenny Wheeler – all of which are members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, as well as contemporary vocal artists such as Michael Bublé, Diana Krall and Carol Welsman. Canada has a diverse and vibrant jazz community which puts forth a very high level of...
read moreOscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson (Pianist) was born on August 15, 1925 in Montreal, Quebec and passed away on December 23, 2007 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada at the age of 82. Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born on August 15, 1925 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Daniel and Kathleen Peterson. Daniel, a porter for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and an amateur pianist, wanted his children to share his love for music. At the age of five, Oscar began to play both piano and trumpet, but a bout of tuberculosis at age seven led him to concentrate on the piano. A strict...
read moreGuido Basso
Guido Basso (trumpet, flugelhorn, harmonica, conductor, arranger and composer) was born in Montreal in 1937. Guido was only nine years old when he began playing the trumpet, becoming recognized as a prodigy while studying at Montreal’s Conservatoire de musique du Quebec. He was just a teenager when he was already becoming prominent on the Montreal club scene, where singer Vic Damone first heard him and took him on an international tour with him for two years. In 1958 he joined singer Pearl Bailey and her bandleader husband, famed drummer...
read moreEd Bickert
Ed Bickert (guitarist) was born in 1932, in Hochfeld, Manitoba, and raised in the farming and fruit-growing community around Vernon, British Columbia. Universally regarded as a guitar genius, Bickert was largely self-taught, developing an intereest in jazz harmony by studying Stan Kenton recordings. In his early teens he gained experience playing onstage with his mother at the piano and his fiddle-playing father. He moved to Toronto in 1952, and it was only there he took some formal music training, becoming a regular club performer by 1955...
read moreMoe Koffman
Moe Koffman (flute, saxophone, clarinet, composer, arranger) was born Dec. 28, 1928 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He passed away on March 28, 2001 in Orangeville, Ontario, Canada. A Canadian jazzlegend, Koffman gained lasting respect and recognition by his peers as one of the nation’s most important jazz institutions throughout a celebrated five-decade career in which he recorded dozens of albums and performed with legions of the music’s greats. Moe Koffman was on of Canada’s true jazz icons, and in recognition of that, was...
read moreSonny Greenwich
Sonny Greenwich (guitarist) was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Sonny Greenwich first drew notice for his style in 1959 in Toronto, Ontario. which were followed by dates in Montreal. The year 1965 saw him in New York City at The Village Gate with saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Greenwich’s reputation, grew by word of mouth, bringing him to the attention of John Handy, with whom he played from December 1966 through March 1967 in Seattle, San Francisco and New York. Columbia Records released their concert appearance as Spirituals to Swing. It was...
read moreRob McConnell
Rob McConnell (valve trombonist, arranger, composer, big band leader) was born on February 14, 1935 in London, Ontario, and passed away on May 1, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario at the age of 75 McConnell took up the valve trombone in high school and began his performing career in the early 50’s, performing with saxophonist Don Thompson in Edmonton, Bobby Gimby and fellow Canadian Maynard Ferguson.He also studied arranging and composition with Gordon Delamont. In 1968, Rob formed the Boss Brass, a big band that would become his primary...
read moreDoug Riley
Doug Riley (pianist, organist, composer, bandleader, producer) was born on April 12, 1945 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He passed away on August 27, 2007. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto. Recognized by his peers as a pillar of in the musical community since the early 1960s, Riley was universally lauded for his outstanding composing, arranging, and performance skills with some of the most prolific artists in the classical, jazz, and commercial genres. He lived in Toronto throughout his lifetime, but...
read moreDon Thompson
Don Thompson (bass, piano, vibraphone, composer, arranger, producer, educator) was born in 1940, in Powell River, British Columbia, Canada. After taking piano lessons as a young child, he took up the string bass and vibraphone in his teens, all instruments on which he is basically self-taught. He moved to Vancouver in 1960 and began his career as a professional musician, working with the likes of Dave Robbins and Fraser McPherson. In 1965 he moved to San Francisco to join the Legendary John Handy Quintet for a two year stint. While there he...
read moreLenny Breau
Lenny Breau (guitarist) was born on August 5, 1941 in Auburn, Maine and passed away on August 12, 1984 in Los Angeles, California. Lenny’s francophone parents, Harold “Hal Lone Pine” Breau and Betty Cody (née Coté), were professional country and western musicians who performed and recorded from the mid-1930s until (in Hal Breau’s case) the mid-1970s. From the mid to late 1940s they played summer engagements in southern New Brunswick, Canada, advertising their performances playing free programs on radio station CKCW...
read moreRecent Posts
Jazz Links
