CABARET EVENTS FOR N.Y. STATE, BOSTON, NEW ENGLAND & TORONTO FOR TONIGHT FROM CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE
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TORONTO: RAGS & BLUES: BILL WESTCOTT & BRENNA MACCRIMMON
Bill Westcott & Brenna MacCrimmon will perform at THE JAZZ BISTRO(251 Victoria Street, Toronto, ONT, CA - 416-363-5299) on Sunday, January 11th at 7:00 pm. Bill Westcott is a pianist, composer, arranger, musicologist and music theorist specializing in African-American and classical music of the 20th century. Born and raised in Southern Illinois he has been a piano player from the age of eight, After his early experiences with ragtime and classical music he studied blues piano with "Little Brother" Montgomery, a major blues-recording artist of the 1930s and of the later blues revival. At the same time (late 70s) he worked with Ron Dewar (saxes) in a New Orleans style trio in Champaign Illinois. These experiences, along with his formal university training in music, confirmed him in his life-long interest in early blues and jazz piano styles. In 1979 He came to Canada to teach music history and musicianship at York University, where he is now an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Music, York University. While working occasionally as a soloist and accompanist in classical performance, Bill has performed as a soloist and band member in various rock, Dixieland, country & western, ragtime, jazz and blues ensembles for more than 40 years. He has appeared as soloist, accompanist and singer in Canadian and American music festivals as well as Canadian radio and television broadcasts. Orchestras in Canada, the United States, Czech Republic and Slovakia have performed his original compositions and arrangements. Upon retirement from teaching in 2010 Bill took up the tenor ukulele and in this connection met Brenna MacCrimmon. When they discovered their mutual interest in Blues of the 1920s they began a collaboration a year ago. They have performed recently as a duo at the Arts & Letters Club, The Tranzac Club and the Jazz Bistro. Always intrigued by scratchy 78s and strange ghostly sounds, Brenna MacCrimmon first heard Turkish and Balkan folk music in the vinyl collection of her local public library in the early 1980's. As a result she embarked on a slow and inexorable descent into the world of Turkish and Balkan music. In Toronto, she worked with local Turkish and Macedonian ensembles before eventually deciding to "go to the source" and learn more about the music and the cultures that produced it. She spent a year as a guest student in the folk music division of the Turkish State Music Conservatory in 1985-86. Back in Toronto she continued to work with community groups and lead the Altin Yildiz Orkestar - arguably Toronto's first Balkan-Gypsy Band. In 1995 she returned to Istanbul with the intent to sojourn for "six months to a year". That stay lasted 5 years. While she loves all types of Turkish and Balkan music, she was drawn to the points where that music overlaps in Turkish musical culture. In 2010, she found herself in Moscow as a member of the cast of "Bobble" with Bobby McFerrin and in the summer of 2011 she toured across Europe with Balkan beat DJ Shantel and the Bucovina Club Orkestra. She has taught Turkish and Balkan song at workshops across North America, in France, in Turkey and Japan. Her current projects include a retrospective of influential Turkish song-writer Fikret K-z-lok with Toronto musicians Jack McRae and Deb Sinha, an electro-acoustic m•lange of Turkish and Greek songs with Berlin trio Alcalica, a high spirited two-person Hootenany with Toronto singer Alan Gasser, singing and playing songs of the Eastern Mediterranean with Jayne Brown, Sophia Grigoriadis and Maryem Tollar as Nazar-i Turkwaz and trying to bridge the gap between ukulele and Turkish folk music. She can't begin to tell you how thrilling it is to sing some of those "scratchy old 78" songs with Bill Westcott. There is a $15 cover.copyright 2015 - See cabaret listings from all over the world at CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE
