Three days and nights making the rounds of some of our home town cities and their respective Jazz Festivals: so we doff our berets, strike our coolest poses and set out maaaaan…..

Ottawa: Not only is it the last day of the Ottawa Jazz Festival, but it is also Canada Day…can there be a better place to be than the nations capital? Well, that depends on how you define “a-good-time”. The show is out doors on the main stage of the Festival. We are the last act of the Festival and today, admission to the park is free. In the meantime things are really beginning to heat up a few hundred yards away on Parliament Hill, where Canada Day celebrations are kicking off. So we are caught in a bit of a transitional phase of the weekend celebrations. There is a large crowd to kick off the concert (it is free after all): half way through our performance we can hear the Main Stage on Parliament Hill fire up and we can hear the volunteers getting restless back-stage and beginning to tear things down. It all makes for a very warm and fuzzy experience. By the end of the show only the die-hards remain, but a surprising lot of them. Despite it all we had a very good show and those in the audience that were there to listen gave us a very warm welcome.

After the show we headed out in to the great swell of Canada Day revelers to try and find a restaurant. What a zoo. Kind of like Mardi Gras without the breasts and beads….but, seemingly, just as much alcohol being consumed and just as many people on the streets looking for the next shooter or place to pee or puke…Good times? You betcha.

Montreal: We survived our nations one hundred and fortieth birthday party and headed to the grand-daddy of Jazz Festivals in Montreal. This one has been running for many years and is considered to be one of the best run and most exciting in North America. We are honoured to be invited. Whether it’s the Jazz Festival or not, Montreal audiences are superior to any in the country and can rank with the best in the world (at least that is our experience and the shared experience of many performers). We had an excellent show, with an amazing audience. We were also scheduled to have a couple of special guests join us on stage for the show. Ron Sexsmith showed up and sang a few songs with Margo and Garth Hudson was suppose to reprise his Bearsville appearance, but car trouble, coupled with some major border hassles had him pulling in to the club parking lot just as our set finished…it’s too bad because we were excited about having a chance to play with him again. We will hopefully hook up again sometime.

Toronto: We did the long drive back to Toronto during the day. This show isn’t officially part of the Toronto Jazz Festival (apparently we aren’t jazzy enough for the Torontonian crowd), but it has been promoted (a loose concept) by the Jazz Festival and is in one of their venues. In other-words, another typical Toronto gig for us. The Courthouse is a very small, comfortable little club: a no-pressure home town show and a nice way to head in to ten day break.

We had another excellent show. A few technical glitches along the way but they only helped to keep us focused. Another very good audience…by Toronto standards.

Ivy Mairi opened for us. Ivy has an album (which I produced and recorded) available for download on latentrecordings.com. It’s a beautiful set of songs and well worth checking out. You can listen to your hearts-content (full streaming on the site) before deciding if you want to buy or not.

Ten days off to recharge the batteries. We’ll see you in the Rockies in a couple of weeks.