BOBBY CAIRNS
Music scene loses gifted guitarist and teacher
He was the very definition of a consummate professional over his storied career, but even Bobby Cairns had his trial by fire.
“He was 15 years old,” the guitarist and music educator's son Jay Cairns says.
“Tommy Banks had invited him up to play in an ensemble situation and my dad was super nervous. Tommy asked him to stand up and take a solo, and the cord came out of his guitar. He was so freaked out because these were older guys, made guys. It's funny now, because one of the first things he taught me when playing was to always wrap your cable around your strap. Tommy, of course, was incredibly gracious about the whole matter.”
Thus began a long and productive relationship between Banks and Cairns, who died last Saturday of COVID-19 at the age of 78.
The deep friendship and musical affinity that developed between Cairns, Banks, drummer Tom Doran, saxophonist P.J. Perry, and other members of The Banknotes (Banks' band of the time) enriched not only their many musical spinoffs and collaborations, but the city as well.
A beloved figure on the jazz scene, Cairns was also a first-call sideman in practically any genre you care to name, a Juno Award nominated leader (for his 2005 album Indelible), as well as an educator, holding down the chair of the guitar program at Grant MacEwan for 38 years.
That he was a humble man as well is no surprise to his friends and family, but it does add flavour to the stories that are coming out after his passing. Cairns himself wouldn't talk much about his prowess as a musician, but others do. Like the acquaintance who told Jay Cairns about a gig his dad picked up a little over a decade ago.
“It was a production of Jesus Christ Superstar that came through town,” Jay Cairns recalls. “Their two guitarists couldn't make it over the border and they were panicking, thinking they would have to cancel. Someone told them that in any other city you'd have to, but in Edmonton you could call Bobby Cairns.”
Cairns not only learned both parts, he alternated between them as needed, all with little preparation.
“There are few guys that can play like that in the world, but my dad had all the tools to do it.”
Born in Moose Jaw, Sask., Cairns moved at a young age with
his family to Edmonton where his great-grandfather was a golf course architect at the Glendale Golf & Country Club.
The juxtaposition of sport and music in his life apparently caused Cairns at least a brief moment of reconsideration. According to Perry, we almost lost one of our most lauded musicians to the links.
“He could have very easily been a pro golfer for the PGA,” Perry asserts.
“He was a great golfer,” Jay Cairns agrees. “There's the story that when Bob Hope came to Edmonton he would call my dad up and invite him to play. He knew some heavy dudes.”
A possible future in the PGA may
have beckoned, but instead Cairns joined with Perry on a tour of the States that got them a massive amount of attention and an offer of further gigs in Las Vegas and Reno. The endless touring was exhausting, the vagaries of the business overwhelming; after a discussion with members of the Woody Herman Band about opportunities to be found back home they bailed for Edmonton. There they started a residency at The Embers, where Perry and drummer Doran eventually hooked up with them.
“They were a four-piece,” recalls Doran. “When I joined they also added two singers and two horns.” It was at The Embers that Bobby started doing the writing and ar
ranging for Banks' band.
Cairns' association with Banks and his band had countless highlights, among them a studio (Century II) where the two produced jingles, albums and singles; international tours; a variety show (The Tommy Banks Show); and a Juno Award winning album in Jazz Canada Montreux 1978. In the midst of all that activity Cairns raised a family.
He nurtured a warm friendship with jazz guitar legend Lenny Breau, studied with the likes of Jim Hall, Barney Kessel and Joe Pass, and eventually arrived at Grant Macewan. It was there that Cairns may have done his best work, firmly but kindly instilling generations
of young musicians with both a work ethic and a passion for their art. Cellist Christine Hanson studied with Cairns in the mid '90s.
“What Bob wanted was to pull the best out of each person,” she says. “He had a knack for assessing someone and helping them find their voice. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it's true.”
Hanson says that Cairns' true gift to her as a teacher didn't really come to light for her until years later, when she became a jobbing musician in the U.K.
“Knowing how to improvise, playing by ear, not needing sheet music; all of those things made me appealing to songwriters over there. That's all because of Bobby.”
“He was a great improviser,” Perry affirms. “He could play in all kinds of different genres. He could play a Dixieland banjo part no problem. He could take a rock solo, even if it wasn't his thing. Of course he was also just a fantastic jazz guitarist.”
He was a great improviser. He could play in all kinds of different genres ... He was also just a fantastic jazz guitarist.
There's little doubt that jazz was Cairns' musical passion. His son Jay recalls him practising every spare moment, training like an Olympic athlete. There was no such thing as a day off from practising the modules that he lived by.
His knowledge was unsurpassed, with fellow musicians remarking on his ability to play almost any number in any key you'd care to call for. If you want proof of the dry wit, rigorous intelligence, and immaculate taste that friends and colleagues recall in him, you can hear it in his sole solo effort, Indelible.
Cairns may be gone, but he's left an incredible legacy in the hundreds of students he mentored over the years as well as the music that he's made. Still, this is an especially hard loss in a hard year.
“He was just a really good friend of mine,” Doran says with a broken sigh.
“I still can't believe that he's gone. I can't wrap my head around it, and I don't know if I ever will.”