One pod, two peas

Tim Tamashiro and Tommy Banks just hit it off

You could say that performing with Tommy Banks is like a tonic for Tim Tamashiro.

“It is my favourite music experience of my entire lifetime. He’s my hero. To come out and do shows with Tommy is like candy,” Tamashiro said recently from Tuscany where he was on vacation.

It’s a simple concept — one piano, one singer, lots of songs and stories — but it’s one that Banks didn’t hesitate to endorse when Tamashiro worked up the courage to ask in an email to the legend.

“I had been semi-retired from singing for a long time since I’d been doing the radio show. It was just time to get out and do something new and different. I tend to get bored easily. This whole idea of doing a show with just Tommy on piano and just me singing, it just felt right.”

Oh yes, that radio show. It’s Tonic on CBC Radio Two. Tamashiro has been hosting it for 10 years now, exposing listeners to jazz and the people behind the music. He loves it.

“It’s been the single greatest learning experience of my entire life. It’s been fascinating to me to understand the art and the craft of storytelling and the ability to be able to look at music from a million different angles.”

Tamashiro and Banks debuted their show about a year and a half ago in Calgary, never having worked together before, and it’s been getting standing ovations ever since. Offstage, he says they’re like two peas in a pod.

“This man is astoundingly talented on piano,” Tamashiro says. “He’s like the heavyweight champion of piano in Canada, in my opinion. He’s so adept and so fluid and so creative. I never know what he’s going to do. I sit up there on stage and listen to him and watch him play and my jaw is literally on the floor for the whole night. It’s that good.”