Festival jazzes up the winter
Musicians will perform at multiple venues
The lineup for the 2014 Ottawa Winter Jazz Festival is taking shape, with an anchoring show in Feb. 16 by the Blind Boys of Alabama.
The Ottawa Jazz Festival is to stage a crush of concerts at multiple venues on the weekend of Feb. 14-16, it was announced Friday. The Grammy-winning gospel group is to return to Dominion-Chalmers United Church, where it played in 2009 and 2007.
The festival also announced two Valentine’s Day shows at the NAC Fourth Stage.
The quintet of Juno-winning Montreal saxophonist Christine Jensen, featuring her sister, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, and guitarist Ben Monder, is to play at 7 p.m. A slightly different lineup of Jensen’s group played the first Ottawa Winter Jazz Festival in February 2012.
The young Massachusetts-based saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly, 21, is to play at 9 p.m. Kelly was recording and touring as a teenager, making her name as a bebopping horn player. More recently, she has added singing to her shows, which have at the same time grown more pop-influenced.
On Feb. 15, the Sicilian Jazz Project plays at 7 p.m. in the Library and Archives Canada auditorium. Toronto guitarist Michael Occhipinti’s Junonominated group takes Sicilian folk music as its point of departure for a performance that borrows from multiple genres.
At 9 p.m. that night, the festival is to present the quartet of U.S. guitarist John Abercrombie. The 68-yearold has performed infrequently in Ottawa, last appearing here in September 2010 at Cafe Paradiso, the now defunct Bank Street jazz venue.
Evan Clark, the festival’s media and marketing manager, said that a few more concerts featuring Ottawa-area musicians may be added to flesh out the February event’s program. The festival’s 16th annual fundraiser on Dec. 5 is to feature New York vocalist Jane Monheit, in concert with pianist Michael Kanan, her longtime accompanist.
Monheit, 35, is a Grammy Award nominee best known for sassy and sultry, cabaret-style renditions of retro classics. She last performed in Ottawa at a Confederation Park concert in June 2004.
Meanwhile, on Dec. 7, the trio of Halifax-based drummer Jerry Granelli is to give an afternoon concert at the Ottawa Little Theatre, celebrating the music of A Charlie Brown Christmas. When the U.S.born Granelli lived San Francisco in the 1960s, he was a member of the Vince Guaraldi Trio, which performed the classic jazz soundtrack to the beloved 1965 TV special.
This family-friendly concert, which is to feature Granelli performing the Cross Town Youth Chorus and the Goulbourn Jubilee Juniors, is a benefit for the Ottawa International Children’s Festival.
Also in keeping with the holiday season, on Dec. 17, the jazz festival is presenting The Preservation Jazz Band. The mainstay of traditional New Orleans music will perform its popular Creole Christmas concert at Dominion-Chalmers.