MUSIC, SUN AND SOUL
Trumpeter Bria Skonberg and Aretha Franklin are set to perform at this year’s TD Toronto Jazz Festival,
At 30, Joss Stone has already lived a lifetime of career highs and daring adventures.
The British soul singer, who burst onto the world stage as a teenager with an old-school voice that echoes the greats of the past she admires, has won a Grammy, portrayed Anne of Cleves in the television series The Tudors, and shared the stage with James Brown, Gladys Knight and Smokey Robinson among others.
Barefoot onstage and inclined to change her hair colour on a whim, Stone plays to sold-out houses in her quest to perform in every country in the world.
On Monday, she performs at the Danforth Music Hall as part of the 31st TD Toronto Jazz Festival, which begins Friday.
She arrives in Toronto after visiting U.S. venues for two weeks and is looking forward to a warm welcome.
“I’ve played in Canada — Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa — you are famous for being nice and friendly,” she said in a phone interview.
Performing since she was 14, Stone took on the Tudors role without blinking an eye. “I said, ‘Right, I’ll be an actress now.’ It was really fun, dressing up and playing.” But music drives her life, she said. “I started very young. I’m so glad I’m doing this, but I’m very tired. I’ve lived a lot of life.”
The jazz festival features hundreds of performers of all ages, including Aretha Franklin, 75, rated the greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone. The Queen of Soul plays the Sony Centre July 1.
The festival opens Friday with Randy Bachman at the Concert Hall and ends July 2 with a free show in Yorkville featuring trumpeter and vocalist Bria Skonberg.
The Chilliwack, B.C. native, who now lives in New York, studied Louis Armstrong to figure out how to play the trumpet and then sing without appearing winded. “I give myself a couple of bars.”
She began playing jazz as a teenager, thanks to the youth outreach of the annual jazz festival in her hometown. She played in the jazz band at high school and currently runs a camp in New York for adults to learn jazz. Every Wednesday, she plays in David Ostwald’s Louis Armstrong Eternity Band at the famous jazz venue Birdland.
The winner of this year’s Juno for Best Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, Skonberg is arriving a day early so she can stroll through Yorkville, soaking up the performances.
Yorkville is where the festival is centred this year, as it celebrates Canada 150 in the spot that was the epicentre of Toronto’s flourishing 1960s folk scene. Jazz fest venues in the area include the Concert Hall (the revamped Masonic Temple at Yonge St. and Davenport Rd.), the Pilot Tavern and Heliconian Club.
Festival programmer Josh Grossman says they were looking for a way to reach out to the community and build new audiences. Yorkville was chosen over past hub Nathan Phillips Square as “there was a more pedestrian feel. People can walk around all day and experience the music for free.”
Among new programming this year is Choir, Choir, Choir performing the Neil Young song “Lotta Love” on Sunday as a way of “capturing the spirit” of the Yorkville scene before coffee shops and clubs gave way to swanky stores and condos, Grossman said.
Other events worth noting include a tribute to Buddy Rich, whom many consider one of the greatest drummers of all time, by John LaBarbera Big Band, June 29 at the Concert Hall; a tribute to Thelonious Monk with Kenny Barron, Cyrus Chestnut, Benny Green and Gerald Clayton July 2 at the Concert Hall; and a “real dance party” at the Phoenix Concert Theatre Monday with the sevenpiece Caravan Palace band from Paris.
The TD Toronto Jazz Festival runs Friday until July 2.
See torontojazz.com for details.