THROUGH THE LENS

“Oh, the improvisation,” says Carissa Neufeld about what drew her to jazz, as if nothing could be more obvious. To deconstruct a theme and rebuild it by instinct, again and again, into something new yet recognizably itself. “It’s just so freeing,” says the piano player and vibraphonist. Neufeld’s ease with the extemporaneous served her well as a certain virus spread through Toronto, robbing her music school, On the Offbeat, of half its business. When the restaurant across the street reopened, Neufeld carried her vibraphones onto her school’s lawn. With her husband, the drummer Michael Skinner, and bassist Rob McBride, Neufeld started playing jazz standards for Enoteca Ascari’s patio patrons. “It’s therapy,” she says of the impromptu concert series, which continues every Friday evening. The outpouring from diners and passers-by, in tips and thanks, has been extraordinary. “People really needed music,” she says. “It had been so quiet.”