Jazzfest

Jill Barber will give a performance to benefit the Ottawa Jazz Festival, Wednesday November 9 at Southminster United Church.

Oh Canada! Celebrating Canada Day in our nation’s capital is always an epic experience and the events taking place on Parliament Hill are only some of the many activities happening around town this weekend. This year, catch Metric, Cœur de Pirate, Coleman Hell and Shawn Hook (to name just a few) in performances on Parliament […]

Award-winning pianist, vocalist, and songwriter Laila Biali has presented her music at prestigious venues spanning five continents, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Tokyo’s Cotton Club, Peru’s El Festival Internacional de Lima and New York City’s Carnegie Hall. She received a JUNO nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album of the Year in 2011, and her […]

By Saema Nasir The breeze was pleasant; sun shining and grass peppered with eager concertgoers and music fans as the Boxcar Boys took their place on the main stage at Confederation Park in Ottawa. Excited to hear the New Orleans-influenced band’s tunes, which promised to have influences of jazz, klezmer, Romani music and vaudeville, I settled […]

Last week, we featured Jazz Festival picks from our writer Leah Geller.  This week, another contributor weighs in with shows he thinks are not to be missed.  It just goes to show, the Ottawa Jazz Festival has something for everyone. The TD Ottawa Jazz Festival has once again done a commendable job putting together a lineup […]

There’s so much I love about Jazz Fest. The venues – Confederation Park, City Hall and the NAC – are at the heart of the city, yet surrounded by nature. The crowds are manageable and you have a really good chance of getting up close to your favourite musician if you want. Above all, there’s […]

On Saturday night, the Asinabka Film & Media Arts Festival will be showcasing experimental musicians from a variety of Aboriginal backgrounds, including Melody McKiver, Yuma Hester, Madeskimo and Rise Ashen + Cynthia Pitsiulak.  If you’re an avid fan of experimental music, it’s hard to miss the strong presence of a number of Aboriginal artists who […]

Hey Ottawa! Don’t know about you but I am loving this heat. It looks like it’ll cool down a bit for the weekend – good news for all the outdoor events happening. Here’s the rundown. Arboretum Festival kicked off last night at St Alban’s Church and moves to Albert Island for the weekend. A fine […]

The Abdullah Ibrahim “Mukashi” Trio played to a completely full audience on Tuesday. Presented on the last day of the Ottawa Jazz Festival’s Studio Series at the National Arts Centre, the performance was introduced by the High Commissioner for South Africa, His Excellency Mdladlana. South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim was born in Cape Town, […]

The evening sky glowed a peachy hue on Monday night as Pink Martini took the Jazzfest main stage to entertain Ottawa concert-goers with their impressive cocktail of genres, languages and sounds. The show began with an instrumental introduction by the 10-man band comprised of trumpet, piano, guitar, trombone, and percussion, before vocalist China Forbes glided […]

As Canada Day approaches in the nation’s capital, I can’t help feeling a growing sense of pride for the funny quirks this country has to offer. The performance of Groenland, a band from Montreal, at Jazzfest Saturday night, had a uniquely Canadian flavour to it. Groenland, a self-described indie pop orchestra, performs all their songs […]

I once had the opportunity to watch Tanya Tagaq perform in what seemed to me the unlikeliest of situations: in the community hall of her own hometown Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in front of an audience of German tourists sporting thick coats in the middle of August, from a cruise ship making its way through the […]

What will jazz sound like in 100 years?  200?  Would we even recognise this genre if we could somehow live for five centuries, or would “jazz” by that point be unrecognisable to 21st century ears? These questions swirled around my mind as I listed to the incredibly creative sounds of Dutch trio Tin Men and the […]

The bright lights from Ottawa Jazzfest’s Main Stage matched the sky’s lovely colour as the sun begun to set and cast a warm pink glow on the massive crowd that had gathered in Confederation Park. Bouts of cheering and applause began immediately at the very sight of Steve Miller as he and his band boarded […]

The stage felt like a cozy living room — five red roses in a glass vase, a few decorative lamps, a guitar, a bass, and a shiny blue drum kit – and set the mood when Texas-born singer Kat Edmonson took the Ottawa Jazzfest’s Marion Dewar stage at City Hall on Wednesday night. Her band […]