Jazz @ The Bolt offers diverse, electrifying lineup for 2023
Cellar Music’s Cory Weeds teams up with Tim Reinert of Infidels Jazz for a mini festival featuring revered New York City musicians, leading Canadian artists, standout up-and-comers, and more
Cory Weeds.
Cellar Music and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts present Jazz @ the Bolt on February 4 and 5 from 11 am to 10 pm
IF ALL YOU know of them is through their social media presence, you could be forgiven for thinking that Cory Weeds and Tim Reinert are sworn enemies, or at least the reigning Odd Couple of the Vancouver jazz scene. Taking to Twitter and Facebook the way that Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie once duked it out on the Minton’s Playhouse stage, the two trade barbs, mock each other’s sartorial choices, and spar about sports with apparently serious intent.
(For what it’s worth, Weeds is a Canucks fan while Reinert doesn’t know one end of a hockey stick from the other. As referee, I say this results in a draw.)
Even setting up a shared interview with the two demanded some deft diplomacy on my part. “Zoom is fine as long as I don’t have to see Cory,” Reinert replied to my initial query. Weeds, in response, postulated that “The fact I may not have to be in the same room as Tim makes 2023 the greatest year ever.”
But when the two actually materialize on the small screen, all is peace, love, and mutual admiration—which is good, for this year they’re teaming up to collaborate on the 2023 edition of Weeds’ annual Jazz @ the Bolt mini-festival.
Tim Reinert.
Weeds, whose current jobs include running the prolific Cellar Live record label and booking bands for Frankie’s Jazz Club, will once again carry the brunt of the curatorial responsibilities. But Infidels Jazz founder Reinert—who recently started his own label and supervises several ongoing concert series around town, including late-night presentations at Frankie’s—is programming four shows as part of Weeds’ multi-band extravaganza.
If it’s a gamble, it’s a happy one.
“We perpetuate a certain thing online, for sure, but we’re not as far apart as it may seem,” says Weeds, who likely considers Hank Mobley’s Soul Station the pinnacle of western civilization. “If I may say so, you have me, who’s sort of the established presenter of straight-ahead music, coming together with somebody who has found great success in addressing some of the needs that I don’t address. And, you know, there is a common thought that I like straight-ahead music and hate everything else, but I have always recognized that there is a very vibrant avant-garde scene here, and my feelings about that music and whether I prefer it or not don’t matter. I respect the musicians that play it, and I respect that it has a place in the community.
“Also, I need to recognize that Tim has done some really great work. But also he has really found a way—quite organically, I think, and maybe even as a surprise to him—to engage with younger people, and I would be foolish not to see if we can meld things and work together,” the impresario and saxophonist continues. “Hence the Emerging Artist stage at the Shadbolt. And I don’t want Tim to see this in print, but he has introduced me to a lot of music that I probably wouldn’t have been introduced to, both local and international. So it’s kind of a win-win situation, I think.”
Reinert, a long-time advocate for jazz’s most adventurous forms, replies: “I think it’s been a really interesting year here in Vancouver. Some of it isn’t super-surprising to me, but some of it is—and just how quickly the scene in regards to young people has steamrolled in the last year or so has been a bit of a surprise. We do a show once a month at the Lido that’s all about young and developing artists, and we usually have anywhere from 75 to 100 people in that club. That’s an East Van bar on a Monday night at 11 o’clock. You can say that it’s people supporting their friends or their family, but that’s only a small part of it. Mostly it’s a generation that’s excited to be invited to be part of this music.
“I think that has been my biggest learning this year: that if you not just make sure people know they’re welcome, but actually invite them to participate, they end up participating in ways that may be a surprise to you,” Reinert adds. “And you know what? Seeing young fans at jazz concerts, older listeners love it. It makes them feel excited; it makes them feel energetic. When we see people who have come to one of Cory’s great shows at Frankie’s and they spill over and take a chance on After Dark to see a bunch of 22-year-olds, the smiles on their faces make all of this worth it.”
Jesse Davis. Photo by Dan Codazzi
Weeds makes no bones that Jazz @ the Bolt began as “a bit of a retail event” for his label, and it continues to focus on acts that have recorded for Cellar Live, that are in town to record for Cellar Live, and that he’d like to record for Cellar Live. For instance, rising New York City pianist Miki Yamanaka will take time out from recording to join saxophonist Mark Turner at the Bolt, and a new cellar deal with the Big Apple club Small’s Paradise will see one of Weeds’ favourite saxophonists, Jesse Davis, bring his gloriously effulgent sound west. Other mainstream offerings include clarinetist James Danderfer leading the Vancouver Jazz Orchestra; bassist Jodi Proznick’s elegant quartet; the return of London-born, Vancouver-raised saxophonist Seamus Blake to his home town; and a host of excellent singers including Lezlie Harrison, Jennifer Scott, and Sienna Dahlen. But, even beyond working with Reinert, Weeds is broadening his horizons: he’s also presenting the electrified (and electrifying) music of the Quatour André Lachance, the roots stylings of guitar virtuoso Paul Pigat’s Boxcar Campfire, and the very 21st-century Malleus Trio, an act more likely to be found on an Infidels Jazz bill.
“People know what to expect when they come to a Cory Weeds event, so I don’t want to blow things out of the water and go ‘No, I’ve changed my thing now. I’m going to do five hours of avant-garde on Saturday.’ That’s not what I do,” Weeds stresses. “So I didn’t want to go crazy, but I wanted to let people know that, yeah, it’s going to be a little more diverse this year. So here it is!”
“If I thought he would have listened to me I would have pitched the five-hour avant-garde Saturday,” Reinart interjects. “But there are dead horses you don’t beat.”
Feven Kidane.
There are also compromises to be made. One of Reinert’s featured artists, trumpeter and electric bassist Feven Kidane, will have a Jazz @ the Bolt feature, but rather than go full-on funk or dive into the glitchy electronic sounds of her work with innovator Andromeda Monk, she’s going to present a tribute to one of her post-bop trumpet mentors, Woody Shaw. Other Infidels Jazz artists have less of a profile on the local scene, but in the case of Connor Lum, there’s good reason for that: he’s spent most of the past year honing his chops playing four sets a day on cruise ships.
“He’s just a fantastic saxophone technician, one of the best young horn players in the city,” Reinert says. “He’s one of these horn players who sounds like all of your favourite saxophone players all the time; there really isn’t anything he can’t do.
“And then we’ve got Alvin Brendan, who is maybe the most exciting young guitarist in the city right now,” he continues. “The thing that keeps Alvin special is that he is a wonderful jazz guitar player, and he’s an even better pop guitar player, and an even better R&B guitar player. Even though this is a jazz festival and he’s very much in that tradition, his trio does everything from funk to soul. There’s going to be Kendrick Lamar covers, lots of samples… A lot of really cool stuff.”
Both Weeds and Reinert concur that all of this “cool stuff” is available at a bargain price: the cost per band if you buy a day pass, Weeds claims, is $5, which drops to $4.16 if you opt for the full weekend. But there’s more than just a great deal going on here. Both Reinert and Weeds are focused on keeping the music that they love not just alive but growing, and in a year of potential live-music losses, there are lessons to be learned from their shared approach. Focus on what you think is excellent. Don’t dilute your product or your message, but keep your doors and your ears open. Build community through inclusion.
Yes, these are hard times for live music, but quality and passion will win out.
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