Celebrating Canda Day 150 on Classic 107!

Whether you're taking in all the fantastic Canada Day events around Winnipeg or heading out to the cottage or camping at one of our amazing provincial or national parks, make sure you bring Classic 107 with you! We've got a whole day of Canadian artists and composers, from Classical to Jazz!

For this Canada Day, Andrea Ratuski will be sitting in for Simeon Rusnak on The Morning Blend from 6AM to Noon.

Andrea will have a straight up blend of Canadian artists and ensembles from the Alcan Quartet to Stephan Lemelin. Canadian composers will be well represented ad well. With works by Colin McPhee, Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté, and even some Oh Canada with the Canadian Brass!

From Noon to 6PM, Michael Wolch has you for the Wide World of Classical Music. And although it won't be ALL Canadian, Michael will have some Leonard Cohen, Oscar Peterson, Jean Coulthard and more!

By 6 PM, we're sure you'll be hungry, so Terry Klippensein has a full plate of Canadian music and artists ready to serve up on Dinner Classics (6PM - 9PM). From Sid Robinovich to Robert Turner. Plus ensembles and orchestras, like our very own Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the incomparable Janina Fialkowska.

At 9PM it's time for Jazz on the Rox with Roxane Gagné. We've done something really fun with the Jazz for Canada Day, by featuring three quintessential Canadian Jazz albums--one for each hour.

We begin with The great Oscar Peterson's Canadiana Suite. Recorded in 1964 it features the Oscar Peterson Trio:

Oscar Peterson – piano
Ray Brown – double bass
Ed Thigpen – drums

Canadiana Suite is Oscar Peterson’s best-known work. Composed in 1963, it is a collection of eight compositions that moves its listeners across the Canadian landscape on a conceptual railway journey, starting in the Maritimes (Ballad to the East), sweeping through the Laurentian Mountains (Laurentide Waltz) to Montreal (Place St. Henri), Toronto, (Hogtown Blues) Manitoba (Wheatland), Saskatchewan (Blues of the Prairies) Calgary (March Past) and ending in British Columbia (Land of the Misty Giants). The composition artfully captures the vastness and diversity of the Canadian landscape through a thoughtful blending of blues and swing, altering rhythm and mood as the mythical railway travels across the nation.

Peterson was moved to create this enormous masterpiece to express his deep affection for his native land. As he himself once stated, “My profession has taken me to every part of the world, none of them more beautiful than where I live. As a musician, I respond to the harmony and rhythm of life, and when I’m deeply moved it leaves something singing inside me. With a country as large and as full of contrast as Canada, I had a lot of themes to choose from when I wrote the Canadiana Suite. This is my musical portrait of the Canada I love.”

Canadiana Suite was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1965 for best jazz composition. In 1979, CBC created a television special designed and directed by Durnford King, who set Peterson’s expressive music against the beautiful backdrop of our country’s natural landscape.

In 2008 Canadiana Suite was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. And, an interesting trivia fact---Canadiana Suite can be heard on Ontario Parliament Network.

SOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadiana_Suite

http://www.cshf.ca/song/canadiana-suite/

At 10 PM we move to Canadian jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall. We've chosen to feature her third album All For You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio. Released in 1996, it was

nominated for a Grammy and continued for 70 weeks in the Billboard jazz charts.

From the liner notes:

Scene: A semi-dark recording studio in Manhattan. Time: Two-thirty in the afternoon -- half past breakfast, if you live on Jazz Standard Time. Benny Green is sitting patiently at the Hamburg Steinway in the piano booth; Tommy LiPuma, the producer, is slumped in a chair in the main studio, fidgeting with his headphones. ("I like to be right in the middle of things. Too many distractions in the control room. Too much stuff to think about.") The shy-looking blonde in the corner booth, waiting for her cue to sing, is Diana Krall. This is her recording session, but you wouldn't know it. She acts as if she were the least important person in the room.

A disembodied voice slates the take: "O. K., we're rolling. If I Had You, Take five." Green tosses off four lean bars of intro; LiPuma rests his head in his hands, ready to listen. And all at once, the air is filled with a sound that is soft and warm and strangely knowing, floating out of the studio monitors like the smoke from a film-noir cigarette: I could show the world how to smile / I could be glad all of the while / I could change the gray skies to blue / If I had you... .

That's the blonde. (vervemusicgroup. com)

And finally, at 11 PM, we end our Canada Day 150 programming with The Velvet Touch of Lenny Breau: LIVE!

Recorded live at Shelly's Manne-Hole in Hollywood, California, The Velvet Touch of Lenny Breau: Live! features a trio setting of Breau on electric guitar, Reg Kelln on drums, and Ron Halldorson

on electric bass. Musically, the record runs the gamut from jazz, pop, and blues to Indian music.

After Breau's major-label debut, Guitar Sounds From Lenny Breau was issued the previous year on RCA, producer Chet Atkins arranged for this live recording in Los Angeles. Session bassist Carol Kaye was in the audience and stated in an interview:
"If you had dropped a bomb on the place that night you'd have wiped out all the guitar players in the world. They were all down there, from Howard Roberts to George Van Eps to Joe Pass... He conquered Hollywood because we all loved him as a player and we loved him as a person."

The tapes from the three-night engagement were taken back to Nashville where Atkins, Danny Davis and Ronnie Light prepared them for release.

Despite the enthusiasm for the live show, the album sold poorly and was barely mentioned in the music press at the time. Breau was later quoted as saying, "When I initially recorded, I didn't feel ready—I wanted to practice for another 10 years first." He also felt RCA did not sufficiently promote the release.It was 10 years before Breau released another solo album.

Music critic Paul Kohler of Allmusic wrote "His ability to play chords, melody, and a bassline simultaneously has to be heard to be believed."

The Velvet Touch was re-released on CD by One Way Records in 1994. It is currently out of print.