Congratulations to Rita Chiarelli on her Juno Nomination for Blues Album of the Year for the stunning No-One To Blame. Other nominees are Jim Byrnes for Fresh Horses, Downchild for Come On In, Jimmy Bowskill for Soap Bars & Dog Ears and Garrett Mason for I'm Just A Man . In addition, blues-friendly acts were nominated for Roots & Traditional Album of The Year - Solo, including Amos Garrett for Acoustic Album, Michael Jerome Browne for Michael Jerome Browne & the Twin Rivers String Band and Harry Manx for West Eats Meet. As well, the independent recording Full Circle by the Pappy Johns Band with Murray Porter was nominated for Aboriginal Album of the Year. You can enjoy Rita in person on April 1 at Hugh's Room, a great listening room. It's an early start (8pm) and a great place to have dinner. Photo by Rob Waymen

Congratulations to Dutch Mason: East Coast blues veteran Dutch Mason was named a Member of the Order of Canada last month. Dutch is the subject of a new book called On The Road with Dutch Mason written by David Bedford and Harvey Sawler (both play in Fredricton's George Street Blues Project) which will be launched at the East Coast Music Awards.

Grammy Winners: Best Traditional Blues Album - Blues To The Bone by Etta James (RCA Victor); Best Contemporary Blues Album - Keep It Simple by Keb' Mo' (Epic/Okeh); Best Album - Genius Loves Company by Ray Charles (Best Single, too, Ray Charles with Nora Jones).

Top 10 Bravo Videos: Raoul & The Big Time's video "Baby Don't Stop" (from their 2004 recording Cold Outside), is one of Bravo's Top Ten videos, in good company with Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Andrea Bocelli, Jamie Cullum, Minnie Driver, Susan Aglukark, and Paul Weller. To continue to request it, visit www.bravo.ca/television/videos.

"Talkin' Blues": COOL TV is currently airing the first 13 episodes on Sundays, while Bravo is re-running episodes 14-26; Mako is currently working on episodes 27-39 for fall 2005.

I Lacks a Nickel Big Blues Bash: Originally intended as a going away party for one of Toronto's most enthusiastic live blues fans, Trevor Giberson, this event has quickly grown. Featuring a slew of local talent including Wickens-Knight, the house band for the evening, guests include Bill King, Shakura S'Aida, Jerome Godboo, Julian Fauth, Wayne Charles, Steve Grisbrook, Brian Cober, Doc MacLean, and Steven C. Barr. Slated for St. Patrick's Day, March 17, at the legendary Grossman's Tavern, 379 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, 416- 977-7000. No cover charge.

Doctor Nick's Birthday Blues Bash: Doctor Nick advises that he "will be turning 50 (ouch!)" on April 2 , and he invites everyone to the Rex Hotel on Saturday April 2 for a matinee blues party with his band The Rollercoasters.

Blues at The Richmond featuring The Gary Kendall Band every Sunday 4-8pm. Starting April 3rd. Located at 342 Richmond St.(at Peter St. above Fez Batik) 416-204-9660. GKB will start a regular Sunday gig beginning on the first Sunday in April. The band will bow out at least once a month to feature other Toronto area blues bands. (see ad for more info)

Bluesaganza benefit: The St. Catharines charity event this year is billed as 'The Three Johnnys, the music that radio forgot'. The 3 Johnnys are Johnny Mays of Fathead, the great unsung R&B singer Johnny Wright, and funniest front guy around, Glasgow native Johnny Max, backed by a collection of award-winning sidemen, including alumni of Downchild Blues Band and Fathead, performing favourite soul and R&B tunes with driving horns, harmonies and Hammond, from Louis Jordan to Mr. Pitiful, and Rufus Thomas to James Brown. Proceeds from the event will go to the Autism Society of Niagara. Tickets are available at all First Ontario Credit Unions for $10 in advance, and at the door for $15. Doors 8 pm, show 9 pm. March 12 at the CAW 199 Hall, 124 Bunting Rd., St. Catharines

Coco Montoya (right) always gives a great show and is coming back to the Silver Dollar Room on March 25th.

Les Grandes Dames du Blues 2005: The 6th edition of Les Grandes Dames du Blues will again raise funds and awareness for women's shelters in host cities in conjunction with International Women's Day. This year's show in Montreal will highlight Montreal's own Dawn Tyler Watson and her band, the Dawn Tyler Blues Project, with featured vocalists Jackie , Kim , Nancy Desmarais, and surprise guests. This special event will serve as a fundraiser for Montreal's L'Auberge Madeleine, a centre for women who are homeless or in need of assistance. Wednesday, March 2, 8pm, Café Campus, 57 Prince-Arthur, Montreal, QC, 514-844-1010.

Buddy Guy with Special Guest Lucky Peterson at Massey Hall, Friday, April 1: The greatest living exponent of classic Chicago electric blues! Fresh from his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 14, 2005, the towering master of Chicago electric blues, Buddy Guy, will bring his electric band and dramatic live show to Massey Hall on Friday, April 1, 2005, at 8 pm. Known as a musician's musician, Buddy Guy has had a major influence over countless guitarists, including Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, and Keith Richards. Opening for Buddy Guy will be blues "triple threat" Lucky Peterson. For tickets and information call 416-872-4255 or visit the Roy Thomson Hall Box Office at 60 Simcoe Street, Toronto or at www.masseyhall.com.

Another 20th: The Baltimore Blues Society will also celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 2005 (just as the TBS will). Does this sound familiar? "2005 marks the 20th Anniversary of the Baltimore Blues Society, an all-volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting America's native musical art form - the Blues. Formed in 1985 by a handful of local Blues enthusiasts, the BBS has grown strong, boasting a devoted 600+/-person membership to date. The organization remains diligent in their mission to promote Blues in Baltimore by hosting a variety of events and programs including concerts, festivals, and Blues In the Schools, among other projects. Of particular note is the BluesRag, a multi-page newsletter published monthly, covering anything and everything of interest to the hardcore Blues fan: CD, DVD, book, festival and performance reviews, concert listings, historical features, artist profiles, and photographs of noteworthy events. For more information contact BBS president Bob Sekinger at 410-638-1242 / bob@mojoworkin.com, or Dick Flax at 410-466-0855 / RichardFlax@mindspring.com. www.mojoworkin.com

We remember Phil Perry: A veteran of the Western New York roots music scene, Phil Perry was the tenor horn player for both late greats Bill Doggett (whose "Honky Tonk" was a1956 hit), and Stan Szelest. He died at his home last month of congestive heart failure. He was frequently seen performing in the Niagara Peninsula, and will be missed by the many local blues musicians who found him a joy to work with.

Jimmy Smith, 1925 to 2005: Musician Jimmy Smith, who made the organ into a standard instrument in jazz, blues and R&B, has died. Smith began his career in the early 1950s and is credited with creating the distinctive sound of "soul jazz." Jimmy Smith, who died in New York on Tuesday aged 79, was the first and greatest virtuoso of the Hammond organ; not only did he devise, unaided, a new technique for the instrument, he established a new vocabulary for it. Without Smith, an entire sub-genre of jazz would never have existed. The organ-led combos of the late 1950s and early 1960s, whose music proved to be the last form of jazz to appeal to the broad African-American public, all grew in Smith's shadow.

James Oscar Smith was born to musical parents at Norristown, Pennsylvania, on December 8, 1925. His father was a plasterer and semi-professional entertainer, and Jimmy followed him into both occupations, plastering by day and singing, dancing and playing the piano by night. After service in the US Navy, he took advantage of the ex-serviceman's right to a college education and studied piano and double bass at two Pennsylvania music colleges, at the same time playing piano with Don Gardner's Sonotones. In 1950 he heard the pioneer Hammond organist Wild Bill Davis, and bought an organ with borrowed money and set it up in a warehouse. "I stayed in that warehouse six months to a year. I'd go and sit down at this beast. Nobody showed me anything, man, so I had to fiddle around with the stops... When it came to the foot pedals, I made a chart of them and put it on the wall in front of me, so I wouldn't have to look down." Many jazz organists were unable to master the bass pedals, and used only the keyboards; but Smith developed a complete heel-and-toe technique, aided, he claimed, by his experience of tap dancing. He also developed a remarkable melodic fluency with his right hand. "I've always been an admirer of Charlie Parker, and I try to sound like him," he said. "I wanted that single-line sound, like a trumpet or alto saxophone." All this was possible only because of the instrument itself. The electro-mechanical organ developed by Laurens Hammond in the mid-1930s differed from conventional pipe organs in one important respect: the method by which its sound was generated meant that a note began instantly, with a slight "click", when a key was pressed. This made it capable of being played with the minute rhythmic precision which jazz demands. Smith dispensed with the instrument's built-in tremolo effect, employing instead a separate device called a Leslie loudspeaker, containing horns mounted on spinning discs. The Leslie became standard equipment thereafter.

Smith made his New York debut in 1956, alongside Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, at the Cafe Bohemia. The following year his appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival caused a sensation. At the same time he began recording for the Blue Note label. His early albums (A Date With Jimmy Smith, The Sermon, Crazy Baby) proved so popular that Blue Note set up a special division to develop the niche they had established. The style, as it developed, became a potent amalgam of blues, bebop, ballads and gospel music. The fact that Hammond organs were commonly used in black churches reinforced associations with gospel. As organ combos proliferated, their music became the sound of young, hip, urban, black America, the staple of jukeboxes and late-night bars. New organ stars arose, such as Brother Jack McDuff, Big John Patten, and Baby Face Willette, but none failed to pay homage to the seminal influence of Jimmy Smith. Smith's own Blue Note albums continued to arrive in a steady stream. Despite the fact that he seemed to be making one every few weeks, the energy he put into them never faltered, and their quality remained consistently high. To keep himself fresh, he regularly changed his musical partners. Groovin' At Small's Paradise (1957) was made with the guitarist Eddie McFadden; Cool Blues (1958) with the alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson; and Back At The Chicken Shack (1960) with the tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. In 1962 Smith left Blue Note for Verve, then part of the international MGM empire. Almost immediately, he had a mainstream hit single with A Walk On The Wild Side, a menacing, film-noir piece arranged by Oliver Nelson, and followed it in 1964 with a hit album, The Cat, arranged by Lalo Schifrin. Without doubt, this was Smith's most popular and financially rewarding period, although his Verve recordings lack the creative excitement of the Blue Note period. But the days of the organ combo were coming to an end, though Verve's elaborate productions succeeded in keeping his profile high for several more years. Eventually an air of slight desperation was detectable as the company tried various stunts to revive his fortunes, including a misbegotten adaptation of Peter and the Wolf. In the 1970s, with the rise of electronic keyboards and synthesisers, the Hammond organ fell out of fashion. Smith continued touring until 1975, when he moved to Los Angeles and opened Jimmy Smith's Jazz Supper Club in partnership with his wife, Lola. He continued to tour intermittently until, in 1984, he took a vaguely defined and musically unrewarding job with Quincy Jones's Qwest label in Nashville. When interest in Smith's music revived, he began recording again while continuing to tour into the 21st century, his skill and energy apparently undiminished. He marked more than 50 years on the Hammond organ. © Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 2005.

TBS TALENT SEARCH CALL FOR ENTRIES:

Send a CD with 3 songs (original music encouraged) with a $15 processing fee to: Toronto Blues Society Talent Search, 910 Queen Street West, Suite B04, Toronto, Ontario M6J 1G6

Your CD should have been recorded within the last 2 years without national distribution.

Deadline for submissions is 5 PM May 6, 2005
Finals will be held at the Silver Dollar Room on Friday, June 3, 2005

Winner will receive a prize package that includes recording time, a photo shoot with Rick Zolkower, and a showcase performance and CBC recording.

FOR MORE INFO:

TEL: 416-538-3885 toll-free 1-866-871-9457

This event is produced with the support of the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Ministry of Culture and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

TBS MERCH AVAILABLE ONLINE

As a result of the blues festivals that didn't happen,
we have lots of brand new TBS T-shirts sitting around the office.

To make it easier for you to own a new TBS T-Shirt or other merchandise, we have added secure transactions on our website to allow you to buy merchandise over the Internet.
Visit our merch page.

You may also take advantage of our Secure On-line Processing to renew your membership with a VISA card at our join up page.

Loose Blues News

TBS TALENT SEARCH CALL FOR ENTRIES:

TBS MERCH AVAILABLE ONLINE