THE "GIANTS OF JAZZ" AND
"GREAT MOMENTS IN JAZZ" CONCERTS

The mists of time are steadily encroaching on an era of musical accomplishment that is now known as the "Golden Age of Jazz". The "Golden Age" may be subject to personal opinion and somewhat fluid in its time-frame, but the music genius that provided the raison d'etre of that period is well-identified, if not all that well-known or available to many music enthusiasts in the twenty-first century.

Jazz …. It was the popular music for twentieth-century pre- and post-war generations. It's practitioners were the best of the best and competed with each other with the same intensity as heavy-weight prize-fighters. They practiced incessantly, and experimented with all the imaginable musical possibilities - rhythmic, harmonic and melodic - in order to advance the development of their music into their music. And music lovers, dancers and party-goers were thrilled by all of this, paid homage to genius that made its home on 52nd Avenue in New York City, and which then travelled the railways and buses of North America bringing musical riches to all those who had become the Jazz adherents in the "Golden Age".

There will not be an era of such olympian musical achievement in the foreseeable future, and so The KOOL FM Barrie Jazz And Blues Festival has gradually been shifting its emphasis from presenting the new, contemporary achievements of enterprising, creative jazz artists to reflections, reminiscences and retrospectives on the giants upon whose shoulders present participants now stand.
The music of jazz has as its centre-piece, the piano. And what better place to begin in identifying the "Giants of Jazz" than here. Most of the great band-leaders were pianists, many of the great jazz innovators and composers were pianists. Whether as an accompaniment to singers and soloists, alone in solo performance, or in the rhythm section of bands large and small, the piano was de rigueur.

Singular accomplishments have been achieved - some by design, some by accident - in recordings and concerts that rise to the level of "Great Moments in Jazz", and the Festival is identifying and presenting such "moments" in concerts at The Centre Stage in Heritage Park.

Enjoy this glimpse into the past, its legacy and its impact on the present before the mists of time completely envelop the "Golden Age" and its "Giants".