Jo-Anne Park shifts into drive for her showcase tonight at my California open stage

 

Freshly back from a visit to Nashville, Tennessee, guitarist-bassist Jo-Anne Park is pumped for her showcase set as part of Week 30 of my weekly Tues. open stage at California Pub, 914 Mortimer Ave. at Pape in beautiful East York, Toronto.

 

Jo-Anne was well known as a bass player frequenting jam at places such as Grossman's for the past decade or more and in recent years has also been featured as the four-stringer for groups such as The Curries and The McDales. But a little over a year ago she picked up the six-string and began to develop her strumming techniques on that instrument and seems to have subsequently found her true calling as a player. I feel fortunate that on several occasions over the past 9 months she's come out to my open stages to share her sometimes delicate but always poised and elegant playing. She often favours instrumental versions of Pop hits but is also very comfortable and confident doing Country and Roots music and has a lovely voice when she chooses to share it on songs from various genres.

 

No doubt she'll have a Country motif going after her sojourn in Nashville, where she met many talented fellow players and jammed with a raft of them. Her showcase starts about 10:30, and the open stage begins at 9 p.m. and runs till 1:30 or later. As always I'll have three mics set up, the new 61-keys polyphonic, touch-sensitive Yamaha keyboard and the excellent house guitar (the latter provided courtesy of Long & McQuade Musical Instruments) for players to borrow and I'll be spinning tracks from Canadian and local singer-songwriters and bands between live acts.

 

Unfortunately this week our friend Stuart Wilson of www.bigfix-music.com won't be on hand as usual, but says he'll be back next week when he'll be offering the best recording deal anywhere: it's free to get recorded, he'll send you a mp3 sample and if you like what you hear and want to buy the set it's just $1.00 per minute!

 

As so often happens after a huge night such as that of June 30, last week was a tad slower, but still featured a dozen acts involving 15 performers, including several newcomers.

 

Once again Roger Zuraw kicked off (it was the 18^th time he's done so!) and among several originals now familiar to many of us he also dedicated his song "Head Buttin' Boogie" to a friend who'd recently suffered a stroke. Paul Nash next regaled us with more zesty versions of classic Top 40 songs such as "Heat Wave", "Walk On By" and a Lightfoot song.

 

It was great to see the 2 Guys With Guitars duo back again as well and once again Rory Cummings and Ralph De Jong were accompanied by longtime musical pal Jim on bass. The guys did some of their classic Redhill Road originals such as "Honey Harbour" and "This Is Just All Right" and tell me they are in the process of starting a new band. Can't wait for that!

 

The first of our newcomers was up next: Tricia Myles made good use of the house keyboard (we don't have a sustain pedal yet so it's BYOS if you want to use one folks) for three songs despite being a little shy but I definitely hope to see her back early and often and she also seemed to enjoy sticking around to hear the many other talents who followed her. That parade began with Andrew Butler (who's will be doing the feature spot next Tuesday, July 21) and then we were into a delightful, enchanting, captivating set by our feature, Maria Kasstan.

 

I'm happy to say that Maria was able to sell a few cds after her set and no wonder –she weaved a spell that made it impossible to walk away as she told us some of the background behind her album `Love Songs For The Homeless Guy' that arose when she went back to songwriting after the shameful way that Toronto police handled the death of her husband when he died of a heart attack in front of police HQ a few years ago. (Because he was out for a stroll and casually dressed with no ID the 911 call referred to "an expired street person" and the family was caused a lot of unnecessary suffering because of the cavalier way events subsequently unfolded.) She's turned her grief into gold with beautiful, tender, poignant and often amusingly wry songs about their life and love together.

 

One of our staple performers, Alan Moffat, was back again, this time sans family posse but with his favourite guitar that he'd just had refurbished and was eager to show off to fine effect on another bunch of his originals. He'll be doing a feature soon too. A young man who seems poised to also become a fixture at the event, Colin Cook, was up next and particularly caught my ear with a song about dolphins, though I'm not sure if it was an original or not.

 

Julian Taylor shared some special moments as he took a break from rehearsing for the tribute to Jay Bennett show he did two nights later at The Horseshoe with his Staggered Crossing band and a raft of special guests. He did a set of all-Jay Bennett songs! Jay, a member of the Wilco group, produced Stag X's second album and Jay's own album of originals was the debut disc from Julian's Bent Penny record company a few years ago. Jay passed away much before his time a couple of months ago so J.T. and the guys wanted to mark his life and music in a special way and that show at the `shoe was an awesome night with a packed house. It was very heart wrenching yet also heartwarming to hear Julian do some of those songs solo for us.

 

Pete Otis next not only delighted us with several of his provocative and thoughtful original tunes but also gained a few fans after he was inspired to order a couple of extra-large pizzas for the entire crowd shortly before 1 a.m. (The food at California is awesome, so it was no reflection on the kitchen, but it usually closes before midnight during the week and Pete had forgotten to order something earlier.) I want to hear some of his tunes recorded with a full backing band in a studio!

 

A pair of young newcomers were up next: Alex and Simon, who'd been part of a band that recently broke up, displayed what they'll be doing as they begin performing as a duo and I have to say this is a twosome I look forward to hearing again soon. The night was wrapped up in stellar style by a surprise "hidden gem" amongst the crowd. Stan "Schmenge" as he called himself said he might try one tune when he took the stage at 1:50 but we didn't let him finish till well after 2 because what emanated from his guitar playing and singing was reminiscent of Bruce Cockburn as he took on The Beatles "Lullabye" and other tunes. Absolutely stunning!

 

On the mp3 player I spun songs by: Annette Haas; Bob McAlpine (from his solo disc of instrumental Steely Dan tunes); Fidget ("Sociopath" is one of my favourite high-energy tunes ever!); Gord Wilks; Julie Long; Kim Doolittle; The Nationals; Pat Logier & Rob Minderman's "The Mad Canadian"; Kenny MacLean; Michael Theodore; Laura Repo; and Tim Harrison.

 

BTW, if you want to see pics of some of the performers mentioned in this note, you can join our Gary 17's Acoustic Open Stage group on Facebook and check `em out!

 

Getting to California is a breeze —and there's a small parking lot for five or six vehicles behind it, while street parking is free after 9 p.m. on both sides of Pape. Several buses run by frequently, including the Mortimer bus (#62) between Broadview and Main stations and, north from Pape Station, the Thorncliffe Park (#81) and Don Mills (#25) buses —and after 1 a.m. the Don Mills 303 bus runs all night between Steeles and Queen and stops on Pape right out front of the club's entrance at 914 Pape Avenue on the corner of Pape and Mortimer a few blocks north of Danforth Ave.

 

Do also check out the menu at California  —the food is home-made by Danny and Jeanette and they're family-sized portions too. There are several draughts on tap and a fully stocked liquor and wine bar. And of course, the patio will be open and there's a big retractable awning if it rains on our parade.