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Cabbagetown's Jim Heineman; Founder, educator and Jazz artist extraordinaire ~
Jim Heineman is one cool cat. He eats, sleeps, teaches and performs one of America's original art forms... Jazz. "Jazz
is an amazing and wonderful experience in that, it is being in the moment, in the most intense way possible," says Heineman,
"and jazz expression demands that an artist be new at all times."
Heineman was born and raised in New York City and came to Canada with the great wave of conscientious objectors in the
1970's. He promptly got involved managing a night club called The Strawberry Patch during the days of the Yorkville Hippie
era, while working toward his Liberal Arts Degree at U of T. Heineman was enrolled in the Islamic Studies Program and comments,
"…probably because so many Jazz musicians in New York were becoming Muslims." He adds, "I was hanging
with the big guys here, like Lenny Breau and Ronnie Park. One of my mentors and best friend was the late Glen McDonald, a
very talented tenor sax player from Vancouver. I was young, absorbing like a sponge and learning everything I possibly could."
Jazz, an enormously divergent field, has deep roots in African and European musical traditions and was developed in the
early 20th century in the Southern States. A player could interpret a "tune" in many ways, perhaps not ever playing
the piece the same way twice. A musician might alter the melody, the harmony and the time signature and all would be acceptable
within that milieu. Jazz is often characterized as a product of self-governing originality, a collaboration of perhaps several
musicians and Jazz has traditionally given equal currency to the composer(s) and the performer(s) of any particular piece.
"The music will almost play itself if you just let it and that's what's so beautiful about it" says Heineman.
As Jazz made its way North, the forms further diversified. "Jazz has fragmented into many different factions. You
have early polyphonic New Orleans forms, then Swing ~ Big Band music, which accommodated dancing. Then you had the Bebop thing,
which was very iconoclastic and broke new ground with much faster tempos and was in some ways a protest against earlier forms.
Finally you had the Avant Garde free form which said 'we don't want to deal with these older forms, we want to be totally
spontaneous' and blues, blues is the square root of Jazz." Jim Heineman has serious "chops" and has mastered
of many these diversified jazz forms over the years.
Heineman, in his lengthy and distinguished career as a sax/flute player and composer, has been featured in films, documentaries
and has performed in concert on television numerous times. He has played in venues as far away as the Cayman Islands, with
the Kingsley Etienne Quartet, and locally with long time collaborator John T. Davis, Mark Hundevad, and Stacie McGregor and
in the Blues circuit, at Grossman's Tavern with Earnest Lee. He plays regularly with Rick Donaldson "The Blue Jays Drummer,"
guitarist Mike Hawker and his son Sam on Keyboards.
Jim has collaborated with some of Cuba's best-known artists and in projects ranging from R&B to Afro Cuban and New
Orleans/Dixie Land styles. Heineman has several recordings available and can be heard yearly at The Toronto Jazz Festival.
Jim Heineman was one of the founders of The Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre, our neighborhood centre for culture and
creativity and teaches woodwinds to interested students of all ages and levels of accomplishment. "The thing about jazz,
is that if culture is a sieve, we keep all the gems from the past. Jazz is a distillation of all these styles and a really
good jazz player plays homage to those past innovators, without imitation. Jazz is not suitable to clones."
You can hear Jim Heineman with pianist, Stacie McGregor and drummer/vibist Mark Hundevad on Wednesday evenings at N'awlins.
Info: 416.595.1958. Brandi Disterheft joins the Trio, after hours at Lorraine's. To sign up for Jim's classes, go to www.cabbagetownarts.ca
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