Two Shows! A Dream Band!

Guitar in the Space Age: June 24! Go West: June 25!

Festival Programmer Petr Cancura Talks About a Very Talented Group

We are in for a treat this year, as we have Bill Frisell as kind of an artist-in-residence. 

Bill Frisell is coming with a quartet that is personally my favourite of his line-ups, and he will be here for two days playing completely different projects!

Frisell—who has contributed greatly to the emergence of the “Americana” music scene—has become one of our lifetime’s truly unique musical voices that you recognize instantly. 

He is joined by one of my favourite drummers (and I really mean that), Kenny Wollesen. Kenny has been a member of the Tom Waits group, he is in many of John Zorn’s projects, and has been playing with Bill Frisell for many years now. 

His time-feel makes your heart dance and melt all at the same time. I have had the pleasure of having Kenny play in my band Down Home (which has just won the Independent Music Awards Best Jazz Instrumental Album prize). 

We played two weeks ago in a club in Brooklyn called Barbes, Kenny was one of two drummers along with Richie Barshay. Richie played drum kit and Kenny showed up with a marching bass drum and a bag full of wrenches, twisted little cymbals and other sound-making percussion instruments.

I don’t know how, but I am pretty sure the whole band levitated from the groove. You won’t really find him on the internet, he is too busy being a full integral part of all good music being made in the moment, all over New York and the rest of the world!

Next is Tony Scherr, another New Yorker who is probably more recognized as a guitarist. He plays every week in New York as an established singer-songwriter and an incredible! guitarist. 

He recorded and performed on most of Jesse Harris’s Albums (Jesse Harris songs were made famous by Norah Jones. Check out this video as a featured guest with Snarky Puppy  Tony has that same power on guitar that Kenny Wollesen has on drums… pure magic!

Tony, however, is probably known to more as a bassist. Tony and Kenny are one of those unstoppable rhythm section duos of the last 20 years, making up half of the band Sex Mob that continues to be a cult favourite.

So, already we have the perfect trio of musicians coming to Ottawa. Let’s put some icing on the cake with Greg Leisz, probably one of the most in demand pedal steel guitarists out there.

Together this really is a dream band! They will be playing two pretty contrasting shows that I will tell you about in another blog post. For now, here is the band.