Beaches International Jazz Festival 2011

I attended th Beaches International Jazz festival http://www.beachesjazz.com/  this last week. Part 1  was in Woodbine Park with two bandstands. Part 2 was the street festival along Queen Street, and  Part 3 was the bandstand at Kew beach.

Each of these venues are fantastic. However the large bandstands are more impersonal for those spectators who want to really see musicians in action. The stages are so high and loud, that many viewers are far removed from the intense concentration and energy of the performers. However, the venues chosen for each of the bandstands were acoustically sound and coszy. The Kew beach was actually a natural amphitheatre, and was better shaded with mature trees to control the excessive heat. The Woodbine theater was sweltering hot, and the musicians were struggling to cope during the midday heat.

My choice venue, for this event was the streetfest, where the bands are set up  in front of the various retailers. Etiquette was in place, as the performers would rotate their starting times as to not drown out the other artists. There was a wide selection of blues, latin, greek acoustic and even some indian reggae. However, I did not see that much real jazz.

However, the performer that stole the show in my opinion was the best home grown secret in Toronto, David Rotundo http://www.davidrotundo.com/. David is an awesome blues harp player, with a powerful voice and a super positive energy. On Saturday night at 9:00 he came out with his brilliant smile and turned on the sexy blues rhythms that made the Chicago blues so popular. He sang Come on into My Kitchen, to a crowd of melting females who's stoves were very hot. He did  a harp solo for 10 minutes walking through the crowd, while playing rhythm and solo at the same time. He was soaked in rain, but filled with energy, as not one crowd member left until the set was done. Best of all he did all of his original music making his set original including Real Love.

The Beaches Jazz Festival is rated in the top 10 in the world and this week it rocked the house. Kudo's to the organizers and artists. Toronto's got talent in the Beaches Jazz Festival.

The Adventure Guy

Kripalu Yoga Center

I attended a 5 day retreat at the Kripalu Yoga Center in Massachussetts this past month http://www.kripalu.org/. I enjoyed a day of rest and relaxation and then attended a Zen and Harmonica Yoga course. Interspersed I did both moderate and vigoroyous vinyasa yoga classes. Kripalu is the ultimate in western styled buddhism, with an emphasis on mindfulness and healthy living. What impressed me the most, after driving through New York state, and a cycling stop over in Finger Lakes, was the dichotomy of American society. On the one side you have a population plagued with obesity  with many Americans carrying far too much weight and eating high caloric foods at super size me restaurants. On the other side you have the health conscious mindfulness socialites of the Kripalu Yoga culture, eating more organic foods and less of it. I prefer the latter.

Kripalu was once a monestary, then an ashram, and this history has transitioned it into a non profit society promoting the style of yoga by Kripalu a Yoga master. My thoughts are that we live in a society which is overly electronically stimulated via advertising, email, texting, violence, ultimate fighting,  etc. People's minds are overtaxed and hence to attract attention, advertisers are getting more and more extreme to attract the desensitized minds. People have internalized this and now need to zone out. Hence the growth in demand for Yoga. Kripalu is the ideal location to retreat, review and regroup. The concept is to quieten the mind get to its purest form and treat it with kindness.

I was very impressed with the transformational theatre course taught by a dynamic young theater instructor. I was not so impressed with a very lethargic bicycle ride given by two overly cautious cycle leaders. I was very much impressed with the quality of the yoga instructors and there philosophies they taught during the class. Most importantly was to treat yourself compassionately. We often internalize the way others treat us poorly and then began to continue flogging our own minds and injuring our self esteem through self talk. Kripalu is about being good to yourself, and being mindful of others so as to leave a gentler path as we walk through life.

I hope that the value of Kripalu Yoga will permeate the American society, to be mindful of what they are consuming, and the way they treat others and themselves. America is a dynamic and creative society which has delivered so many good things to the world. A little eastern mindfulness as part of the culture will definitely help it become even better still.

Namaste,


The Adventure Guy

Zen and Harmonica Yoga at Kripalu

I attended Zen and Harmonica Yoga this past week in Kripalu  Massachussetts http://www.kripalu.org/  with David Harp http://www.davidharp.com/ . The course was well attended with a wide group of harmonica enthusiasts. David is a most unusual presenter. He had unique challenges in learning music and socializing with musicians as an adolescent and these challenges translated into a new user friendly way of teaching and learning harmonica. Similar to Apple computers, David has simplified the harp method and teaches it using blow holes and numbers which are solid (filled in) to suck in or hollowed out to blow out! The tradiditonal music notations with notes and timings, just don't work for this instrument and David's system leades the way. The user friendly method is what made Apple successful, is the same way that David Harp has created with Harmonica.

I am a self taught harp player, and never knew the history, theory, scales or any breathing patterns. David teaches it all with lots of good tales from the road with the nephew of Sonny Terry, (my inspiration) James Cotton etc. The years of experience and adventure are evident in his course, which makes the learning fun.

He puts to bed the old notion of learning harp by blocking holes with your tongue - a style that was taught in the old germanic way of playing omm pappa songs. African americans led the way after the civil war, by taking these inexpensive instruments and creating new blues sounds. According to David the harmonica is the instrument of the blues which created the genre.

David mixes cognitive theory with music, for what I believe to be a brand of music therapy, via the harmonica. The use of breath, with the soothing sounds of music allows the mind to relax thereby overcoming anxieties such as fear and tension, created with with fight or flight syndrome.

The course was a great way for novice harmonica players to learn the sounds of blues harp and the foundation on which to learn more. For those interested in exploring this unique instrument David has created a clear path via his tapes, books, cd's and courses. 

See www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWfFSac2qQo for my song Kripalu Blues done to the rif by Muddy Waters I'm a Man taught by David Harp and  based on the Yoga instructor experience at Kripalu.

Happy Harping


The Adventure Guy