Canadian Music
Genre Focus
Have Not Been the Same
Capturing the spirit of Canadian rock from 1985 to 1995, a time when it became cool to be Canadian, this book chronicles how indie labels flourished, campus radio exploded, MuchMusic changed the way people view music, major labels tapped into the underground, and an exciting new generation of artists created a new canon of CanRock that altered the musical landscape. Bands like The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, and Sloan created a fever pitch for Canadian music, but there were also numerous others in the underground who created equally exciting work. This vital, lively, and entertaining examination of a groundbreaking decade contains vivid original photographs and interviews with all the major players.
The Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada
The Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada is the readable, authoritative reference to Canadian jazz, a monumental undertaking and a wonderful book, covering the history, denizens, personalities and important venues in jazz since its beginnings in Canada, in the wonderful, readable style Mark Miller is known for. Containing over 50 photographs, this book is a must-have for all jazz aficionados.
Perfect Youth
A forgotten musical and cultural history of drunks and miscreants, future country stars and political strategists, Perfect Youth is the story of the birth of Canadian punk, a transformative cultural force that reared its head across the country at the end of the 1970s. Bands like D.O.A., the Subhumans, the Viletones, and Teenage Head reshaped a dull musical landscape, injecting new energy and new sounds into halls, bars, and record stores from Victoria to St. John's. Reaching beyond the realm of standard band biographies, Sutherland unearths a detailed historical context to offer an idea of how the advent of punk reshaped the culture of cities across Canada, speeding along the creation of alternative means of cultural production, consumption, and distribution.
Conversations with post World War II Pioneers of Electronic Music
The book explores a variety of themes: the rise of technologies including magnetic tape to the computer, the establishment of prominent electronic music studios in Europe and North America, and the unique perspectives and motivations of towering figures in 20th century music, among others. Beecroft documents an extraordinary period of time in the history of music, exhibited by an unprecedented level of creativity that brought technology to the foreground in music unlike any previous period of time. Through discussions with the featured composers, Beecroft shows how the depth and level of enthusiasm of this technological engagement defined the era.
Célébration : essays on aspects of Canadian music
Collection of essays in French and English on Canadian music published to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Music Centre.
Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada
First Nations, Inuit, and Métis music in Canada is dynamic and diverse, reflecting continuities with earlier traditions and innovative approaches to creating new musical sounds. Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada narrates a story of resistance and renewal, struggle and success, as indigenous musicians in Canada negotiate who they are and who they want to be. Comprised of essays, interviews, and personal reflections by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal musicians and scholars alike, the collection highlights themes of innovation, teaching and transmission, and cultural interaction. Individual chapters discuss musical genres ranging from popular styles including country and pop to nation-specific and intertribal practices such as powwows, as well as hybrid performances that incorporate music with theatre and dance. As a whole, this collection demonstrates how music is a powerful tool for articulating the social challenges faced by Aboriginal communities and an effective way to affirm indigenous strength and pride. Juxtaposing scholarly study with artistic practice, Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada celebrates and critically engages Canada's vibrant Aboriginal music scene.
Regional Focus
Swinging in Paradise
For almost half a century, more jazz was made in Montreal than anywhere else in Canada. Swinging in Paradise tells the story of jazz and nightlife in Montreal - from the arrival of the first black musicians from the United States; through the heady days of swing, show biz, big bands, and bebop; to the tumultuous 1960s and Montreal's unique experiments in free jazz and fusion. This is more than music history; it's a rich social history of Montreal after dark. John Gilmore spent 7 years tracking down veterans of Montreal's jazz community and weaving their memories into this fascinating history. He reveals why musicians from all over North America migrated to Montreal, and how they lived, worked, and created in the midst of organized crime, corruption, union battles, racism, and a nightclub industry hungry for music. A reprint of the classic first edition, with a new afterword by the author.
Live at the Commodore
Located in the heart of downtown Vancouver, the Commodore Ballroom is one of the best-loved music venues in Canada, if not the world, whose history extends back to 1930 when it was built in the splendor of art-deco style. Through World War II and into the 1950s, the Commodore was where Vancouverites enjoyed a night out to hear swing orchestras and dance into the night and in the 1970s became a full-on music club, a must-stop for breakout bands. Vancouverites soon filled the place on a nightly basis, not only to hear the latest in punk, new wave, blues, heavy metal, and rock, but also to dance on its legendary bouncy sprung floor. Aaron Chapman delves into the Commodore's archives to reveal stories about the constellation of characters surrounding the club over the last 80-plus years, as well as startling, funny, and outrageous anecdotes about the legendary acts that have graced its stage.
The Crooked Stovepipe
Named for a popular local fiddle tune, The Crooked Stovepipe is a rollicking, detailed, first-ever study of the indigenous fiddle music and social dancing enjoyed by the Gwich'in Athapskan Indians and other tribal groups in northeast Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. Though the music has obvious roots in the British Isles, French Canada, and the American South, the Gwich'in have used it in shaping their own aesthetic, which is apparent in their choice of fiddle tunings, bowing techniques, foot clogging, dances, and a distinctively stratified tune repertoire.
Sonic Booms: Making Music in an Oil Town
Sonic booms: Making Music in an Oil Town is the story of the roots and country music scene in Calgary. Over the last twenty years, it has grown in response to the city’s vast wealth, yet remains under the radar for the rest of Canada. A city that produced some of our country’s greatest musicians – K. D. Lang, Ian Tyson, Feist, and Jann Arden, to name a few – is home to a community of performers who both embrace and resist stereotypes imposed on the city. Drawing on the author's twenty years in the scene, Sonic booms offers a snapshot of the vibrant musical community of Calgary.
Essential Song
Essential Song: Three Decades of Northern Cree Music, a study of subarctic Cree hunting songs, is the first detailed ethnomusicology of the northern Cree of Quebec and Manitoba. The result of more than two decades spent in the North learning from the Cree, Lynn Whidden's account discusses the tradition of the hunting songs, their meanings and origins, and their importance to the hunt. She also examines women's songs, and traces the impact of social change--including the introduction of hymns, Gospel tunes, and country music--on the song traditions of these communities. The book also explores the introduction of powwow song into the subarctic and the Crees struggle to maintain their Aboriginal heritage--to find a kind of song that, like the hunting songs, can serve as a spiritual guide and force.
Biography/Autobiography
Off the Books
The inner workings of the jazz "business." "Off the books" refers to a life lived outside of conventional 9 to 5 society. Jazz music itself is "off the books" as far as much of pop culture is concerned. Many jazz lives have unfolded as marginal existences, as jazz guitarist Peter Leitch attests in this honest memoir. Off the Books: A Jazz Life is the story of a life lived in search of excellence in music and art, but also a life lived battling depression and alienation, and overcoming narcotics addiction. Leitch vividly relates a life lived trying to eke out a living in jazz clubs, nightclubs and studios in Montreal, Toronto and New York. He tells of growing up as an Anglophone in Montreal's working class and predominantly French-speaking East End refinery district, discovering jazz on CBC radio and learning to play it--outside of the academy.
Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs
When it looks as if the Rheostatics are breaking up after more than twenty years together, Dave Bidini is left feeling adrift from his moorings and decides to go on a very long road trip, playing solo and finding out about the state of rock 'n' roll around the world. What Bidini finds is that the rock 'n' roll machine has not yet flattened the globe, as each place has taken what suits it from the West's dominant music and ignored the rest. Metal may have had its heyday in North America, but it still suits the quiet Finns just fine as a soundtrack for suicidal thoughts. In Russia, where live rock still lurks in hard-to-find places, the British band Smokie is far more popular than even the Rolling Stones, and the first Western band Mongolian audiences wanted to hear live was Boney M. Around the World takes readers on an unforgettable, ear-opening swing through the world of rock 'n' roll.
They Shot, He Scored
Eldon Davis Rathburn (1916-2008), one of the most multi-dimensional, prolific, and endlessly fascinating composers of the twentieth century, wrote more music than any other Canadian composer of his generation. During a long and productive career that spanned seventy-five years, Rathburn served for thirty years as a staff composer with the National Film Board of Canada (1947-76), scored the first generation of IMAX films, and created a diverse catalogue of orchestral and chamber works. With the aid of extensive archival and documentary materials, They Shot, He Scored chronicles Rathburn's life and works, beginning with his formative years in Saint John, New Brunswick, and his breakthrough in Los Angeles in connection with Arnold Schoenberg and the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. James Wright undertakes a close analytical reading of Rathburn's film and concert scores to outline his methods, compositional techniques, influences, and idiosyncratic approach to instrumentation, as well as his proto-postmodern proclivity for borrowing from diverse styles and genres.
Way down That Lonesome Road
Toronto was Lonnie Johnson’s last stop in a career of stops, at least the eighth city in which he lived for any length of time. The influential African-American singer and guitarist, a formative figure in the history of blues and jazz dating back to the 1920s, travelled north for a brief appearance at the New Gate of Cleve in May 1965 and returned for a longer engagement at the Penny Farthing in June. Over the next five years — the last five years of his life — he rarely left the city again. Way Down That Lonesome Road: Lonnie Johnson in Toronto, 1965-1970, the tenth book from noted Canadian jazz historian Mark Miller, reclaims Johnson from the realm of legend and brings him back to life. In part a biographical study and in part a social history, Way Down That Lonesome Road follows Johnson from the generous welcome that he received from Toronto’s critics on his arrival and the successes and failures that followed.
My Life on Earth and Elsewhere
My Life on Earth and Elsewhere, a memoir by the internationally-acclaimed Canadian composer, music educator and writer R. Murray Schafer, traces the author's life and growth as an artist from his earliest memories to the present. Scenes from his youth as an aspiring painter, a music student at the University of Toronto and a sailor on a Great Lakes freighter give way to memories of his several years of work and wandering in Europe, where he gained a deeper understanding of his vocation, and found, especially in Greece, the inspiration for much of the astonishing music he would create after his return to Canada.