Famous names ? ok ok...
Well,
those of you in Quebec might have heard of Sylvie Paquette,
Luc de La Rochelière, Mari-Jo Theriault
or the late Bernard Primeau, (who gave us a chance
to play with Slide Hampton) - which leads us into
the jazz world - for you New-York types, Dave Binney
and Jojo Mayer should ring bells, or Anthony
Cox and Dave Douglas, who I had a chance
to record with, thanks to drummer extraordinaire Franklin
Kiermayer.
In New-York I also studied with Wayne Krantz and
Adam Rogers, thanks to grants from the Quebec and
Canadian Council for the Arts.
After winning the SOCAN prize for Best Song at the Montreal Jazz
Festival and the Best Band Award at the Vienne (France) Jazz Festival,
(that rocked) I was sent to represent Canada at an International
Guitar Summit in Cannes featuring Terje Ripdal
and Wolfgang Muthspiel.
Rebkka Bakken and Till Brönner are
well known in Europe and Asia, I worked with them. And also with
Jocelyn B. Smith and Helge Schneider,
who are very successful in Germany, where I lived for several years.
I also have been in Mousse T's studio a few times,
and we got along well, but he's never directly hired me. I suspect
he is losing sleep over this.
Back in Canada, for you Torontonians, I was a working Shuffle
Demon for a few very cool years, thanks to Juno Award Winner
Richard Underhill - we were big in Estonia - and
the amazing Ed Bickert actually came to a gig of
Brian Hurley's and mine once, at the guitar bar
of the Top of the Senator. So did Joe Pass in Quebec
city...blah blah blah...zzzzzzzzz...
does anyone really care about this stuff ??
didn't think so...