The Best Ticket in the City

That’s how I generally describe all ‘Live! To Air’ events at the Long & McQuade Performance Hall. Insiders will know I am talking about the studio space at JazzFm; 91.1 on the dial and dotFM on the net like Jazz: Jazz.Fm

            June 14: who would know, as I made my way into Toronto, that tonight would be special. The traffic crawled along the side street between Pardee and Lamport Stadium notable only in that this is not normal. Am I too early? The streetscape otherwise deserted except, in Liberty Village, that is part of the charm for me. A neighbourhood yearning for identity not realizing it is steeped in it and just waiting for the rest of the world to discover how great this space really is. The radio station (JazzFM) could not have been put into a more perfect building-Walter Venafro and I are square on that: the building has great bones and the acoustics, well you just have to be there. The sun might also have something to do with this and the skylight that tonight was as much a player as the band.

            Ross Porter was hosting and it could have been anyone but Ross- he- well it could not have been scripted better. Inexplicably Toronto Hydro and ‘power’ was a problem and ‘Live’ tonight could not be ‘to air’. Seating for forty there was a contest and squeezing and holding our breath, sixty or so settled in for Jill Barber and the boys giving us ‘a show and thanks for coming, what a drag, let’s have fun’. My guess is an hour and a half later every one of us knew that we had been part of something special and it would never ever be this way again.

            That is what I think they must mean when it is said ‘discovering an artist’. I’ve heard Jill Barber before on JazzFm  and I liked her voice without being familiar with her work. A radio station that is not a mouthpiece doesn’t sell music by rotation. Heard today and it could be a while before you hear the same track again. That’s one of the reasons I listen; you have to, if understanding is at all a part of your experience. ‘Teaching & Entertainment’ could be this station’s motto. In short, I wasn’t prepared for Jill’s basket of BAM and wonderful lovely. Romantic I guess-stunning and awe is what I remember.