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Wray Downes was a gifted pianist, an Oscar Peterson protégé blessed with perfect pitch and impeccable timing and a be-bop man who possessed one of the most expressive right hands in all of jazz. Mr. Peterson – and many others in the field – recognized Mr. Downes as a formidable talent. In 1980, Mr. Peterson told author and former Globe and Mail jazz critic Mark Miller of his deep respect, in competitive terms, for his shy, unassuming former student. “Wray’s the kind of guy – you look up and all of a sudden, you’re bleeding. If you go up onstage in a group, and he’s in the other group, quietly he’ll take his lumps out on you.” When Mr. Downes died on March 19, at 89 from lung cancer...

Global music often works best on the dance floor where, free from ghetto-izing labels and strict radio formats, it can cross over and capture the imagination of anyone with open ears. No one knows this better than Manu Dibango, one of the giants of modern African music, whose hit 'Soul Makossa' became a dance-floor favorite more than two decades ago. Despite his classical training and his jazz sensibility, the Cameroonian master has spent much of his career tailoring his Afro- funk sound for dance clubs. He's collaborated with riddim twins Sly & Robbie, studio wiz Bill Laswell and Working Week's Simon Booth, who produced Dibango's brilliant 1991 album Polysonik, an African-flavored ...

Toronto has a long history of live music recordings, from clubs, coffeehouses and dance halls to football stadiums, hockey arenas and concert auditoriums. Some have been commercially released by record companies, while others have been secretively bootlegged by nefarious fans. The most legendary live recordings from Toronto have been those made with world famous rock, pop and blues acts like the Rolling Stones, who recorded parts of 1977's Love You Live at the El Mocambo club, where more live recordings have been made than anywhere else in the city. Others recording there include April Wine, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, the Cars, Big Walter Horton, Whiskey Howl, George Thorogood...

I’m driving north up Toronto’s Bayview Avenue on a winter’s night in early January. I turn east on Post Road and into the Bridle Path neighbourhood, an ultra-posh enclave known as “Millionaire’s Row.” I slow down opposite Rapper Drake’s monster palace, complete with indoor basketball court, and turn toward the stately home that belongs to Gordon Lightfoot. Much had transpired since the publication of my book, Lightfoot. For one thing Lightfoot reached the milestone age of 80, celebrating with a benefit concert in his hometown of Orillia. For another, he was in the spotlight for a feature-length documentary that had him discussing his storied career and timeless back catalogue of songs, ...

Any traditional music from the British Isles, when played well, can breathe history as if aged in wood. A pair of young Irish folksingers stopped briefly in Toronto to give listeners a taste of the bittersweet ballads and jaunty jigs from another era. Paul Brady and Andy Irvine are former members of Planxty, a now defunct Irish band whose versatile music won them fans all over Europe. As a duo, Brady and Irvine provide all the moods and memories of their homeland, captured in songs of classical splendour. Their performance at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Education Auditorium gave the audience tales as strange as the instruments to which they’re sung: “Wearing the Britches,” an admi...

On a cool June night in 1988, Tarig Abubakar found himself walking along a desolate highway near Montreal’s Mirabel Airport, a bewildered stranger in an even stranger land. The Sudanese-born musician had just arrived on a flight from the motherland seeking to start a new life in Canada. But, without a friend or relation to greet him, his luggage lost in transit and with only $10 in his pocket, he was a lost soul.  Four Haitians spotted him—a weary black figure dressed in a disheveled white suit—and offered him a ride. When they learned his circumstances and that he had no destination, they took him to Ballatou, an African music club in downtown Montreal.  Being English-speakin...

On Naked, the latest album by rock’s influential New York City-based Talking Heads, leader David Byrne sings: “’Round and ’round and we won’t let go/And where we stop no one knows.” The song is “Ruby Dear,” and Byrne could well be referring to the new disc’s musical tour around the world. Recorded in Paris with a crew of international musicians, Naked reflects pop’s global village, where Congolese guitars meet Latin-style horns and ancient Middle Eastern melodies play off modern Western synthesizers. The result is one of the band’s best recordings. And by crossing a number of cultural boundaries, Naked signals a strong new trend toward international pop. Rock music h...

When Bob Dylan first plugged in his guitar and strummed an electrified chord, the guru of 1960s folk music sent shock waves through the ranks of his followers. But Dylan, like his Canadian peers Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, was merely moving with the times. While the rock and jazz directions that Young and Mitchell pursued led them to stardom and an enviable international audience, other Canadian singer-songwriters of that decade stayed home to improve their performing and recording skills. Recent albums by four of those artists —Murray McLauchlan, Ann Mortifee, Mendelson Joe and David Wilcox—demonstrate that it is possible to survive the fickle shifts of pop music with one’s craft intact. ...

Now that the turmoil of recent times has passed, Joseph Shabalala can look back fondly on those halcyon days nearly 10 years ago when his group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, first joined Paul Simon on tour. The South African vocal ensemble had sung two songs with Simon on his critically acclaimed Graceland album, but those had been in English. And Shabalala wasnt sure how audiences would respond to his group's Zulu material. "It was a real culture shockk when we stepped onstage," admitted the modest, soft-spoken singer, during a tour stop outside Chicago. "I was so worried that people would be discouraged by our language." The shock was, of course, they weren't. From the moment audienc...

Paul Simon’s new album, Graceland, opens with an accordion wheezing erratically, as if trying to catch its breath. Then, a thundering drumbeat and a pulsing bass gradually add a more certain rhythm. By the time Simon begins to sing, the strange music has cast a hypnotic spell. That first song, “The Boy in the Bubble,” is a stirring introduction to the colorful sounds of South African music, a topsy-turvy world where guitars play the role of percussion instruments instead of providing the melody, and voices create rhythmic accents. Simon recorded “Bubble,” like much of Graceland, in both Johannesburg and New York. By melding the traditional, vigorous urban sounds of black South Afri...