The Heavyweights Brass Band

Giovanni Hidalgo with The Heavyweights April 13th Koerner Hall

Giovanni Hidalgo is one of the most gifted individuals to ever touch a drum. He is surely one of the greatest rhythmic genius' of any era or idiom. He'll be joining The Heavyweights Brass Band for a special concert on Saturday April 13th at Toronto's Koerner Hall as part of their Devoted to Dizzy series.

Giovanni's claim to fame is that he was Dizzy Gillespie's conga player. Dizzy was the bridge that first connected Latin music with jazz, he essentially creating the genre of Latin jazz with his first conga player Chano Pozo with whom he composed Manteca and Tin Tin Deo. Giovanni was the heir to this throne, joining Dizzy's band in 1988 and has been arguably the most important percussionist in the genre since. Check out this concert of a young Giovanni with Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nations Orchestra in 1989 at Royal Festival Hall in London. His virtuosic technique and individual voice on the congas is obvious from the opening credits.

Born in San Juan Puerto Rico in 1966 into a home that surrounded him with music and drums, he quickly flourished into a master percussionist. While still a teenager he went to Cuba with the Puerto Rican group Batacumbele and started an early association with the master of Afro-Cuban percussion Changuito. The story differs, some saying Giovanni was a student of Changuito's while others saying Changuito incorporated Giovanni's rhythmic ideas into Cuban music (songo). Maybe both are true.

While his mastery of Latin jazz is unquestioned, what makes Giovanni a truly special artist is his ability to sound authentic and original in a variety of contexts; a quality that will make his collaboration with The Heavyweights Brass Band so special. Here you can see Giovanni playing chekere in a Paul Simon video.

You can also hear him on the sublime album Rhythm of the Saints with Paul Simon

My personal favourite track that he appears on is D'Angelo's Spanish Joint from the R&B masterpiece Voodoo. From the count in Giovanni joins Charlie Hunter's guitar with congas and chekere giving the track deep roots. His congas percolate through the track beautifully filling in between Questlove's crisp snare.



April 13th is not going to be a night to forget and I urge you to pick up tickets now from the Royal Conservatory's website. We're sharing the concert with the Dave Young-Terry Promane Octet and their special guest Brazilian trumpet player and Dizzy Gillespie alumni, Claudio Roditi.

If you have a moment don't hesitate to look at all the programming The RCM is booking at Koerner Hall. Concerts are still happening in the Devoted to Dizzy series with Pancho Sanchez, Christian Scott, Danilo Perez and more. The diversity, quality and quantity of the jazz, world and classical music they're are presenting should humble the other festivals and venues in this city that claim to support this music. Toronto really needs to give a big thanks to their Executive Director Mervon Mehta for bringing so much to this city.

Kids' CBC

We were featured on the popular kids show Mamma Yamma where we performed "Marching Down The Street" based on the tune of New Orleans classic "Bourbon Street Parade". It was a lot of fun and we hope you dig it!

 

Here is a picture of our biggest fan checking out the video!

 

Just announced: Bancroft and Markham Jazz Festivals

We'll be headed to Bancroft for the third annual Bancroft/Maynooth Jazz Festival this weekend.

Catch us Friday night (Aug 10th) at the Millenium Bandshell as we close out the night, around 9:30 or 10:00.

We'll also be joining Jane Bunnett and "Spirits of Havana", along with some other special guests, on their show Saturday night in Maynooth.   Details here at the official Facebook Event.

The following Saturday is a matinee in Markham.  Jay Burr will be joining us on tuba for this one.

Tour diaries, volume 3

We're back!  That was an amazing tour - here's what happened on the final leg:

Lethbridge - Once again we are spoiled by the hospitality of family - in this case Paul's cousin-in-law Brooke.  We play at a pizzeria which is also a club, an interesting combination.  

The next day we have quite a few hours before we have our set at The Palamino in Calgary, and we're missing the Rockies, so we elect to drive back to Banff and try our hand at busking - we do pretty well, there is good pedestrian traffic unlike most small towns out here, and nobody arrests us or gives us tickets.  

We stopped next in rural Alberta, just outside the small town of Wetaskawin, for a memorable show that Chris' sister and brother-in-law put together.   Here's our venue - not exactly what we're used to! 

Saskatoon - this is the final stop, and by far the best, as we're playing the jazz festival and opening up for the Roots on Canada Day.  The show is sold out and we play for 3,000 people, our biggest crowd yet.  The skies threaten rain all day and finally open up during our third song - a Justin Bieber cover - which fortuitously causes several hundred people to rush to the front of the stage where the rain can't reach.  The rain subsides but the crowd stays, and now we have a nice engaged audience for our set.

Ryan Smith via Ominocity

James Poyser (keyboard) and Damon Bryson (sousaphone)- aka Tuba Gooding Jr. -  of the Roots give us props backstage.  We played "Telephone", a tune of James' that he wrote for Erykah Badu, and he rewarded us with a tweet:  

140 characters or less never sounded so sweet.

After killing our set and parading through the crowd, we are treated to the best seats in the house, backstage, for one of the most amazing shows we've ever seen by one of the world's greatest bands.

The Roots are untouchable fire, a pure, primal force.  They're also cool, down-to-earth guys who invited us into their tent after the show for a drink.   We tried to keep our cool but all of us were feeling pretty giddy that we had just opened for The Roots, and did a good job, and were now shaking hands with them.  That in istelf was a lifetime memory, worth every struggle and sacrifice that we'd made to get to this point of our careers.

All in all this tour was amazing, and we want to say thank you to everyone who supported us, came out to our shows, put us up, cooked us meals, hung out with us, etc. etc.  As we drove across the country in our borrowed minivan, we were constantly overwhelmed by the beauty of Western Canada and the beauty of Canadians.  And we're already planning our next tour, we'll be back soon!

Tour Diaries, volume 2

tour adventures!

Canmore: the legendary Canmore Hotel proves to be a good host.  Hundreds of bands have come through and played here.  There is a definite Sneaky Dee's / Grossman's Tavern kind of vibe here. Unforuntaly we lose most of the local crowd to the other bar down the road which is hosting bikini night... 

Golden: Another rainy day on our way into town.  We are deep in the heart of the Rockies.  The Kicking Horse River, which flows through town, is always roaring.  Our venue backs right up against the river.

We have no show booked the day after our gig, so we decide to hang around since the hotel manager gave us a great deal.  As luck would have it, the band for the night fails to show up, perhaps because of the bad weather on the drive from Vancouver.  So we are pressed into service, and play another show, and scoop their guarantee.  Good deal!

We had thought about going whitewater rafting during our free day as was recommended by many localsl, but decided to have a chill day instead and walk around town.  We later learned that a woman died that very day on the river.  A scary reminder of how powerful mother nature is, and how far we are from the relative safety of the city.

Banff: We arrived in Canada's mountain paradise for a two-night stand at the Rose and Crown.  Weather as usual was inconsitent but we did get a few beautiful hours of sunshine.  Nobody from Banff is actually from Banff - they come from all over Canada (especially Quebec), Australia, England, elsewhere in Europe, usually for a few months or a year.

Jon's mom and step-dad have travelled from Vancouver Island to see the band, and they treat us to a gondola ride up Sulphur Mountain, where despite the rain the views are unbelievable.  

Our second night attracts a wide variety of clientele including one party of six who purchased every damn thing on the menu (30 dishes).  Naturally they only finished a quarter of it so they gave us the leftovers.  A nice late night snack but we had to throw most of it out the next day.

Lethbridge - our network of family and friends continues to reward us: we're staying with Paul's wife's cousin and her fiance, in a nice big suburban house with comfy couches and guest bedrooms.  Life is good.  Tonight we play The Slice Bar and Grill, then head to Calgary tomorrow!

Here's a video of our performance in Winnipeg that just surfaced:

And a taste of things to come, spotted in Saskatoon:

Tour Diaries, volume 1

Hello from sunny Moose Jaw, SK - we have completed the first leg in Winnipeg and are relaxing at the hour of our friend Meredith from Toronto, and enjoyed a nice barbecue dinner of burgers and grilled veggies.  This after being spoiled by four nights of generous Winnipeg hospitality from the Metcalfe and Butcher families.   Lesson learned - tour in places where you have family and friends.  We've all toured Europe before and it's a major pain to deal with time zones, currencies, data roaming, language barriers, etc., but the real difference in touring Canada is that it's still HOME.  

Here's a shot from Sunday night at the Winnipeg Jazz Festival at the outdoor venue - a metal cube with malleable walls that peel back to reveal a stage, very cool.

This is after our club gig the next night at Le Garage, where our friend (and new Winnipeg resident) Joel Green (2nd from left) stopped by and sat in on trombone for a few tunes.

Tomorrow we drive to Canmore!

In other news, we've announced some new festival shows later in the summer: the Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto, Stratford Summer Music, and the All-Canadian Jazz Festival in Port Hope.  Check the right sidebar for details.

Summer Tour Announced

Time to take this show on the road!

 

Heavyweights to join David Arcus Ensemble for a night of Tropicalia

David Arcus, friend of the band and Juno-nominated music director of aforementioned Aline Morales, has recruited four out of five Heavyweights Brass Band members (Chris, Paul, Jon and Rob) to form the core of a six-person ensemble in a special concert of progressive Brazilian jazz and Tropicalia music at Toronto's Music Gallery on June 15th.

Having collaborated many times over the years with David and Aline, we're very excited about taking David's fresh interpretation of modern Brazilian music to a new audience.  Click here for details.

 

 

Heavyweights to open for the Roots in Saskatoon

Cool news - we're going to be opening for The Roots!  The gig is on Canada Day in Saskatoon, part of the Sasktel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival.  Details here.

We are planning a tour of Western Canada to include this show, and we will have lots of other exciting shows that will be announced soon!

New EPK Video

Here's our new Electronic Press Kit video. We teamed up with award-winning Toronto director and cinematographer, Rich Williamson, to put this together; it features footage from all kinds of Heavyweights adventures over the last year including Hugh's Room, the Pilot, loft parties, street parades, recording sessions and more!