Jon plays some drums and pretends to be Art Blakey !

I spent the afternoon today in the recording studio playing with the University of Toronto Jazz Outreach Ensemble. I've been playing with this group all year and acted as a teaching assistant for the ensemble. The mandate of this group has been to go out into schools in the GTA and spread the good word that is jazz music (or as Prof. Gordon Foote calls it: "Stomping out Jazz ignorance"!)

Here's a clip of me playing on the tune "Mosaic" written by Cedar Walton, originally recorded by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers back in the 1960s.

I recorded this on my Flip handheld video recorder, set-up next to the drums.

For any drum geeks out there, the drum solo starts around  the 6 minute mark : )

I should also like to add what a pleasure it's been playing with this fine ensemble all year.

Specifically I would like to thank the following people for all their fine musicianship and hard work:

Patrick Boyle - trumpet

Brendan Cassidy - alto

Ben Dietschi - tenor

Anthony Rinaldi - bari

Robin Jessome - trmbn

Nathn Hiltz - guitar

Rob Fekete - piano

Mark Godfrey  - bass

Also a special thanks to Chase Sanborn who oversaw the band and did an excellent job today acting as our producer and as the "man in the booth". He kept everyone relaxed and focused. It was a fun session and I'm quite looking forward to hearing the results.

I hope this video clip loads properly.