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Ryan Oliver
Ryan Oliver’s debut recording, Convergence, was selected by CODA Magazine as one of the top 10 Canadian jazz releases of 2007. He has received numerous Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council grants for touring and recording and has performed at most of the major jazz clubs and festivals throughout Canada. Oliver’s straight-ahead, tough-toned tenor can be heard often in Toronto. He maintains a weekly Sunday night residency with Organic, a quartet that features Canadian great Bernie Senensky on the Hammond B3 organ, Nathan Hiltz on guitar and Morgan Childs on drums, and is a member of The Cookers, a hard-bop quintet, and Tonight at Noon, an octet that plays the music of Charles Mingus. Jazz education is also an important part of Oliver’s professional life. He has been a featured clinician at Malaspina College, Western University, the University of Windsor and high schools throughout New York, New Jersey, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. Alongside all of his efforts as a musician and educator, Oliver is also the artistic director for the Harbord St. Jazz Festival, an annual festival that celebrates the pairing of fine dining and jazz. Ryan Oliver’s driving melodic inventiveness, charismatic sound and swinging time feel light up bandstands wherever he plays.
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Ryan Oliver: Zigging With A Jazz Maestro, His Secrets and Wisdom
by Kerilie McDowall
Tenor saxophonist Ryan Oliver of Canada's The Cookers Quintet, is no stranger to the art of touring the globe. For years he was an integral part of The Shuffle Demons, an adored Toronto jazz saxophone group known for their mid-'80s hit single, Spadina Bus," written in humorous reference to the Toronto Transit Commission's Spadina Avenue bus that served a vibrant and unique neighbourhood in downtown jny: Toronto, and other treasures such as Out of My House, Roach," ...
read moreThe Schwager/Oliver Quintet: Senza Reza
by Edward Blanco
Canada became the first country beyond the USA to have developed its own vibrant jazz scene. What do major jazz artists like Oscar Peterson, Maynard Ferguson, Gil Evans, Rob McConnell and Diana Krall have in common? They're all Canadians, like the players of The Schwagger/Oliver Quintet presenting their debut on Senza Resa, an Italian phrase meaning No Surrender," which conveys the approach to the music from five of Canada's most exciting award-winning jazz musicians. The album represents the ...
read moreFraser MacPherson: From The Pen Of...
by Jack Bowers
The late tenor saxophonist Fraser MacPherson was well-known in western Canada and elsewhere for his brilliancebut as player, not a writer. In fact, according to MacPherson's son Guy, who wrote the excellent liner notes to From the Pen of..., his father wrote barely a dozen or so original compositions, almost all of which are included on this superlative album with performances by a who's who of well- known jazz artists from Canada and other countries. Considering what ...
read moreFraser MacPherson: From The Pen Of...
by Pierre Giroux
Tenor saxophonist Fraser MacPherson was an original. Although he was raised in Victoria, British Columbia, he moved to Vancouver early in his career where he remained throughout his working life. He began to build his reputation as a Lester Young-influenced player, and in the mid '70s recorded his first trio album for West End Records with guitarist Oliver Gannon and bassist Wyatt Ruther. This album was picked up by Concord Records in the late '70s and released in the U.S. ...
read moreJoe Coughlin: Dedicated To You
by Pierre Giroux
Joe Coughlin has been on the Canadian jazz scene since the late 1970s, when he began his performing and recording career in Toronto. . In 1995, he relocated to Vancouver BC where he continues to record and perform. Over the course of his career he has garnered many accolades and on two occasions was given the National Jazz Award Jazz Vocalist of the Year. This session in many way brings Coughlin full circle as he is ...
read moreThe Cookers Quintet: The Path
by Paul Beard
The Path is the fourth record to be released by Canadian group The Cookers Quintet and is a collection of eight originals, recorded at the Warehouse, Vancouver, that were first played to live audiences on a West Canadian tour in the fall of 2021, and then put down in the studio. The album continues the legacy of the hard bop era that dominated the jazz scene in the 1950s and 1960s and is brought to life by tenor ...
read moreThe Ryan Oliver Quartet: Strive!
by Dan Bilawsky
When Toronto-based tenor saxophonist Ryan Oliver was living in New York and studying at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of The Arts in New Jersey, he struck up a musical relationship with one of the teachers at that institution--drummer Victor Lewis. At that time, Lewis, a somewhat underappreciated giant of the drumming world who's worked with everybody from saxophone legend Stan Getz to trumpeter Woody Shaw to pianist Kenny Barron, got together with Oliver on a weekly basis, exploring the ...
read moreRyan Oliver "Convergence" Art of Life Records
Source:
All About Jazz
Art of Life Records is proud to present 28-year-old Canadian saxophonist Ryan Oliver's debut recording. Joining Ryan on Convergence" are Duncan Hopkins on acoustic bass, Bob McLaren on drums, Bernie Senensky on piano and Jake Wilkinson on trumpet. The album features three standards, It's Easy to Remember" by Rodgers & Hart, The End of a Love Affair" by Edward C. Redding and Mamacita" by Joe Henderson, as well as six original songs composed by Oliver. Convergence" was recorded and mixed ...
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“Convergence shows how ready he is as both player and composer. He has a full-range horn, rich at the bottom and true at the top, acknowledging past masters like Trane and Dexter Gordon.” -Whole Note Magazine