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Al Muirhead

Al Muirhead Al Muirhead has long been an iconic gure on the Canadian jazz scene. And the trumpeter, composer, arranger, sideman and recording artist has been making listeners take notice for longer than jazz fans might realize. Born in Regina in 1935, he was playing in the Regina Symphony and dance bands by age 12. Muirhead began to take notice of greats such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Louis Armstrong. While Muirhead’s playing is infused with the indelible in uence of the jazz giants, his owing, melodic sound is his own — and has become in uential in its own right. He unleashes melodies that are incredibly inventive and utterly timeless. Muirhead has worked with legends such as Diana Krall, Paul Anka, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Mills and Dizzy Gillespie.

Awards

In recent years, Al has been honoured with the American Federation of Musician’s Citation Award and the Western Canadian Music Alliance’s Heritage Award for his mentorship and industry-building. He’s also earned the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival’s Special Recognition Award, a 2016 and 2017 YYC Music Award, a 2016 JUNO nomination, a 2017 Western Canadian Music Award nomination, and has charted #1 in Canada and #3 in the US.


Tags

20
Album Review

The Saskatchewan All Star Big Band: Saskatchewan Suite

Read "Saskatchewan Suite" reviewed by Jack Bowers


On Saskatchewan Suite, composer/arranger Fred Stride and the twenty-member Saskatchewan All Star Big Band have combined to paint a luminous and colorful portrait of that western Canadian province, canvassing 150 years of its history in eight picturesque movements that describe in musical terms the land itself, its indigenous peoples, newcomers from Europe and elsewhere, its recognition in 1905 as a province, the importance of various sports to Saskatchewan's inhabitants, and the legacy of jazz as an essential part of its ...

5
Album Review

Al Muirhead's Canadian Quintet: Undertones

Read "Undertones" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Swing was the thing, until alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and pianist Bud Powell helped give birth to bebop, and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman set jazz free. Not that swing ever went away, it just got bumped into the back seat. So when “Confirmation" and “Dance of the Infidels" wailed on the dashboard radio, Johnny Hodges' alto sax sang sweet notes out of one of the back windows, Lester Young blowing them out the other. But ...

2
Album Review

Al Muirhead: Northern Adventures

Read "Northern Adventures" reviewed by Jack Bowers


When you've been a musician as long as Al Muirhead has, you not only earn many friends in the business, you also recognize who among them can play. For Northern Adventures, Muirhead's second album as leader of his own group, the eighty-one-year-old Canadian trumpeter assembled a who's who of the finest musicians his country has to offer and let them have a go, jam-session style. The result is an album whose fun quotient almost eclipses its virtuosity. “Our only plan," ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Saskatchewan Suite

Chronograph Records
2021

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It's About Time

Chronograph Records
2018

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Undertones

Chronograph Records
2018

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Northern Adventures

Chronograph Records
2017

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Top!

Chronograph Records
2016

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September 1905

From: Saskatchewan Suite
By Al Muirhead

A Tune for Cal

From: Undertones
By Al Muirhead

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