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Kieran Overs

Toronto-born bassist Kieran Overs has been active on the Canadian music scene since 1970, first on guitar and electric bass, and for the past 34 years on acoustic bass.

Overs holds an Honours Diploma from Humber College, a B. Mus. from Humber/BCOU and an M. Mus. from McGill University (Montreal). He has also studied privately with renowned Danish bassist Neils-Henning Orsted-Petersen and arranger Rick Wilkins. He has toured internationally with Moe Koffman/Dizzy Gillespie, Jane Bunnett, Sophie Milman, Carol Welsman and Emilie-Claire Barlow, among others. Having worked in Toronto as a sideman with such artists as Zoot Sims, Chet Baker, Bill Charlap, Harold Mabern Jr., Carol Sloane/ Bill Mays, Brian Dickinson, Pat Labarbera, Alex Dean and Kirk MacDonald, Overs has established a solid reputation in Canadian jazz. Overs is currently a member of The Nancy Walker Quartet, Ted Quinlan Trio and Inside Out (with Lorne Lofsky and Barry Romberg). To his credit Overs has 4CDs as leader/producer and more than 80 as a sideman. He was one of only 8 jazz artists selected to represent Canada on the 4CD/50-artist box set “Here and Now – A Celebration of Canadian Music “, produced by the Canada Council to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations (released world-wide in October 1995). A profile of Overs’ career can be found in Mark Miller’s book “The Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada”.

He is an adjunct faculty member of the music departments at Humber College (Toronto) and Mohawk College (Hamilton), and is active as a freelance musician, clinician and bandleader. His current band is an all-star lineup of Canadian musicians, Overs’ Eleven.

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Album Review

Bernie Senensky: Moment to Moment

Read "Moment to Moment" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Canadian pianist Bernie Senensky's latest album, Moment to Moment, encompasses two quartet sessions recorded almost twenty years apart: the first in 2001, the second (live) in 2020. While the rhythm sections differ on each, the one constant (aside from Senensky) is the acclaimed tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander. If you are planning to have only one constant, Alexander is by any measure a superlative choice. Alexander, whose solos are models of creativity and eloquence, seems to light a ...

6
Album Review

Bernie Senensky: Moment to Moment

Read "Moment to Moment" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Bernie Senensky is a nuanced and adaptable pianist. Throughout his career he has shown an unparalleled improvisational approach to the material he chooses that crosses borders and generations. In this current release, entitled Moment to Moment, the music comes from two performance opportunities, from 2001 and 2020, and is anchored simultaneously historically and from the future. Joining Senensky in this back-to-the-future encounter are tenor saxophonist {[Eric Alexander}}, bassists Kieran Overs and Dave Young, as well as drummers Joe Farnsworth and ...

4
Album Review

Lorne Lofsky: This Song Is New

Read "This Song Is New" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


The liner notes to This Song is New explain how the term “old school" suits guitarist Lorne Lofsky just fine. Not in its pejorative sense, but rather in the spirit of a master of an old art, now considered to be quaint. It is indeed a fitting description for the compositions and performances that constitute the guitarist's first recording of original material in over 20 years. More a player than a composer, the former Oscar Peterson collaborator presents a strong ...

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Album Review

Lorne Lofsky: This Song Is New

Read "This Song Is New" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Over the years the guitar has earned a unique position in the annals of jazz. At times strident, ear-splitting and generally distasteful, at others one of the loveliest, most amiable and pleasing instruments in any circumstance, especially when placed in the capable hands of a master such as Canada's Lorne Lofsky. This is the guitar as it should be played, smooth and mellow but never without due diligence or an emphatic purpose in mind. The quartet date This Song Is ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Moment to Moment

Cellar Records
2023

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This Song Is New

Modica Music
2021

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Shape Shift

Unity Records
1993

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Gateway

Unity Records
1992

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