On Coffee Row with Belle Plaine
By Brian Bowman

Bacon and eggs, toast and coffee; the rattle of dishes, forks and spoons. Orders taken, orders given; a place to eat, a place to meet. Welcome, on a jumper-cable January morning, to the noisy warmth of the Mercury Café - an old-school, eggs-over-easy diner with an uptown presentation. Kind of like the neighbourhood. Kind of like Belle Plaine.

Belle Plaine is having breakfast and Buzzcity is with her in the booth. We’re here to discuss her soon to be released CD “Notes from a Waitress” which is also the name of the title track. Good name because that’s what it is. Belle Plaine has waitressed, here and abroad. She knows the biz and she knows the customers, any one of whom could feature in a Studs Turkel bio or a Tom Waits tune.

Check the video interview.

The CD Launch event is this Friday evening at the Artesian on 13th and Angus St. Featuring Belle Plaine’s original music and some old standards backed by Elizabeth Curry, Jeremy Sauer, Kris Craig, Anna Rose, Jody Mario, and Cheney Lambert from Regina's Pile of Bones Brass Band on trumpet. It’s bound to be a party. There’ll be some country, folk and old time, new time jazz.

BELLE PLAINE
"This Is A Big Deal" Party and CD Launch
with guest: Julia And Her Piano
Friday January 27
At the Artesian
doors and lounge open 7:30pm
showtime 8pm

www.belleplainemusic.com

In the vault with Glenn Sutter’s ‘Sweet Happiness’
By Brian Bowman
12/1/2012

Buzzcity recently had a coffee with Regina songwriter, singer, and versatile musician, Glenn Sutter, who has just released his third CD called “Sweet Happiness.” We met in the vault at Atlantis on Hamilton St. and Victoria Ave. The vault is literally a vault within the coffee shop, which used to be a bank. You can reserve it for stimulating beverages and small meetings which, because they’re held in a bank vault, are definitely going to be private.

Sutter’s appeal has been steadily growing for the past few years starting from the release of his first CD “All You Need” in 2008 which earned him critical acclaim, a fair amount of air time, and the Saskatchewan track on David Suzuki's Playlist for the Planet. He is also known for his 2010 release “Seeds” - a collaboration with Brett Dolter (B.D. Willoughby, Library Voices) to raise money for the North Central Community Gardens. Since then, he’s been performing more locally, he’s touring a bit, and he’s growing a fan base.

Sutter’s genre on this one is folk-rock (sort-of), and the CD was recorded, mixed and mastered by the best. Moreover, he is backed, on most tracks, by people of extraordinary talent who dwell among us and may even live in your neighbourhood. As for Sutter himself, he has been on the music scene for over 20 years in Ottawa and Winnipeg and has been settled here for some time. He backs other local artists and they back him. That’s the way it works and the liner notes (excerpted below) tell the story.

All of the songs written and arranged by Glenn Sutter, except: Insane - co-written with David j Taylor; Shifting Sand - co-written with Kim Fontaine, Laura Stewart, Trevor Ross, Jacqueline Germin, and Brian Baker; and Emma - co-written with Lyn McGinnis.
Produced/engineered/mixed by David j Taylor
All tracks recorded and mixed at Twisted Pair Productions, Regina, SK, except for 10,12, and 14, which were recorded and mixed at Hazelwood Farm, Milestone, SK
Mastered by Dave Horrocks Infinite Wave, Calgary, AB
Cover design by Michael Benoit with photos by Cal Fehr. Additional photos and artwork by Joyce and Ken Belcher, and Will and Owen Sutter.

An observer of nature, both human and otherwise, Sutter brings a keen awareness as an ecologist (he’s Doctor Glenn at the RSM) and as an artist to this album. As for his message? Sutter smiles. “I don’t like message songs,” he says.

Check out the interview video (above): he’s got lots to say there, plus a live performance of one of his original songs - 'Seems Like Yesterday'. And check out Atlantis. I had an Americano and it was excellent. So’s the street view, except from the vault.

glennsutter.com/music

Pachi Ruiz and the Cuban Jazz Breakdown
By Brian Bowman

There’s American Jazz, which is familiar to everyone, and European Jazz, like Klezmer and Le Jazz Hot, which is sort of the same, but poignant, even when it’s happy, owing to it’s Gypsy, Jewish influence. And then there’s Cuban Jazz, which everyone likes but nobody really knows, unless you’re Cuban. It’s complex music, a fusion of Caribbean, African, Latin and American musical influences, which took root on the island in the wake of slavery and exploitation and grew to joyous maturity in an atmosphere of enforced isolation. Cuban Jazz is played in every club, café and corner of the country - brilliant, energetic, irrepressible music, much like the Cuban people.

And now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Reginians like Don List and Gary Robins, and Joanne Vollbrecht of Blue Sky Cultural Connection, the Cubans are in town, and so is their music. Buzzcity.ca recently caught up to Cuban singer/guitarist, Pachi Ruiz, who is visiting and performing here for the second time in the past few years. Pachi doesn’t speak a lot of English, so, another musician, Ramses Calderon, lately of El Salvador, conducted the interview in Spanish. The interview was recorded by Don List of Birdsong Communications and overdubbed, in English, by Buzzcity staff.

Pachi’s technique is typical of Cuban guitarists – a finger style informed by classical technique, augmented by jazz chords and phrasing, and delivered with the percussiveness of flamenco guitar (sort of like Jack Semple). But to play it takes more than prowess on the strings. If you’re playing solo, you need to use your feet to include the drums and your voice to simulate the other instruments that the music requires. In this interview, Pachi breaks it down for us, describes the various forms of Cuban dance and outlines the evolution of Cuban Jazz.

Listen to him demonstrate and explain it. Then, armed with your new awareness, hear it live when he performs with vocalist Lia Llorente as “Hecho en Cuba - Duo Cofradia” in performance this Saturday, November 5th at Gallery Muziek in Lumsden, and Thursday, November 10th at the Exchange here in Regina.

For more information contact: Alyce Hamon, Tour Manager at 306-591-3098

Related article: Ramses Calderon and the music of Agustin Barrios