Quartet launches mellow mood music....

JAN DEGRASS/ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

When Steve Giltrow discovered jazz, that’s the only music he wanted to play. He’d taken classical guitar lessons since the age of seven and played pop music for a while, but decided that jazz has richer harmonies.

“It’s like checkers versus chess,” he explains, during our coffee shop interview where he and saxophonist Ken Grunenberg meet to discuss music business.

He would rather pursue the complexities of jazz than any other style, and he makes his music in the company of Grunenberg as well as two other accomplished local musicians, John Rule and Boyd Norman.

The Steve Giltrow Quartet’s first real, professional CD is about to launch at a Heritage Playhouse concert in Gibsons this Saturday, March 3.

“We did another CD before,” Giltrow jokes, “but now we’re trying to get them all back.”

It wasn’t the right stuff — and though each of the musicians is not considered a professional because they pursue other careers, their music is of professional quality.

Giltrow is a music teacher, Grunenberg is a pharmacist, while Rule and Norman both have other jobs plus they are committed to other bands — Rule is drummer for Vancouver’s The Colorifics, Norman plays bass for The Rakish Angles, a string band. All four turn up at many other gigs — you’ve probably seen them performing with the Jazz Group of Seven or backing lead vocalists such as Karin Plato and Jennifer Scott.

There’s almost a fifth member of the quartet, master guitarist Bill Coon. He’s Giltrow’s teacher, mentor, guru and father figure. He also had a hand in inspiring this CD.

“It was going to be a demo CD at first,” Giltrow said, suitable for sending for festival applications. (The quartet hopes to appear at a few music festivals in the coming year.) Coon recognized it as a CD, became the producer and recommended the selection of music. It was recorded and engineered on the Coast at Andy Amanovich’s Oceanview Studio in Gibsons and mixed and mastered by a professional, Chris Gestrin.

The eight tunes, all original compositions by Giltrow with one by Grunenberg, are diverse. It opens with Labyrinth, built around a bass line with a danceable Latin feel and a prominent saxophone. In fact, sax is a star on this CD.

Giltrow, the guitarist and composer, said that, “When I write now, I hear sax. I hear Ken.”

The two have been playing together for more than 12 years.

Other danceable numbers include Ode to Ken, a foray into bebop, the happy music, and Patty’s Bossa, written for Giltrow’s wife. One highlight is surely Hummingbird, written on a Mexican beach. It incorporates sensuous rumba rhythms and is mellow mood music.

Grunenberg’s composition Lisa takes a delicate and romantic tone, while the final tune is gospel blues that captures instrumentally the joyousness of that music.

The CD launch concert is at 7 p.m. Tickets are $12, available in advance at the Visitor Info Centre in Sechelt, the Medicine Shoppe in Wilson Creek and Gaia’s Fair Trade in Gibsons. Tickets will also be available at the door.

You can listen to clips from the CD by clicking on www.stevegiltrow.ca.

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