— balancing art, income and the new album — “Most of the jazz musicians that I admire, are struggling,” says saxophonist Jesse Ryan. “I don’t want to live like that.” We speak on zoom, of course, during these strange times. His thoughts around art and entrepreneurship come to the forefront. “My wife, Kristin and I, took a big risk…

Music of Brazil in Canada It had been about a year and a half or so of almost dystopian isolation. As an introvert, for the most part, I’d been okay with this. I’d still jumped however, at the opportunity to race out of town, to the country and a secret…

“If you try to walk over there from here, you could get lost and die,” my new friend Marylynn said. She pointed to the small field separating my house from Goose High School. During a “white-out,” the snowfall would be so thick that the ground and sky would become one…

Sharron McLeod et les griots Parler avec Sharron McLeod c’est comme communier avec une archive musicale. Nous nous sommes connues sur la scène musicale de Toronto, Canada, au début des années quatre-vingt. Elle est a present instalée à Nice, en France. Ses réferences musicales s’etend de Sun Ra, Butch Morris, Cecil Tayler et Joni Mitchell…

Sharron McLeod and the Griots Talking with Sharron McLeod is like communing with a musical repository. We’ve known each other from the music scene in Toronto, Canada, since the early 1980’s. She is now based in Nice, France. Her references shift with ease from Sun Ra, Butch Morris, Cecil Tayler…

My offering was a Gavotte. I sat low on my chair, left foot on the 6 inch metal footstool, nylon-stringed guitar cradled between my thighs. Before me was a music stand and a thin white book opened to page 7. Perhaps my cousin had expected something more familiar, like a…

Look left Sometimes there are tiny flowers that grow out of walls in the city. I want to talk about that. Small beings hatch out of that which is meant to crush them I see the green, purple, blue. There. Just beyond my ken This is also a current event. This shimmer. This moment. This second. Others will carry the necessary and didactic discussions. Must we all? Is it dangerous to search the skies, the pavement for resolution?

Should We Choose Art or Money? I don’t accept that poverty and art must of necessity be linked. This is an assumption imposed on artists by a culture that consumes us and yet does not want to value what we produce. I prefer to think of the What If’s. What…