Chris Butcher Music

This Wednesday night January 27th my trio with:
Todd Pentney- Piano
Jon Meyer- Upright Bass
will be playing the music of Thelonious Sphere Monk at Gate 403 in the late slot from 9PM-12AM.
Monk’s music is both extremely idiosyncratic and at the same time impossibly catchy. Vijay Iyer said it well:
“There is immense power and careful logic in the [...]

Getting press as a jazz musician is extremely difficult. Partly for that reason, I’m very happy that an article on both myself and a band I’m involved with have been published in the past week.
The most recent is a blog post by the Artistic Director for Toronto Downtown Jazz, Josh Grossman, on The Heavyweights Brass [...]

I’m at home right now. I should have been at a rehearsal but it was canceled, due to safety and transportation problems cause by the G20. I decided to make lemonade and write this blog.
Most of this morning was spent watching youtube videos, checking out blogs, Twitter and Facebook media. My heart is breaking as [...]

Just a short little one here.
First off here is link (link removed due to copyright infringement) to a recording of Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony. It was performed last night as a collaboration between the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the  Berlin Philharmonic.
The recording starts off with a question and answer with Wynton, Sir Simon Rattle and [...]

This coming sunday night my quartet will be playing the music of J.J. Johnson at the fine Roncesvalles Village Jazz establishment Gate 403
Christopher Butcher- Trombone
Todd Pentney- Piano
Justin Gray- Upright Bass
Fabio Ragnelli- Drums and Cymbals
J.J. has gone down in the history books as the creator and zenith of bebop trombone playing. He did for the trombone [...]

I always start my posts with a thought on how long it’s been since I last wrote. I  can be a little bit of a procrastinator especially if it doesn’t involve directly playing music. So maybe this is just the rate that I will blog at.  Lots has been going on and I’m just gonna [...]

Toronto is full of interesting people. They likely aren’t hanging around North York, or Bay Street, but you may find them in Kensington on a sunday, in art galleries on Dundas, Queen West, around Parkdale. Musicians, artists, dancers, photographers, cyclists, inventors, social media celebrities, business owners, chef’s etc. etc. Just thought I’d share a story [...]

First off that title is a joke, merely a play on words with a reference to one of Rob’s many blogs. Now that that’s cleared up, Rob is an amazing human being. He’s a local tuba player and composer that I met a few years back in the Dark Park Brass band. He was walking [...]

I have been an erratic blogger as of lately. I’m planning a bunch of short ones instead of procrastinating on long in depth posts. I’m just going to share some short things.
I purchased a tamborim today. I have been attempting to play the deceptively difficult little drum, the melodic voice in Samba, for the last [...]

Below is the very recently released music video for Alex Cuba’s, “If You Give Me Love”.
I was familiar with Alex’s music through it’s frequent and deserved airplay on CBC radio, but the shooting of this video was the first time I met him. Alex is the real deal, born in Artemesia Cuba (also the hometown [...]

I’m trying to blog more frequently so here’s a little one.
Here’s a video filmed on my iPhone from the horn section of the stage at Lula, from Roberto Linares Brown’s gig there on Saturday. It was a really fun night with some of the guys from Tiempo Libre coming out and sitting in after their [...]