Skip to content

'Funky jazz quintet' at Avalanche Thursday

Five Note is Vancouver Island-based, covering the music of Erykah Badu, RH Factor, Jill Scott, and more...
25849comox09jazz
SAXMAN CAMERON WIGMORE leads the Five Note band Thursday night at the Avalanche Bar.

After two weeks of performances by jazz trios, the stage at this Thursday's Jazz at the Avalanche Bar fills up with a funky jazz quintet, accompanied by one of B.C.s best jazz vocalists.

Five Note comprises Cameron Wigmore, tenor saxophone; Patrick Courtin, keyboards; Brad Shipley, guitar; Andrew Cullen, bass, and James McRae on drums. These guys are professional jazz musicians who love to stretch out on extended improvisational solos.

Add to this outstanding lineup the quality of Sydney Needham's vocals and you have the ingredients for an evening of incredible musical entertainment.

The band is Vancouver Island-based, covering the music of Erykah Badu, RH Factor, Jill Scott, and more, and is influenced by D'Angelo, Saint Germain and Jamiroquai, among other artists.

In addition to neo-soul vocal covers, the band plays instrumental jam-funk renditions of some seriously funky music. Five Note's often-mellow grooves lend themselves perfectly to casual passive listening in club atmosphere.

The band is headed up by a tenor saxophonist Cameron Wigmore, a freelance musician with 20 years of performing and teaching experience.

He has performed and recorded across Canada in Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, and on Vancouver Island with bands in the genres of jazz, classical, funk, swing, R&B, ska, rock and surf music.

He has performed with Ken Lister, Pat Coleman, at the Port Theatre with David Gogo, at the TD International Victoria Jazz Festival in 2009 and 2010, and gigs regularly around the Island with a number of different bands.

Cameron studied with Phil Dwyer, Pat LaBarbera, Don Thompson, Pat Coleman and Kirk MacDonald. In addition to studying music in Toronto at Humber College, he holds a Bachelors of Music Degree in Jazz Performance from Vancouver Island University.

Regular jazz fans in Comox Valley are already familiar with the wonderful vocal talent of Sydney Needham. This young woman is on her way to the top of the business, with an ability to lull an audience with a mellow ballad sung with a voice of a nightingale in one number, and then blow them away with the power of Aretha Franklin or Ella Fitzgerald in the next.

Show time is 7:30 p.m. The cost is $5, but if you think it's worth more at the end of the evening, you're always welcome to throw a bit more in the hat!

The Georgia Straight Jazz Society is a non-profit organization, where almost all the money goes to the performers, and a small portion goes into a bursary fund — awarded each year to the most deserving up-and-coming Comox Valley-based student who is headed for post secondary jazz music studies.

For more information about the Society and its forthcoming schedule, visit us at www.georgiastraightjazz.com or follow us on Facebook.

— Georgia Straight Jazz Society