The weather Sunday afternoon was a lot like the music being played inside Erindale United Church on Dundas Cres. Sunny and bright, with a nice crisp edge.
The Barry Elmes quintet, one of the best jazz groups in the land, was going through its paces as the sun poured in like butterscotch through the stained-glass windows behind the vaulted ceiling in the hall.
Elmes, in his laid back way, called it, "a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon."
More like thrilling, I'd say.
What a pleasure it is to see musicians of this calibre, who've played together for 15 years, exercising their craft in our own backyard.
All five are nominated individually as the top players in the land on their various instruments at the National Jazz Awards next Monday night at the Old Mill Inn (www.nationaljazzawards.com).
When you put them together, you get a lot more than the sum of the parts, which are obviously pretty good.
Kevin Turcotte on trumpet and flugelhorn and the inestimable Mike Murley on saxes are a superb front line. It was tough to decide if they sounded better soloing or when they played the themes together.
Reg Schwager, long-time member of the George Shearing Trio (with Toronto bassist Neil Swainson) is a fluid guitarist who specializes in mercurial runs.
Steve Wallace, along with Dave Young, could be the co-dean of the Toronto School of Superb Bassists (which includes Mississaugans Kieran Overs and Pat Collins), if such a thing existed.
Wallace, once a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio, and Elmes have developed that almost telepathic relationship that long-lasting rhythm sections feature. You could call it Synchronized Swinging if you wanted.
Wallace's solos were brief but brilliant.
Elmes presided amiably over the whole affair, presenting little vignettes about his songs and their various inspirations.
Most interesting among them was the genesis of The New Shim Sham Shimmy. That was a shuffle rhythm that Dizzy Gillespie, with whom Elmes played for a while, used to scat and talk about all the time from his early days in Harlem.
Diz would talk about it and hum it in dressing rooms and airport lobbies and wonder why nobody had incorporated it into a song. Elmes made Dizzy repeat it into his tape recorder and then created the melody for the new shuffle, which the quintet played Sunday.
It was a nice touchstone from the modern descendants of bop to one of its founding fathers.
Best of all, the proceeds of the event went to a worthy local cause, the Peel Youth Village that serves homeless youth trying to turn their lives around.