Random Access

It’s difficult to know exactly how to pacify the rain gods.
Turns out a couple of hours of solid, swinging Big Band music is a pretty good strategy.
That’s how Peter Appleyard and his veteran Swing Fever Band held off the deluge Saturday night in Mississauga.
The odd sprinkles and the dark overhead threats of worse to come didn’t dissuade a few hundred fans who joined Appleyard for a special concert on his 78th birthday to enjoy the classic music of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Benny Goodman, among others.
It’s hard to find good swinging Big Band jazz anywhere outside of the radio dial (check out Glen Woodcock’s show on Jazz FM91 Sundays from 5-10 p.m. and some of the shows on AM740), so when it lands right in your lap like this, you have to take advantage.
About half the space in the grassy knoll in the square outside the Mississauga Central Library was filled with lawn chairs, most of them festooned with umbrellas, as the summer series of concerts came to an end.
With the looming condos on the south side of Burnhamthorpe Rd. providing the mood lighting, Appleyard conducted a quick tour of the rhythms of the 30s and 40s.
The voicings, arrangements, melodies and soloists, which add up to that incredible momentum they call swing is what makes Big Band music a joy to the feet and a comfort to the soul.
With the great Canadian arranger Rick Wilkins handling most of the charts, and with veterans from the Goodman band (Appleyard played with that group from 1972-80) and the Billy May, Bert Niosi and Rob McConnell bands on hand, the swing was assured.
Among the standouts were John Sherwood on piano, Bob Livingston and John McLeod (who seemed to be playing at twice the volume of everyone else) on trumpets, Alistair Kay on trombone and Mississauga’s own Pat Collins on bass.
Of course every big band needs a “canary” and Port Credit resident Carol McCartney more than fit the bill.
She and Collins, who are faculty members at Mohawk College, combined on a tour-de-force of Comes Love, an under-performed standard. Beginning with a bass solo, the piece rode high on McCartney’s clear, clean delivery before the orchestra swooped in to take it out. McCartney has diction that rivals that of Dinah Washington.
Would have been nice to hear a little more of her.
At the break, the mayor presented Appleyard with a birthday cake.
“I believe our city centre should be a place where people can come to enjoy some entertainment,” said Hazel McCallion, in a shocking admission that council meetings don’t have much appeal, even as comic relief.
This summer the City has hosted a series of concerts, including Friday night garage band concerts and Appleyard’s terrific jazz series as part of the “Placemaking” to help Mississaugans figure out where their downtown is.
You think maybe someone would have thought of it in the previous 19 years that the civic centre has been in place, but not to worry.
It may be late, but some old-time music to soften the post-modern architecture is truly welcome.
Give us more outdoor concerts, more music in the square (why not invite Ronnie Hawkins to a homecoming?) and maybe “people place” and “Mississauga City Centre” could be uttered in the same sentence.