Performers

Tallboys: Kevin Breit, Matt Brubeck, Jesse Stewart (Ontario)

While not quite the Guelph Jazz Festival “house band,” Tallboys represents an assembly of three highly sympathetic players who represent the cream of improvising musicians who live in or near to Guelph.

Drummer Jesse Stewart has been a performer (and has served in many other capacities) throughout the Festival’s fifteen seasons, and he is surely a familiar name to regular or even intermittent attendees. Through Festival-related activities, Stewart has built an impressive list of in-performance collaborators who are among the cream of improvising musicians and sound artists, internationally, and his 2000 opera, Passages, with a celebrated libretto by the late Paul Haines, was the first commission in the Festival’s history.

Guitarist Kevin Breit is based in nearby Elora, but is constantly in demand for his astounding technical command and creativity. He has played at the Festival many times before, including a memorable duet with Bill Frisell, plus a feature for his razor-sharp instrumental R&B band, Sisters Euclid, in 2001.

Cellist Matt Brubeck lives in Erin, teaches at York University, and, along with Tallboys, works extensively these days with pianist David Braid and with The Ugly Beauties (with Marilyn Lerner and Nick Fraser). The Tallboys, like the Guelph Jazz Festival in general, help to put the 519 area code on the international map of creative improvised music.

Websites:

www.kevinbreit.com

www.mattbrubeck.com

www.myspace.com/jessestewartpercussion