The beginnings of her musical journey are found in the Toronto public school system and a set of parents who held music in such high regard that they based their home purchase on the fact that the house had a piano. The school provided a lunchtime piano program of private instruction for 30 minutes once a week, which Jane took advantage of for a couple of years before joining the school band. When it came time to dole out the band instruments, Jane was, of course, encouraged to play violin, cello, or some equally "feminine" instrument – but the adults were no match for the little girl’s insistence on playing a shiny band instrument. At long last, the band teacher relented, lending Jane his own personal clarinet for the next four years. The last two of these years were spent in Canada’s Hall-Dennis Report: a program exploring self-directed learning which left students free to choose what they wanted to learn and create. Jane spent a lot of her days painting. And so it was quite a change when she entered a traditionally rigid, private girls’ school in 9th grade. Because this school had no music program, a piano teacher with an excellent reputation was found in her neighborhood - but his demands were far more difficult than the show tunes Jane had been entertaining herself with in her spare time. He would require her to memorize four or five new classical pieces each week, returning to her next lesson to perform for him without sheet music.

"About half the time I would run crying out the door," Jane remembers. "I just didn’t have the discipline at that time."

After a year, she quit the lessons. No longer having access to a clarinet, Jane continued to play piano on her own, storming through her adolescence at various schools. And then, at the age of 17, certain clarity set in. Just as the little girl knew what band instrument she wanted to play, Jane knew that she now possessed the self-discipline required to return to her prior piano teacher. Her goal was to achieve her Grade Ten certificate, normally awarded to piano students after ten years of piano study. She quit school and devoted ten to twelve hours a day of practice until she achieved her Grade Ten, acquiring the equivalent of ten years of skill and knowledge in a little over one year. In the process, however, she developed severe tendonitus in her right hand. Forced to back off intense piano practice for a while, it was decided that Jane should take a holiday to San Francisco with her cousin. It was there, at Keystone Corner, 1975, that Jane heard Mingus:

So we went to Keystone Corner. I had a pretty eclectic record collection - I loved all music. My older brother loved jazz and had eclectic musical taste. So I used to, you know, grab records of his and sneak them into my collection. So I had a record collection that was everything from Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan to Chinese masterpiece string players to Japanese koto music to Folkways records of slave songs from the South to Led Zepplin and Jimi Hendrix to Glen Gould. It was really everything. I liked all the music. But going to San Francisco and repeatedly hearing Mingus’ group at that time really kind of changed my head quite a bit.

I think I bought a flute at that time and was teaching myself flute, because I really always did want to play the flute initially, and besides practicing classical piano I’d get together with my friends on the weekend. We’d sort of jam. None of them were jazz players at all but we’d just, you know, play on two and three chords and I’d just sort of noodle around - and didn’t really know what I was doing, but liked improvising… The rest of the week I’d go back to this very classical scene that I was in; having to go once a month to recitals at my piano teacher’s – whole afternoons were you’d perform the repertoire that you were working on and ten students would play for each other. At that point I really thought I wanted to be a concert pianist. But after this trip…

When I heard Mingus’ group, I thought they were all classical musicians! I just translated all that technique in improvising as, of course they’re classical musicians that are playing this other kind of music. Actually, Don Pullen always thought that was quite funny that I would have thought he was versed in all the Bach, Beethoven Tchaikowsky, etc.

And so began Jane’s foray into the world of jazz. Upon her return to Toronto, she started hanging out in record stores, asking the salespeople to play the jazz records for her, going to jazz clubs, and taking jazz classes at the Toronto New School of Music. After playing in a jazz workshop at the school, a whole new world opened to her. Janis Joplin’s pianist, Richard Bell, who was dating Jane’s older sister at the time, lent Jane his soprano sax, so she added that instrument to her repertoire on piano, clarinet and flute.

Jane traveled back and forth between Toronto and New York to study jazz piano with Barry Harris (www.barryharris.com/) for a while. She recorded her first record in 1987 with fellow Canadian Don Pullen (Art Blakey, Charles Mingus) and Dewey Redman titled In Dew Time. In 1989 Bunnett recorded New York Duets with Don Pullen, followed in 1991 by Live at Sweet Basil- recorded during the 8th Greenwich Valley Jazz Festival, which featured Bunnett with Don Pullen, Billy Hart, Keiran Overs, and Larry Cramer. Her releases were met with critical acclaim.

Later Bunnett applied for, and received, a grant from the Canadian government to study for a year (1991) with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy (http://senators.free.fr/) in France. After the year was up, Jane stayed on another four years, during which time she performed in the European jazz festival circuit.

All the while Jane was delving further and further into jazz, she couldn’t get the music of Cuba out of her mind. Because of that life-changing winter vacation to Cuba in 1984, Bunnett determined to return to Cuba with a mission. Not content to brush the surface of the Ricky Ricardo style music most non-Cubans tourists are exposed to, Jane traveled all corners of the island, studying the stylistic differences of the various regions, familiarizing herself with Cuban folkloric music, classical forms, and Santeria chants. She applied for and received a grant from the Canadian government to return to Cuba again in September 1991 and record with some of the country’s foremost musicians. Out of this grant came Spirits Of Havana, a remarkable CD in which, rather than Bunnett attempting to co-opt a generic Latin style for her own ends as so many artists do, she showcases the Cuban musicians she admires so deeply. Spirits of Havana was picked by the All-Music Guide as one of the top 300 Jazz discs of all time.

Spirits of Havana was followed in 1994 by two traditional jazz recordings as Jane began to be invited to perform in various jazz festivals in Canada and the United States: The Water Is Wide (again with Don Pullen) and Double Time featuring Paul Bley (www.improvart.com/bley.htm). 1995 and 1996 saw two recordings - Rendez-Vous Brazil/Cuba followed by Jane Bunnett and the Cuban Piano Masters – in which Jane explored her affinity for Cuban music further in a fascinating project devoid of percussion. She returned to Cuba in 1997 to record Havana Flute Summitand Chamalongo, which she considers the most passionate recording of her career. Canada awarded her a Juno (comparable to the U.S. Grammy award).

Her latest release on Blue Note, Ritmo + Soul (2000), is the first recording in which Bunnett fuses traditional jazz and gospel with Cuban music while employing a drum kit. Many of the tracks are original compositions of Bunnett and husband Cramer. But most importantly, in Ritmo + Soul Bunnett does successfully what only the best musicians can do: incorporate and express what she has lived and loved up to that point.

Jane Bunnett was not content with simply taking what Cuba had to offer without giving back. Not that showcasing talented musicians for the non-Cuban world to hear isn’t giving something in return – but Jane went a step further. Seeing the disrepair of the instruments Cuba’s music conservatory children are subjected to – talented kids in a demanding program playing instruments that literally fall apart in your hands if you try to repair them – Jane started the Spirits of Music Foundation to raise money for new instruments. Through her efforts, replacement instruments have been purchased and donated to help these talented children learn and carry on the rich tradition of Cuban music.

Jane has approached her musical journey with the intensity of a trained classical artist. She is well grounded in the history, tradition, and musical form of both jazz and Cuban music – a solid foundation from which she soars to exhilarating heights with phenomenal technique and fluidity. She is an artist we will continue to hear from, and rightly so. Perhaps future travels will spark her voracious interest in some other style of music. In the meantime, however, while other musicians scurry to jump on the latest Cuban music bandwagon, and record executives hustle to promote them, Blue Note can sit back and smile: they’ve got Jane Bunnett.