Results for "Toronto"

Bob Ezrin: Holding Artists To Their Own Best Work

by Lawrence Peryer
September 26, 2026

This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on famed record producer Bob Ezrin. Bob has worked with artists including Pink Floyd, Kiss, Deep Purple, and countless others, though he is best known for his nearly 60-year relationship with Alice Cooper. He's back working with The Jayhawks on their latest, Sanctuary Park, twenty-six ...

Agneya Chikte

Agneya Chikte is an award-winning Indo-Canadian percussionist and composer whose debut album AGNEYA (2026) blends South Asian rhythmic cycles with contemporary improvisation, cinematic textures, and global grooves. His music reflects his diasporic identity and belief in rhythm as a shared language, inviting audiences into a sound world that is groove-driven, meditative, and expansive.

Born and raised in Western India, Agneya grew up at the intersection of tradition and modernity. His mornings were steeped in the intricacies of Hindustani music and tabla compositions, while his evenings were soundtracked by early 2000s rock and hip-hop on MTV. This juxtaposition of ancient rhythmic systems and global pop culture became the foundation of his artistic perspective: rhythm not as a fixed category, but as an endlessly flexible, living force.

Frionis

Frionis is a Toronto-based instrumental project by Dave Freeman and Ian Walker Findlay. Together, they composed and performed all the music on their debut album, Coastal Nights, released in August 2026.

The Frionis sound centres on nylon-string guitar, melodic bass, B3 organ, dynamic drums, and organic percussion, bringing melody, rhythm, and atmosphere together across the album’s 12 tracks.

Josh Cohen

Born: August 28, 1987

Josh Cohen is a Toronto-based composer, electric bassist, bandleader, author, and professor of music at Humber Polytechnic. His work has expanded from solo electric bass performance into composition, improvisation, and ensemble writing, drawing from jazz, counterpoint, groove, odd-meter writing, and electronic music.

Cohen has performed on two JUNO Award-nominated albums. He earned first place in the 2020 NAMM Phil Jones Bass Solo Bass Competition and second place in the competition’s 2016 edition. He was also named a 2018 Madison Magazine honoree for Innovation in the Arts and received No Treble’s No. 1 Bass Video of the Year in 2015. In 2022, he was included in Titans of Bass, a book profiling 130 bassists from around the world.

Virginia MacDonald: In Search Of A New Clarinet Renaissance

by John Chacona
June 8, 2026

The clarinet occupies an unusual space in jazz in the 2020s. Once a lead instrument with advocates who graced the covers of fanzines for music and popular culture, the clarinet now stands 20 Feet From Stardom as the title of the 2013 documentary film about background singers described. It's a common enough double for reed players, ...

Nick Fraser: Still Screaming Into The Snare Drum

by Lawrence Peryer
May 23, 2026

Today, The Tonearm's needle lands on Toronto drummer and composer Nick Fraser.Nick Fraser is one of the most distinctive voices in Canadian improvised music. He has played with Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and William Parker, and has led projects that range from raw free jazz to something much harder to name.His latest ...

Josh Warren

Born: March 6, 2004

Rooted in the jazz tradition but drawing influences from all over the map, Josh Warren is an award-winning Canadian bassist, composer, and arranger originally hailing from Victoria, BC. Since moving to Toronto to study with Canada’s finest, he’s shared the stage and recorded with a plethora of Grammy-nominated and JUNO award-winning musicians (including Ingrid Jensen, Jeremy Ledbetter, Rich Brown, Allison Au, and Joaquin Nunez) and performed all across the country, playing at iconic venues and major festivals from coast to coast. 

His debut album “The Path”  (engineered and mixed by JUNO award-winner Patric McGroarty) will be out everywhere on August 22nd, 2026, and features an award-winning cast of young lions on the Canadian jazz scene, and blends the jazz tradition with shades of Pat Metheny, Stevie Wonder and Snarky Puppy

Jah Wobble & Evan Parker, Maria Schneider, Nils Petter Molvaer And More

by Lawrence Peryer
May 14, 2026

This week's Rotations opens with JOEYKEYSADE, whose Afro-jazz fuses Beninese-Nigerian tradition with modern composition, then moves through Jah Wobble & Evan Parker's dub-meets-free-jazz collision, Cochemea's Yaqui and Apache-rooted explorations, and Maria Schneider's American Crow. Toronto drummer Nick Fraser anchors the third set alongside Nils Petter Molvaer, and Kamasi Washington. New releases and deep cuts, connected across ...

JabFung

JabFung is the creative brainchild of Toronto bassist Julian Anderson-Bowes and Los Angeles-based drummer Anthony Fung. Since 2014, the project has served as a vital bridge between local and international jazz scenes, anchored by semi-annual multi-night runs at Toronto’s Rex Hotel. Over the years, JabFung has hosted a rotating cast of heavyweights—from Canadian icons like Kirk MacDonald to American greats like George Garzone and contemporary peers like Leland Whitty (BADBADNOTGOOD).

The project has recently solidified into a quartet featuring Juno-nominated Cuban-Canadian masters Luis Deniz (saxophone) and Rafael Zaldivar (piano). Their 2025 debut, Epoch, established the group's reputation for an improvisational musical dialogue rooted in trust and a shared vision for collaborative, instinctual performances. This core quartet, defined by a decade of collective history, provides the foundation for the group's blend of technical prowess and raw emotional presence.

Charlie Ballantine Establishes Himself on the East Coast

by Robert Middleton
April 18, 2026

Jazz guitarist Charlie Ballantine has been on the move for the past decade. In that time, he's released ten albums, with his first official live recording set to arrive later this month--and another new studio album already finished and waiting in the wings. Originally based in Indianapolis, Ballantine moved to Baltimore in 2022 to ...