I was sad to read the news this morning that legendary Canadian musician Jeff Healey passed away last night in a hospital here in Toronto at the age of 41, from the same cancer that took away his eyesight as a baby. It didn’t stop him from building a music career, getting married and having kids, or leaving behind an inspiring legacy of showmanship despite an unconventional playing style and a disability. But in the end it did stop him — cancer took Jeff Healey before his time. 41 is far too young. David would’ve been 41 this year.

Monday, March 3: Despite long battle with cancer, Jeff Healey’s death still shocking: bandmate

I have several versions of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” including a classical guitar instrumental, but Jeff Healey’s is my all-time favourite. When I moved to Toronto two years ago (tomorrow today), I listened to Healey’s jazz show on local radio, but when I think of him I will always think of this performance first.

As seen during my commute yesterday morning, via the Best of YouTube podcast on my iPod Touch. Wow. Talk about blowing away the competition; that’s a hard act to follow!

Now that the day is nearly finished, I’m feeling a little less anti-Valentine’s. When I got home the pets rushed to greet me and all was well again. So here’s a little tribute to the unconditional love from pets, some super-early Beatles:

zany Xena

Old Bean

And, from me, one of my favourite Beatles tunes, because of the harmonies and its sing-a-long-ness:

I’ve heard Nikki Yanofsky’s version of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Airmail Special” a bunch of times, and each time it blows me away that I’m listening to an 8th Grader from Quebec wearing braces scat her way through five minutes of Ella! This CBC clip* was filmed in June 2007 when Nikki was 13, and I can only imagine her skill growing as she gets older. Compare this video with her performance in August 2006 when she was 12, and see how much her performance has matured in less than a year.

Little Nikki’s on the international jazz festival circuit and performing at Carnegie Hall; she’s got an early start to what could be a long and exciting career — provided she steers clear of becoming tabloid fodder!

* The last two minutes of the video is an interview, in French.

(This draft’s been sitting around for months, time to set it free!)

I like Daft Punk’s song “Harder Better Faster Stronger”, whose most well-known cover is by Kanye West. But personally, although West’s is the flashiest and has the biggest budget, I think it’s the least interesting and creative of the covers.

Have you seen the Daft Hands version? Just a pair of hands, that’s it! (Plenty of versions like this abound, by the way.) The best part? Zero budget, I’m guessing.

There is even an ‘a cappella’ version by the Carleton Singing Knights, a college mens chorus from Minnesota. Check that one out for its vocal acrobatics.

But perhaps for its aerobic simplicity (dancing around in a three-metre radius), I like this video:

I came across this video from a CBC Radio3 podcast. Directed by Jonathan Bensimon, it was filmed in Havana, Cuba, and created using still photographs. Amazing. I wonder how many stills it took to make it?

I knew it was Havana within 5 seconds — there is no city in the world that I know of quite like it. It made me want to delve into my external drive and post more photos from my trip one year ago.

You may have heard “Suddenly I See” on heavy rotation in 2006, but what really turned me on to KT Tunstall’s work is the foot-stomping song “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” from that first album, “Eye on the Telescope” (released 2005). Check out her live version here — she shows her singing/songwriting/performing chops on stage:

On the strength of that song, I checked out the rest of her repertoire: two albums thus far, with this year’s release titled “Drastic Fantastic”. And it is fantastic, indeed. I purchased both albums!

Tunstall does have her own sound, although I don’t know if she deserves to be relegated to the pop section of iTunes since her guitar hooks and riffs are much more rock ‘n’ roll. And I have no idea where the comparisons to Dido come from, because I have a lot of Dido’s music and their voices and songs don’t sound anything alike. Even when Tunstall goes down-tempo, she’s still more like a folksie Chrissie Hynde than any one of a number of pop princesses floating about these days. Not that Dido is part of that group, but she’s still an orange to Tunstall’s apple.

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I braved a night of winter driving to sample The Pomegranate and see live music at Sneaky Dee’s. The venture did not disappoint on either count, but I certainly do not want to be driving around in these treacherous conditions more than once every couple of weeks. That’s enough winter driving for me!

Some photos from Sneaky Dee’s of the band Dead Letter Dept. The rest I’ll upload later, after a recharge.

The batch of DLD photos here.

After work I went to attend a free concert at the new opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts at Queen Street and University Avenue. If you’re in Toronto, check out the schedule here.

The concert (pdf) featured Joni Henson and Peter McGillivray with Liz Upchurch on piano in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, which is on the second floor of the Four Seasons Centre and practically invisible from the street, even with walls of glass.

The Amphitheatre was named after Bradshaw, who was the General Director of the Canadian Opera Company from 1998-2007 and passed away in August. He’d been with the CoC for 18 years and by all accounts on the company’s website, was well-loved. Joni Henson, soprano, was very emotional when she spoke about him.

I was impressed that the Canadian Opera Company would offer 100 free concerts to the public, considering how much funding the arts require to operate. Not to mention that they just built a new opera house. But, really, for opera to survive — much less flourish — in Canada, I suppose it takes giving free concerts and enticing the opera-curious (like me) to sample some of their offerings, to grow their membership and encourage people who might not otherwise direct their entertainment dollars to opera.

It was, following in the great tradition of seasonal pantos, a lot of riotous fun! Kurt Browning (hey, he’s got the same birthday!) made a superb Peter Pan — he’s still got the moves!

I wish it were in Vancouver — I would’ve taken my nieces and nephew, all five of them, they would’ve loved it!

CIBC Visa sent me two complimentary tickets and hosted a reception afterwards for photo ops with the cast, plus free food and beverages. As you can see, Kurt Browning has a following:

the Kurt Browning fan club

*spoiler alerts after the jump*

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