The Guitar Player's Resource
Here's a great name for a CD, Two Much Guitar. A great pairing of two jazz guitarists, Bill Coon and Oliver Gannon battling it out in a live setting (part of the Vancouver club's Cellar Live series). These two Canadian musicians play off each other in a magical way, leveraging a musical respect to create what amounts to superior jazz guitar moments. Supported by Darren Radtke (acoustic bass) and Dave Robbins (drums), the quartet mixes in a Cannon original ("So Nice"), and a Coon original ("Zattitude"), alongside tracks by Charlie Parker ("Chi Chi"), Jimmy Van Heusen ("Darn That Dream") and Rogers & Hart ("Have You Met Miss Jones"). Gloriously blending their somewhat divergent technical approaches to guitar playing, Two Much Guitar is anything but too much guitar - but instead, just the right amount. Bill Coon & Oliver Gannon were originally profiled in the June-July, 2006 edition of The Undiscovered.
Oliver Gannon has been called the "king" of Canadian jazz guitar and rightfully so. Oliver has been a stalwart on the Canadian jazz scene since the early '70s. He has been featured on numerous albums with the likes Ed Bickert and Ian McDougall. He had a long musical partnership and personal friendship with the late tenor saxophonist Fraser MacPherson with whom he recorded eight albums. A duo album that they did together won a Juno Award in 1982. In 2002, Oliver recorded his first album as a leader, "Live @ The Cellar", with his quartet and that same year he won "Guitarist Of The Year" at The National Jazz Awards.
Bill Coon has been performing professionally for twenty years and began his musical career in Montreal where he was a long time member of the Andre White Band. His formative studies were at Vanier CEGEP where Coon studied guitar with Sam Balderman, as well as improvisation with Art Roberts and arranging-composing with Al Baculus. He later obtained a degree in Jazz Studies at Concordia University where after graduating he taught private guitar studies and arranging.
Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services
United States
Web site: www.cellarlive.com