Victoria’s Monik Nordine Trio will showcase its critically acclaimed new CD, The Old-New Town, at Pat’s House of Jazz in the Crofton Hotel’s Osborne Bay Pub on Sunday, Oct. 22 as part of its Island-wide CD release tour.
The CD “creates a cheerful ambience with happy-go-lucky originals like Bubbe’s Blues and Round the Bend,” according to Down Beat magazine. Nordine “soars, showing off solid performance and writing chops.”
Rick Helzer of Jazz Improv Magazine writes that Nordine is “facile in her execution and fluid in the spinning out of her melodic ideas.”
Saxophonist and vocalist Nordine dedicates the CD to the late pianist Jaz Jarczyk, her composition professor for two years in Montreal in the mid-‘90s and later a friend and mentor.
“I will always be grateful to him for sharing his wisdom in the utmost unavoidable and practical way and for his unbounded generosity of spirit,” she writes.
Joining her on the recording and the tour are Victoria pianist Brent Jarvis on the Fender Rhodes and Bruce Meikle on double bass.
Nordine played her first gig when she was just 16 at the Vesuvius Pub on Salt Spring Island, just a short ferry ride across the water from Crofton.
Born in Sweden, Nordine grew up on Salt Spring and, after stints in Vancouver, Montreal and London, England, returned to the Island to raise her daughter.
She has a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of British Columbia and a masters from McGill University in Montreal.
She has recorded several CDs and played with such luminaries as Michael Buble, Rob McConnell, Guido Basso, P.J. Perry and Paul Horn.
She now performs with a variety of bands on the south Island, including the Victoria Jazz Orchestra, which she directs.
Pianist Jarvis has played more than 1,000 performances, recorded three CDs and founded the Brent Jarvis Academy of Music.
Vancouver-born bassist Meikle obtained his music degree from the University of Ottawa before returning to the West Coast, where he plays regularly with the Victoria Symphony and the Victoria Jazz Orchestra.
The Pat’s House of Jazz series runs every Sunday at 2 p.m. the Osborne Bay Pub, 1534 Joan Ave. in Crofton.
Admission is $15. For information, phone 250-324-2245 or visit http://osbornebaypub.com.