MRU Conservatory Presents Jazz on Lincoln Park - An evening with Jim Brenan

Jim Brenan- Saxophone
Sheldon Zandboer – Piano
Jon Wielebnowski – Bass
Afolabi Fapojuwo – Drums

Award Winning Saxophonist, educator and composer Jim Brenan is one of Canada’s foremost Jazz Musicians. Besides being a Full Professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, he performs as musical director and composer of the Jim Brenan 11, as a member of groups led by Bassist Rubim De Toledo and pianist Chris Andrew, and leads a variety of all-star ensembles made up of himself, and Canada’s most dynamic musicians. His latest release ‘50/50’, features Brenan for the first time on disc as a bandleader of a large ensemble after performing for decades in an almost exclusively small group format with the likes of Bryan Lynch, Terrell Stafford, Tommy Banks, PJ Perry, Luis Bonilla, Randy Brecker, Maynard Ferguson, Peter Bernstein, Dana Hall, Geoff Keezer and Oliver Jones among others. Brenan’s extensive studies of music as diverse as Afro-beat from Nigeria, Black American Jazz and funk, and other cultures have greatly informed his thinking. “It’s exposed me to rhythms and harmonies and ways of communing with music that I never would have been exposed to had I not studied it,” says Brenan, who is presently composing music for his next large ensemble release.

This will be a special evening of great jazz with interview vignettes to meet the person behind the Saxophone.