NWCJazz brings Calgary jazz scene to life

By Gurman Sahota, October 25 2016 —

On Nov. 13, the Northwest Calgary Jazz and Creative Music Society (NWCJazz) will host its second “Jazz in the Woods” event.

A non-profit organization that will celebratie its first anniversary this November, NWCJazz is dedicated in providing, promoting and performing jazz music in Calgary.

“Jazz is important to any music scene because all modern popular music of any genre comes from jazz — many have sprung out of the jazz idiom, so it’s important to keep that heritage alive,” says Evan Cribb, one of the founders of NWCJazz. “It’s also a vibrant and important genre in today’s musical landscape.”

As opposed to other genres, jazz does not have a large following in the city. NWCJazz focuses on providing venue opportunities for jazz artists, especially in a city as large as Calgary.

“Calgary has a really great scene but given the size of the city, [jazz] is really underrepresented so we wanted to give it more of a chance to expand to the size that it could be in a city of this population,” Cribb says.

NWCJazz primarily focuses in suburban areas as a means to reach out to the demographic that consumes the genre. But Cribb says it is also important to pass jazz music to younger generations.

“We want to try to bring the music out to the parts of the city that don’t get it as much,” Cribb says. “That’s also where the demographic that consumes jazz is — kind of older, upper middle-class professionals. We want to bring music where they can access it and get more families involved too so we can make a young generation to keep it going.”

The society will host the second series of “Jazz in the Woods” next month. The series has performances every two months and collaborates with local establishments such as Village Brewery.

Canadian female arts collective Big Kitty Crew will collaborate with NWCJazz to provide artwork and an interactive experience at the event. Cribb says NCWJazz hopes to continue to collaborate with the art collective for future shows.

“Jazz in the Woods” will show on Nov. 13 at 7:00 p.m. at the Triwood Community Centre with tickets prices ranging from $5–$15.

For more information, nwcjazz.com