It all started in a pit in Listowel
John Stewart – October 1, 2012
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Mississauga jazz drummer Jay Boehmer spent many of his formative years playing in orchestra pit bands in small towns across Ontario.
Much of that work involved playing familiar Broadway tunes — by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and the other usual composing suspects in numerous show productions — which soon became second nature to him.
Often as he was playing the standard arrangements of the standard tunes he would think to himself, “Hey, this thing would work in a jazz context,” Boehmer recalls.
Over the past few years, the idea of marrying the glitz of Broadway and the beat of jazz has been rolling around in the drummer’s brain. And eventually it came pouring out in a set of arrangements…