JASON WILSON: PERENNIALS with special guest ADREAN FARRUGIA: May 15
JASON WILSON: PERENNIALS with special guest ADREAN FARRUGIA: Friday, May 15. 8:00pm $20/$15 
students/seniors/income-challenged. A night of reggae jazz and piano magic! Two-time Juno Award nominee, Canadian Reggae Music Award winner and acclaimed Canadian historian Dr. Jason Wilson has written a new suite of compositions specially designed for intimate environs. Perennials (2015) articulates Wilson’s self-styled reggae-impressionism: a sound where reggae is freely brushed – not strictly detailed – allowing space on the canvass for inspirations as divergent as Thelonious Monk and Scottish pibroch to come through. Wilson is joined by a couple of Jason Wilson Band mainstays as well as some other talented friends. The result is one of the best efforts yet from Canada’s reggae visionary. For this special concert, Perennials will be joined by one of Canada’s finest and most stylistically diverse piano masters, Adrean Farrugia, who will open the show with a solo set and then join Perennials for several songs. http://jasonwilsonmusic.com/ Preview the new Perennials video ‘Gertrude/Epistrophy’ here: https://vimeo.com/102270424
About Jason Wilson: Born to Scottish parents, Jason Wilson was the protégé of Studio One keyboardist Jackie Mittoo and is the cousin of UB40’s Michael Virtue. Wilson played his first night-club gig with Messenjah when he was only fourteen. Known for incorporating jazz and Scottish and English folk influences atop a reggae foundation, Wilson is a multi-instrumentalist though is perhaps best known for his piano skills. The singer-songwriter has performed and recorded with UB40, Alanis Morissette, Sly & Robbie, Dave Swarbrick, Ron Sexsmith, The Mighty Sparrow, Percy Sledge, Brinsley Forde (Aswad), David Francey and many more. Wilson has extensive studio-session experience on his native instruments the piano and voice, but also on bass, guitar and accordion.
Wilson has also been featured on many radio and television shows and is no stranger to the CBC where he has guested on many national and local programmes including Metro Morning; Fresh Air; The Current; Ontario Today; etc. Jason’s own life story and music was featured in a special mini-documentary entitled ‘The Grateful Dread’ that appeared on The National with Peter Mansbridge. Similarly, Wilson’s life was featured in a documentary on BBC radio.
Author of four books (including the award-winning Lord Stanley: The Man Behind the Cup), Wilson has been published several times in both academic and popular journals on a wide variety of historical topics and was nominated by the Guelph Mercury for their “Top 40 Under 40” campaign for his achievements in music and in academics. In the summer of 2009, Jason served as the lone professional musician on the advisory committee alongside Senator Pamela Wallin and others for the ‘Cantos at the King Eddy’ project in Calgary that will soon provide Canada with a national music museum.
Wilson was the on-stage musical director for the award-winning project Jamaica to Toronto (NOW Magazine Album of the Year 2006) and is co-leader of the popular Marley/Dylan tribute act The Two Bobs. Wilson is also one-half of the reggae-folk combo Wilson & Swarbrick and is the leader of Soldiers of Song, a tribute to Canada’s famous Dumbells of WWI. Jason was presented with The Karl Mullings Memorial Award for commitment to reggae in Canada in 2007. No other Canadian reggae artist has toured as much as Wilson in the past ten years. With intriguing lyrical imagery – mostly culled from moments in history – Wilson presents a uniquely irresistible take on the Jamaican art form.
About Adrean Farrugia: One of Canada’s most distinctive piano voices, Adrean Farrugia has recently moved to Hamilton. Since the late 1990s Adrean has been in high demand as a freelance performer and teacher. Keeping a busy touring schedule, mainly as a sideman, Adrean has toured extensively across Canada and the United States as well as in venues across Europe and in Japan. Adrean has performed/recorded with some of jazz’s greatest artists including: Larry Carlton, Curtis Fuller, Tom Scott, Bob Brookmeyer, Randy Brecker, Eric Alexander, Chris Potter, Joel Frahm, Matt Penman, Brad Goode, Kenny Wheeler, Darcy James Argue, Don Thompson, Lorne Lofsky, Kevin Turcotte, Kelly Jefferson, and Pat Labarbera. His currently the pianist for such diverse projects as the Matt Dusk Band, the Brad Goode Quartet, The Ernesto Cervini Quartet (featuring saxophonist Joel Frahm), Tim Shia’s Worst Pop Band Ever, the Bob Brough Quartet and the Darcy Hepner Big Band. Adrean also works regularly with his wife, vocalist Sophia Perlman.
Adrean has appeared on more than 30 recordings to date. His debut recording as a leader, Adrean Farrugia v1.0: Live at the Senator was released in the summer of 2006 on Romhog Records. It features his skills as both a pianist and composer. This album has enjoyed regular play on Toronto’s JazzFM and the CBC as has led to appearances on JazzFM’s ‘Joe Sealy’s Duets’ as well as a feature article in Performance Magazine by the late jazz journalist Geoff Chapman. In 2008, Adrean forged a new project called Ricochet, which released their Juno-nominated debut recording in 2010 on the Mainstage at the TD Canada Trust Toronto International Jazz festival.
Adrean is currently on the faculty of York University and Mohawk College of Arts and Technology where he teaches jazz piano and improvisation. He has also done workshops/clinics at the University of Colorado, University of Toronto, The University of Western Ontario, The Banff Centre for the arts, and in Warsaw as part of the Polish Jazz Society’s 35th annual Summer Jazz Workshop. As well, Adrean has been a contributing writer to piano guru Larry Fine’s publication The Piano Book, the world’s foremost publication on all things piano.
