What's Your Music?
with Jodi Proznick
1. What are you working on these days?
Currently, I am working on a number of performing and education projects. The biggest project is my new music education online hub called Music Arts Collective. It is a collaboration with JUNO nominated and award winning pianist/composer/educator Amanda Tosoff and arts administrator Francesca Fung. We have been creating webinars, masterclasses, courses, workshops and livestream conversations for the past 9 months. The collective values inclusivity, creativity and imagination. Our approach to pedagogy is contemporary and diverse, while remaining rooted in traditions. There is plenty of room for curiosity, versatility, empowerment and all styles of personalities to shine. The indispensability of art and music during the peaks and valleys of our individual and collective lives is evident throughout history. Harnessing the reach of the internet and the accessibility of digital platforms, Music Arts explores opportunities to keep art and music going at all times, and to share the knowledge we and our collaborators have gathered through our established artistic careers. Our space is open to all to develop innate creative gifts at one’s own level and pace.
2. What/who are you listening to these days?
I have been listening to many of my “comfort albums” and artists during this time – John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Oscar Peterson as well as songwriters and bands such as Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, Jane Siberry, and Radiohead. More recent album’s such as Amanda Tosoff’s Earth Voices and the album by Our Native Daughters with Rhiannon Giddens are also amazing. I listen to recorded nature sounds to unwind and podcasts such as On Being with Krista Tippett and the Cult of Pedagogy.
3. What/who are your biggest inspirations?
My husband, my son, mother earth, gratitude, kindness, justice, my friends and collaborators - all the daily moments of grace.
4. If you were given the task to curate an event bringing a local (Vancouver or Canada) and international artist together for a collaborative performance at VIM House next month, who would you invite?
I would invite Becca Stevens to collaborate with Jane Siberry. I think that would be really interesting.
5. Any book and/or movie about/on music that you find inspiring and recommend to us?
Yes, two documentaries come to mind “Chasing Trane” about the life of John Coltrane and “Muscle Shoals” about Fame Studios in Alabama.
6. Do you have a quote on music or arts (or one by a musician or artist) that you love and are inspired by?
“In 40 years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens” ~ Oliver Sacks.
7. What are your memories of attending your first live music event? Where? When?
My earliest memory of a live music event was Sesame Street Live with Bob McGrath at the Vancouver Playhouse when I was a very young child.
8. What is (are) your favourite music venue(s), local or abroad, past and current, as an audience member or performer? Why?
I had many good memories playing at the Jazz Cellar when it was around, but I also love playing at the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton, with the VSO on the Orpheum Stage, the Cultch, house concerts… I love it all!
9. What is one live performance that you cannot forget? When? Where? Why?
Shirley Horn at the Orpheum in the 90’s - I can’t remember the year - it might have been 1994. I couldn’t wait to see her perform live. Her albums had been a constant soundtrack to my time studying jazz at McGill. She walked on to the Orpheum stage wearing gloves. She was a total Queen. The music she played was so vulnerable and intimate - she showed us that vulnerability is actually a super power. Jazz doesn’t always go there but she always did. She was a story teller. Every word and every chord filled the Orpheum and everyone’s hearts in the room. I cried and cried through the whole show. I’ll never forget it. In Shirley’s own words “You Won’t Forget Me”. No, I most certainly won’t - her music is embedded in my heart.
10. Where/how can we follow you and your music? (website, social channels, etc)
Performer/Composer
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Linkedin
Education Hub
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | linkedin | YouTube
[This interview with Jodi Proznick was realized in Spring 2021.]
[press play and enjoy the whole playlist continuously or skip tracks using the next button]
All of these songs helped me to fall in love with jazz and the musicians that created it:
1. Cheek to Cheek: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong from Ella and Louis
2. You Won’t Forget Me: Shirley Horn from You Won’t Forget Me
3. It Could Happen To You: Ahmad Jamal Trio from Ahmad’s Blues
4. Johnny Come Lately: Joe Henderson from Lush Life - The Music of Billy Strayhorn
5. My One and Only Love: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
6. Without A Song: Sonny Rollins from The Bridge
7. Such Sweet Thunder: Duke Ellington from Such Sweet Thunder
8. Smatter: Kenny Wheeler from Gnu High 9. Edith and the Kingpin: Herbie Hancock from River: The Music of Joni Mitchell
10. All of You: Miles Davis from My Funny Valentine/Four and More