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Oliver Jones returns to Sudbury for jazz festival 

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Canadian jazz legend Oliver Jones will be one of the headliners for the 2010 Jazz Sudbury Festival. The festival, to be held Sept. 10, 11 and 12 at Science North and other venues in the city, is organized by the Sudbury Community Foundation.
Jones, a jazz pianist, is well known to Sudbury audiences. He taught music at Huntington University from 1987 to 1995. In 1992, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music from Laurentian University.
He will perform Saturday, Sept. 11 at the evening concert with vocalist Ranee Lee, and Richard Ring on guitar, Jack Broumpton on drums and Brian Quebec on bass.
Jones was born in Montreal and grew up in the same neighbourhood as Oscar Peterson. He was a child prodigy and made his debut as a pianist at the age of five at Union United Church in Montreal.
He studied classical piano with Daisy Sweeney, Oscar Peterson's sister, for many years. But he fell in love with jazz while living in Puerto Rico from 1960 to 1980.
He returned to Canada in 1980 and became well known as a jazz pianist. He was the resident pianist at Biddle's Jazz Room in Montreal for most of the 1980s, and he toured widely in Canada, the United States and Europe playing with some outstanding jazz musicians such as Dave Young and Steve Wallace.
Jones performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1981 and performed every year there until 1999.
He recorded his first solo album, The Many Moods of Oliver Jones, in 1984. He has recorded a total of eight albums and has won several Juno Awards.
Chris Kivinen-Newman, is the vital signs project co-ordinator for the Sudbury Community Foundation, and the artist director for jazz festival. The weekend festival pass, which will sell for $60 before Aug. 31, ($75 after Aug. 31) is the best buy for a weekend of music, he says.
The evening concerts on Friday and Saturday are each $40 and the Saturday day pass is $15.
Details of other performers and events were still being finalized as Sudbury Living went to press in early June.
There will be after-hour venues and a Sunday jazz brunch, says Kivinen-Newman. Another addition to the 2010 festival will be the "Speakeasy," a licensed area, and there will be lots of vendors.
The jazz festival has lots of potential for growth and any profits it makes will go to the foundation's performing arts fund.
The Sudbury Community Foundation is a public foundation and a registered charity. Established in 1996, it is a permanent source of grant dollars for numerous community projects and programs.
The foundation, through its annual Vital Signs report, found that Greater Sudbury needed more arts and culture activities such as a jazz festival.
The first festival was held in 2009. "It was well received...the quality of the performers were over the top," says foundation director Carmen Simmons.
In addition, the festival gives exposure to the city's jazz musicians, she says.
The jazz festival's major sponsors are Science North and the City of Greater Sudbury. Sudbury Living magazine is also a sponsor. Celebrate Ontario has provided funding as well.
The festival organizers are holding an Online Talent Search for up-and-coming musicians. The four finalists will play Friday night on the main stage prior to the opening concert. (Last year’s winner was Sudbury-born jazz artist Samantha Collard.)
Information about the festival and the talent search are available at www.jazzsudbury.ca.