Whenever composers Fred Stride and Jean-Nicolas “Trot” Trottier came to Winnipeg (from Vancouver and Montreal, respectively), they loved to wander Winnipeg’s downtown; eating lunch at Prairie 360, eating lunch at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, eating lunch at the Canadian Museum For Human Rights, eating lunch in the Exchange District. And each time, what frustrated them the most – what hindered them from punctually ordering their lunches – was the intersection at Portage and Main.
“Why can’t I just trot across,” said Stride, who drummed his fingers in jazzy syncopations on the formidable concrete barrier obstructing his simple desire.
“Oui! Oui! Mon Dieu, let us stride!” exclaimed Trot, who immediately jumped over the barrier and ran into traffic.
Thankfully, he was not injured; for if he was, Stride and Trot would not have worked with the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra to create East Meets West: Connections, an album about tearing down the concrete barriers to allow for pedestrian traffic.
“When I first heard the sounds of jackhammers and pile drivers, it was music to my ears,” said Stride, “They were the sounds of joy! I phoned Trot and told him, I said “Hello Jean-Nicolas, I have exciting news! You know that petition we started? Yes, the one in Winnipeg, the halfway point of Canada. Well it worked! The stones are coming down! They’re leaving no stone!”
“I was overwhelm with emotion,” added Trot, “To be quite honest, I cried. And it was at that moment that I writed The Healing Song – hearing that the barrier were coming down, it was healing, oui?”
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
