The Musicians

Jordan Klapman

Piano / Bandleader

Jordan Klapman is a pianist, accompanist, bandleader, music director, and popular music lecturer. Equally at home in jazz festivals, clubs, concert halls, and theatres, he has appeared at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall for numerous performances with Seniors’ Jubilee, the largest talent showcase in North America. He has appeared on CBC radio and television and JazzFM radio as both a pianist and radio show co-host with the late Jeff Healey.

Jordan loves performing and touring with top Canadian and American vocalists and jazz performers including Adi Braun, Ron Joseph, Mick Lewis, Julie Michels, Tony Quarrington, Jon Seiger, and Sharon Smith.

Jordan leads several groups of his own including 100 Years Of Waller, The SHINE Quintet, The JK Jazz Trio, and Klapman’s Klezmer Band. He is music director of A Tribute to Ella and Louis, The Forbidden Weimar Kabarett, and Simply Brill: Great Songs of the ‘60s. He is also a member of The Hot Five Jazzmakers, Chris McKhool’s FiddleFire!, and The Yiddish Swingtet.

In 2004 Jordan released 100 Years Of Waller, an album dedicated to Fats Waller’s greatest hits. In 2007 Jordan released SHINE, an album of classic jazz instrumentals featuring an all-star quintet that includes clarinetist Mick Lewis of the Climax Jazz Band. A second 2007 CD release, The Yiddish Swingtet’s SHUL DAYS, combines two of Jordan’s favourite music genres, traditional klezmer and classic Benny Goodman swing. Selections from these two most recent CDs can be heard across Canada on both CBC Radio and internationally on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Jordan’s latest CD, RON JOSEPH and Friends has just been released and features clarinet virtuoso Ron Joseph and extraordinary trumpeter/vocalist Jon Seiger.

Julie Michels

Vocals

Julie Michels is, quite simply, a woman with a beautiful voice.  She plays with sound and time in a way that defies categorization.  She sings everything and anything that catches her ear:  jazz standards, rhythm and blues, Brazilian sambas, African chanting.  In a world full of music, it’s a banquet of sound just too delicious to pass up!

There is chemistry between Julie Michels and her audience.  Rising out of her love for interpretation and her penchant for bringing songs from other genres into the jazz oeuvre, this chemistry is rooted in her ability vocalize arrangement and instrumentation, flowing effortlessly from within.  Michels’ intense, original and joyous sound grabs familiar melodies from every decade and welds them to original and wonderfully thick chords influenced by every international tradition.  Her ability to phrase a lyric and improvise over a melody gives every song a clarity that stays in your mind long after the band stops playing.

She has played with George Koller, Ottawa’s Chelsea Bridge, Kevin Barrett, and her band Sutra at many popular jazz venues including The Montreal Bistro, Top of the Senator, The Rex, Hugh’s Room, The National Arts Centre, Statler’s Lounge and Canadian and European music festivals to great responses and packed houses.

Julie’s CDs include “Sing Naked” (with bassist George Koller), “Live at Statler’s” (with guitarist Kevin Barrett), the soundtrack for “Pivoting Echoes” (debuted in January, a series of pieces written by Julie, George Koller and Kristian Alexandrov for the Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, one of Canada’s premier dance companies), with her latest appearance on the big band jazz release, “Seriously Happy.”

Julie Michels’ big, multi-coloured voice is the perfect compliment to every genre she touches.  Between shivers, heat and chills up the spine the audience is dancing in the aisles and clapping to the penetrating beat.

Henry Heillig

Bass

Bassist Henry Heillig has been a high-profile member of the Toronto music scene for over 30 years, mainly as a jazz and blues player. Besides leading his own contemporary jazz quartet, The Heillig Manoeuvre, he is co-founder and musical director of the multi-award-winning worldbeat jazz band Manteca.

Heillig also performs regularly with world-renowned harmonica player Carlos del Junco as well as on a freelance basis with many other bands and ensembles.

 Besides his extensive years of experience as a freelance bassist, Heillig has acted as musical director for the televised Genie and Gemini Awards as well as the children’s television series Eric’s World.

 He has also composed the soundtracks for several Canadian documentary films.

Daniel Barnes

Drums / Percussion

Daniel Barnes is one of Canada’s best young drummers of his generation.  He is also an accomplished singer, composer, arranger and producer, and performs internationally in an astonishing range of styles: jazz, R&B, dance band, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, klezmer, and  more.

He has recorded over 40 CDs, including two under his own name, Culmination and Classic Beauties, written 5 motion picture soundtracks, and garnered multiple nominations as Drummer Of The Year at Canada’s National Jazz Awards.

Daniel calls jazz, world and urban/R&B music idioms his home. “The distinctive  musical cultures are rich with human experience, musical knowledge and feeling. So many grooves and songs speak to me.”