Jazz pianist Kate Wyatt is a veteran of international festivals and is fresh off a month-long residency in Hangzhou, China with the Yannick Rieu Quartet.
Now she is touring B.C. with her jazz quartet and they will stop in Parksville for a concert on June 1 at Knox United Church.
The band will play tunes from her debut album Artifact — named after an instrumental song written in a way that lets the musicians improvise in many different directions, Wyatt said.
“Every time we play, we sort of discover something new,” she said.
When Wyatt writes an instrumental piece, she thinks up a title that can best "fit the vibe" of the music and in this case it was like “uncovering ancient mysterious artifacts, like Indiana Jones style,” she said with a laugh.
The group clicks well because the players are good at listening to each other and can play off what the others have done with a solo.
“So for example, like if the drummer does something cool rhythmically, as the piano player, I might try and pick up on that rhythm,” she added. “That’s why we really enjoy playing with each other so much.”
The quartet includes bassist (and Wyatt's husband) Adrian Vedady, who has worked with many internationally-known musicians and won several Juno Awards.
“We’ve been playing together for a long time. We’ve known each other since I’d just finished at McGill, and so we have an incredible musical connection,” Wyatt said.
Rounding out the quartet are drummer Louis-Vincent Hamel and Lex French on trumpet. All four are jazz educators, as well as busy musicians who play in multiple projects in Montréal.
“We have a lot of fun,” said Wyatt, who grew up in Victoria and moved to Montréal to attend McGill University.
She became interested in jazz music during high school because of a jazz career preparation program.
“I was probably about 14 and I was probably about ready to quit piano lessons because I was more into hanging out with my friends," Wyatt said. "But a bunch of my friends were in the jazz band so I joined.”
To complete the program, the students had to log 100 hours of experience, including weekly sessions at Hermann's Jazz Club.
All these years later Wyatt is a veteran of festivals and jazz clubs and has a multitude of recordings under her belt, both as leader and accompanist. Her music has been recognized with awards from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, FACTOR and the Canada Council for the Arts.
She conducts masterclasses and is on faculty teaching jazz piano at Marianopolis College, and has been working as part of the Canadian Amateur Musicians/Musiciens Amateurs du Canada teaching team for over 10 years and has recently been asked to join the faculty at JazzWorks Canada.
Wyatt said it is important for her to represent the underrepresented group that is women in jazz.
“I feel like that’s what I missed as a girl, a young teen starting to play jazz," she said. "There were not a lot of women role models, and I sort of had this weird misconception that typically women couldn’t play jazz. Even though I was a young woman, or girl, playing jazz. I thought that was the exception to the rule."
The concert at Knox United Church (345 Pym St.) starts at 3 p.m. Doors open at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are $30 and are available online through Eventbrite, and with cash at local retailers Close to You Boutique, Edge Outdoors and Fireside Books.
For more information and about Wyatt's music visit her website katewyattpiano.com.http://katewyattpiano.com
