Ori Dagan's Wholenote Magazine Article On The Jay Danley Band

Here is an article written about The Jay Danley Band by Ori Dagan:

"Lula Lula! Living in this vast country of a city, one sometimes takes for granted the little things. This is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, where just about any kind of cuisine can be found, and the same goes for music.

On that note, the Lula Lounge Music and Arts Centre presents its annual multicultural music festival, Lulaworld 2013. Opening this festival, Friday May 10, is a unique collaboration: the Jay Danley Ethio Jazz Project featuring special guest, master Ethiopian musician Fantahun Shewankochew on vocals and Krar, and Toronto’s own Danley on guitar, Chris Gale and Elena Kapeleris on saxophones, Sam Petite on bass, Jeff Halischuck on drums and Richard Whiteman on piano.

Danley, himself a versatile guitarist who has spent the past two decades playing traditional Cuban music and traditional jazz, was inspired to play Ethiojazz by listening to Les Ethiopiques, a series of recordings by the inventor of this style, Mulatu Astatke. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Berklee-trained, Ethiopia-born Astatke was the first to combine modern jazz with Ethiopian scales.

“The very difficult musical challenge of composing, arranging and improvising using these scales is very rewarding to me,” says Danley. “I have also added some of my own personal tastes and influences to my compositions that make them unique.”

The collaboration with Danley’s group and Shewankochew has an interesting back story; they played a gig at Lula back in February, ten days before the Batuki Music Society presented a concert at the Glenn Gould Studio called Abyssinian Roots. The special concert brought to Toronto some of the hottest Ethiopian musicians from the nightclub scene of Addis Ababa, including Henok Abebe, Martha Ashagari, and Fantahun Shewankochew himself. Danley was in the audience that night and was absolutely amazed; meeting Shewankochew afterwards, it turned out that the Ethiopian master had attended their gig at Lula and wanted to work together. The organizers of Lulaworld were approached and decided that this collaboration would be a great way to open the 2013 festival."