So long, Katie... thanks for the great tunes

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Malloch signs off the air on March 29 after four decades with the CBC. (CNS MONTREAL GAZETTE)

IF you’re a Canadian jazz fan and someone mentions listening to Katie on the radio, you know exactly who they mean. (Or, at least you should.) Katie Malloch, longtime host of Jazzbeat and more recently Tonic, will sign off on March 29 after four decades with the CBC, a tenure that helped expose so many Canadians to good jazz.

It was her Sunday night Jazzbeat shows that stoked the fires of jazz across the country, and gave exposure to so many homegrown musicians, often through recordings of concerts made by the CBC.

Her deep knowledge of the music and easy manner made Jazzbeat the place to be on Sunday night.

Katie hosted the weekday evening Tonic for the past few years after the demise of Jazzbeat. Its mandate was for a more eclectic mix of music, but she included jazz and some great soul and put her stamp on it.

So what is a jazz fanatic to do with herself when she walks away from the microphone?

"First, I’m going to get an iPod," Katie told Sunday Morning host Michael Enright last weekend. "I listen to music at work all day" and didn’t see the need for an iPod, she explained to an incredulous Enright.

She’ll also continue belly dancing, which she started a few years ago, and get a new dog and take search-and-rescue training with it. There’ll be no moss growing on this jazz fan.

As Maclean’s magazine columnist Paul Wells wrote when Katie’s planned retirement was announced: "It’s impossible to express how much she’ll be missed by Canadian jazz musicians and fans. She has been den mother to the whole community, coast to coast, for decades."

So let’s wish Katie good listening on her iPod as we thank her for all the good listening she’s provided us.

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Joni Mitchell has long had an affinity for jazz. She was preparing to make a recording with the great Charles Mingus in 1978, but the bassist, composer and iconoclast died before the disc, Mingus, was finished. Two musicians on that album, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, became longtime friends and collaborators with the iconic Canadian singer and composer.

Local vocalist Amber Epp has an affinity for jazz and Joni Mitchell and she will perform jazz arrangements of Mitchell’s album Blue on March 29, 8 p.m., at Aqua Books.

"Some of the songs sound quite different from Joni’s version, but my goal is to carry on the spirit of the original album and put a bit of myself in there, too," Epp says.

Tickets for the Jazz Machine Series, where musicians take a well-known pop or rock album and put a jazzy spin on it, are $10 at Aqua.

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If Amber Epp likes Joni Mitchell, singer Anna-Lisa Kirby favours Leonard Cohen and has performed his work with the Oceanic Jazz Orchestra and in a full concert of his work at the Tarbut Festival of Jewish Culture.

On March 31, Jazz Winnipeg presents Anna-Lisa Sings Leonard Cohen at the Park Theatre where she will perform jazzy arrangements of songs such as Hallelujah, Bird on a Wire, Suzanne, Famous Blue Raincoat, Tower of Song, and Dance Me to the End of Love.

Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $25 advance / $30 door, available online at www.jazzwinipeg.com, at 989-4656, at the Jazz Winnipeg office (007-100 Arthur St.), or the Park Theatre.

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When the weather warms up as it has recently, a young musician’s thoughts turn to jazz camp (among other pursuits, perhaps).

Registration is already open for this summer’s annual University of Manitoba Jazz Camp, Aug.19-25. Instructors include jazz studies faculty bassist Steve Kirby, trumpeter Derrick Gardner, drummer Quincy Davis and saxophonist Jimmy Greene.

The 2012 brochure is available online at http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/ coned/summer/jazz/index.html and the camp’s Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/UofMSummerJazz-Camp.

chris.smith@freepress.mb.ca