Keith Price isn’t your ordinary jazz musician. The Keith Price Trio including drummer Curtis Nowosad and Julian Bradford on bass play their first
headlining show at the Slice, Feb. 15 — one of seven shows in 10 days the band is playing.
He is equally adept at playing traditional Beatnik era jazz as he is at putting his own jazzy take on songs like Nirvana’s “Lithium.”
His new CD Gaia /Goya, not only features a couple instrumentals inspired by Jack Kerouac’s novel ‘On The Road,’” and Beatnik writers like poet Gary Snyder, but a jazz cover of “Lithium.”
“I grew up in that era, but didn’t really discover it until after Kurt Cobain died. So I asked what if I just played the melody and made it more jazzy. The song lent itself well to it. There is a lot going on in the song. I was surprised at the genius in it,” he said.
The Keith Price trio will give a variety of songs from Neil Young to Mos Def’s ‘Umi Says’ the same jazzy treatment.
“A lot of the hip hop hop guys were influenced by jazz,” he observed.
He is just as much inspired by Beatnik poets and writer.
“I always try to read ‘On The Road’ when I travel, just reading about him meeting all of these people. And Gary Snyder is Japhy Ryder in ‘Dharma Bums.’ I think he’s a professor in California. I should send him a copy of the Cd and see what he thinks of it,” he said.“He writes haikus which show how much you can say in just a few words,” he said.
The Winnipeg based guitarist graduated with a music degree from the University of Manitoba noted thanks to the program featuring professor Steve Kirby, there is a lot of jazz talent playing around Winnipeg.
“ Steve Kirby came here six or seven years ago and he did a lot for the program. We have a lot of New York influence here because of lot of the professors here are from there,” he said.
“It’s a really great scene all round,” he said adding the scene is still spawning a lot of superb roots, rock, pop, jazz and blues groups.
The show begins at 9 p.m. Feb. 15 at the Slice. There is no cover for the show.
