Volume 29 Issue 1 | September 2023

Handling success: As the roster of
musicians performing at the club and
vying for gigs expanded, so did the
responsibility of booking shows. By 1989,
Ross brought in Tom Tytel, who had
recently earned his bartending licence
and whose mother was long-time friends
with the Ross family, to assist with
bartending, evening managerial duties,
and, eventually, booking the music.
Commenting on his, and The Rex’s,
track record for not only consistently
showcasing top-shelf music but staying
Tom Tytel
in business for some three decades,
including COVID shutdowns,Tytel disavows any personal agency. “I
don’t claim to know music, good from bad, but I do know what works
for The Rex. I trust the people to whom Bob introduced me, and I
know enough to get out of the way and stay out of all things creative
that happen on the stage.”
As the decades passed and the former upstairs residence rooms
flourished as renovated and revamped boutique downtown hotel
suites under the watchful eye of Ross’ son Avi, the club’s booking
policy expanded from those initial Heineman/Davis weekend slots,
to hosting music seven nights a week, often with two or three bands
performing multiple sets a night. The Rex is today valued as much for
the social cohesion it facilitates within Toronto’s intergenerational and
intersectional jazz community as for the destination performance spot
it provides for local and out-of-town musicians, as well as fledgling
student ensembles from the city’s neighbouring schools.
“It’s a mainstay, for sure,” states saxophonist Mike Murley. “It’s hung
in there to not only grow over the years but evolve. I love what’s going
on there now as the multi-night performances are somewhat like the
old days.”
Murley’s “the old days” hearkens back to an earlier time in Toronto
jazz when George’s, Meyer’s Deli, Montreal Bistro, Top o’ the Senator,
Bourbon Street and the Bermuda Onion reigned supreme. The Rex’s
new booking policy has become a creative catalyst for a new crop of
younger players who can now bring visiting players to the city for
extended engagements. “Having a four-night run at The Rex to workshop
the material before recording with Terri Parker’s Free Spirits was
really beneficial in terms of preparing the music and getting a sound
together,” suggests bassist Lauren Falls.
Tom Tytel’s booking credo is that “if you leave the cooks alone,
they will make you a beautiful gumbo.” The Rex, whether hosting the
annual Coltrane Tribute (nearing its 40th anniversary) or showcasing
an ever-new crop of diverse and talented young jazz voices, has no
plans to stop cooking up enriching and soulful sounds anytime soon.
KARL-LEUNG
Andrew Scott is a Toronto-based jazz guitarist (occasional
pianist/singer) and professor at Humber College, who contributes
regularly to The WholeNote Discoveries record reviews.
Teri Parker's Free Spirits at the Rex in 2019.
IN CONVERSATION
Sharon Azrieli on
The AMPs at Ten
SHARNA SEARLE
Canada’s largest non-corporate funding body, the
Azrieli Foundation was established in 1989 by
Sharon Azrieli’s late father, philanthropist and
developer, David Azrieli, with a mission, according to
the Foundation’s website, “to improve the lives of present
and future generations through education, research,
healthcare and the arts, mainly in Canada and Israel.”
Sharon Azrieli
JEFFREY HORNSTEIN
While Music, Arts & Culture is
but one of the Foundation’s eight
priority funding areas, I counted
a mind-boggling 40-plus
Canadian cultural organizations
and institutions that have
benefitted from the Foundation’s
support over the years. Many of
these have been covered in the
pages of The WholeNote – from
the Canadian Opera Company,
Sistema Toronto and Jeunesses
Musicales Canada, to Concerts in
Care Ontario, Toronto Symphony
Orchestra and the Ashkenaz
Foundation. (And I have a feeling
there are probably another 40 I
haven’t heard about.)
In 2013, Montreal-born Sharon
Azrieli had an idea for a new Azrieli Foundation program – a competition
that reflected her love of music and art, and which she knew
would become her “bailiwick” at the Foundation. “My first thought
was ‘What doesn’t exist?’ she explained in a recent phone conversation.
Not wanting to reinvent any wheels, she looked around and
determined that in Canada there were already competitions for
voice, for violin, for string quartet, and for piano, but that there were
none for composition.
Thus, playing to her strengths – “What do I know about? I happen
to know about Jewish music” – and to her deep ties to both Canada
and Israel, in 2014 the Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) were born.
The first two inaugural prizes were The Azrieli Prize for Jewish
Music and The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music, followed by
The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music a few years later. And
to mark the upcoming tenth anniversary of the AMP, a fourth prize
has been added for the 2024 competition: The Azrieli Commission
for International Music.
12 | September 2023 thewholenote.com