Mike Herriott Toronto Big Band

Mike Herriott Toronto Big Band

October 18 & 19 @ 8:00 PM
16 piece band, all brass and rhythm

Tales of Tricksters and Vagabonds is an original programmatic work for large jazz ensemble, drawn from Mike Herriott's 2023 album of the same name (H&H Records) and rooted in his master's thesis in music composition. The suite portrays six unforgettable figures from folklore and literature — the scheming cat of Puss in Boots, the gold spinning Rumpelstiltskin, Shakespeare's quicksilver Mercutio, Dickens's oily 'Umble Uriah, Dostoevsky's guilt-haunted Rodion's Republic, and the gloriously life-loving Sir Jack (Sir John Falstaff) — moving from the comic to the genuinely sinister and back again across a single evening. The ensemble's instrumentation — brass and rhythm section, with no saxophones — recalls the lineup of Canada's celebrated Boss Brass.

Each performance pairs the premiere suite with selections from Herriott's earlier album Isn't Life Grand, including the title piece; the tender, three-part Sweet Sparky Suite, written for his late dog; and Gravity, a meditation on the pull of attraction at every scale, from celestial bodies to people. The tour also offers audiences a first glimpse of material from Herriott's upcoming dance-theatre collaboration with Toronto's ProArteDanza.