Tonight’s featured guest, saxophone master ANDY BALLANTYNE, has performed with some of the world’s foremost jazz musicians including Rob McConnell, Maria Schneider, Carla Bley, Sam Rivers, Bill Mays, and Danilo Perez. He has shared stages with marquee entertainers including Diana Krall, Paul Anka, The Temptations, Natalie Cole, and Johnny Mathis, and is a long-time member of John MacLeod’s Juno Award-winning Rex Hotel Orchestra.
A graduate of Humber College and the University of Toronto jazz performance programs, Ballantyne’s skills as a versatile woodwind doubler have made him an in-demand performer for multiple musical theatre productions, most recently ‘An American in Paris’. He has also been a member of the Shaw Festival Orchestra for eight seasons.
As a composer and arranger, Andy’s works are frequently performed and recorded by leading professional and school jazz ensembles. His arrangements for strings are featured on jazz vocal legend Ranee Lee’s 2014 release “What’s Going On” on Justin Time Records. His own playing and composing can be heard on his 2007 large ensemble recording “The Sum of the Parts”, and on his upcoming quintet record “Play On Words” which features an all-star rhythm section of Terry Clarke, Neil Swainson, Rob Pitch, and Adrean Farrugia.
This evening’s stellar ANDY BALLANTYNE QUARTET features jazz masters ROB PILTCH on guitar, STEVE WALLACE on bass, and BARRY ELMES on drums, entertaining in the up-close-and-personal ambience of The Home Smith Bar.