AUDIO SAMPLE

	December 1st
	Minor Alterations

COMPOSER(S)

Michelle  Grégoire

PERFORMER(S)

Kirk MacDonald, Michelle  Grégoire, Kevin  Turcotte, Jim Vivian

ABOUT THIS CD

Nominee, "Outstanding Jazz Recording", Western Canadian Music Awards

This is the debut recording of jazz pianist/composer Michelle Grégoire featuring eight of her original compositions which Hugh Fraser has expressed “is the most beautiful CD I’ve heard in years…exciting, inspired and new while building on the tradition called jazz…”

"Pianist and composer Michelle Grégoire, a mainstay of Winnipeg's jazz scene, impresses with her debut CD that employs four Toronto sidemen to illuminate the strength of her writing. She's fond of melody on the eight longish originals here, but her concepts are broad enough to let colleagues roam in between the fascinating structures with which she gears ensemble statements and exits, a style immediately apparent on the rugged opener "Minor Alterations." Her comping and soloing are always poised, suffused with a stealthy subtlety that lets the tunes breathe and develop."
- Geoff Chapman, Toronto Star

"Grégoire is clearly in command of a broader harmonic knowledge, yet her playing style is all about elegance, subtlety, and understatement. No sharp edges mar her approach, and she builds her solos gradually and with great care. As much as Grégoire's heart is in the mainstream-and there is a clear Kind of Blue vibe to some of Reaching-she isn't trapped in a time warp. Reaching may be approachable, but in a way that doesn't sacrifice invention, interplay, and understated strength."
- John Kelman, All About Jazz

"Winnipeg pianist/composer Michelle Grégoire draws on the elegant brawn of high-period Blue Note artists such as Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock in her debut, channeling small-group muscularity and groove through interesting melodies that are far more than spring-boards for solos."
Randall McIlroy, Style Manitoba

"This is a superb effort by a pianist and composer deserving wider recognition, especially outside of her native land."
- Ken Dryden, CODA