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Welcome to the latest issue of Denis Poole’s Secret
Garden, the page that offers a British perspective on all
that’s good, and not so good, in the world of smooth jazz
and classic soul.
New on The Secret Garden’s horizons this time around
is a thoroughly enjoyable new release from Toronto based guitarist/composer
Jamie Bonk. My World is his third release, has
been three years in the making and is a piece of work that he
considers to be his most collaborative to date. His recording
history started back in 1997 when his self-tiled debut album
was released in Canada and the following year in the USA. It
was voted the New Age Voice (NAV) Radio Album Of The Year in
1999 and remains as NAV’s Airwaves Top 100 longest charting
CD. Its eighteen-month stay on the charts was almost seven months
longer than the previous record holder Loreena McKennitt with
her Book Of Secrets release.
Frequent travelers in Canada and North America may be more familiar
with Jamie’s music than they think. Both Jamie Bonk and his second release, A Perfect Tomorrow, have
been played as part of many in flight audio programs with participating
airlines including Asiana, TWA, US Airways, America West, American
and Canadian. Air Canada used Jamie Bonk in its
entirety as boarding music through out 1998.
All this is a far cry from Queens University, which Jamie entered
as a music composition student back in 1983. Perhaps Jamie’s
most influential teacher at Queens was composition professor
Bruce Pennycook who enabled him to experiment with first generation
MIDI sequencers, samplers and synthesizers. It was in 1986,
while still at Queens that Bonk won the silver medal in the
electro acoustic category of the CAPAC competition. After graduation
he started his musical career in Toronto where he played for
local bands, played studio guitar, programmed for a multitude
of album projects and even composed film scores for Heart
Of The Forest for Lindrian Films and Brenda Longfellow’s
Our Marilyn.
Throughout the 90’s Jamie was Associate Guitar Instructor
at the Toronto Guitar Institute and combined this with the composition
and production of corporate video soundtracks for companies
such as Manulife and Cadillac Fairview.
Since 1997, and the formation, with his father, of Bonk Productions
he has been producing, promoting and distributing his own special
style of music. My World carries this journey
on with eleven interesting tracks that are certain to find a
place on the adult contemporary scene. The listener is immediately
engaged by the extremely bright start that the title track makes.
It’s a Latin flavored piece that displays a tight beat
throughout and settles into an excellent melody. Track #2, ‘This
Is It’ is of slower tempo, incorporates production of a
quality that prevents the strong back beat from becoming overpowering
and really builds to a climax. The first vocal contribution
is heard on track #4 with Ron Scott doing the honors on ‘If
This Is Love’, a rock ballad with good lyrics and nice
overall feel that deserves to make it a winner.
‘Looking In’ (#5), and ‘What I Never Said’ (#9)
are what can be classed as routine pieces of smooth jazz guitar but are
none the worse for it. ‘Wiggle’ is at #6 and that’s
just what Bonk does with deft playing on what is an out and out feel
good number while the lower key ‘Third Time’ has nostalgia
running right through it, an evocation of something lost, or perhaps
something rediscovered.
Ron Scott features again on track #8 with a cover of ‘Nights
On Broadway’, which is fine, but then again there will
only ever one Bee Gees. ‘Centre Tone’, an up temp
jazz flavored tune, features another vocal, this time by Shelley
Hamilton, while the album closes out with ‘Waiting For
Winter’, a sleepy sitting by the fire side piece that leaves
a warm feeling inside.
In 2003 Jamie became a contributing editor for NewAgeReporter.com.
His artist-to-artist conversation series has featured many top
name artists in the contemporary instrumental genre. It’s
a long hard climb in the ultra competitive environment of smooth
jazz guitar to get up there with those leading stars. With My
World Jamie Bonk is staking a claim to his very own
place in the top flight.
Denis Poole - Smooth
Jazz Vibes (December, 2004) |
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