Jamie Bonk

Fantastic news — thanks to all who voted for me and to KJAZZ Radio UK!

So sorry to hear about the death of Jack Bruce.  Some of the first music I remember hearing was Cream’s Disraeli Gears.  My Dad was working for Philips in the late 60’s and brought home the record on this newish format called a cassette.  I must have been four or so (I think it was 1968) and the album made a real impression on me.  I still think Disraeli Gears and Jack Bruce are amazing!  RIP.

Big thanks to Strawberry Jazz for adding me to their Oct. 1 playlist!

Just finished doing a liner for StrawberryJazz.com… Don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sound of my own voice.

Had an amazing time at the Handmade Guitar Showcase today!

Got to play an outstanding cross-over mandolin by Mario Beauregard (my friend Dave Barrett also got a chance to play the mando) and two brilliant guitars by Sheldon Schwartz. The instruments were fantastic, but equally as good was getting to spend some time the builders. Really smart, nice guys!

Probably the nicest thing though was getting to meet up with Peter Janson again and to meet Steve Davidson for the first time. Peter and Steve are on tour in the US right now and they had a day off, so they drove up from Rochester to the guitar show here in Toronto. Lots of fun listening to them play and to do some jamming with them! They’re playing in Pittsburg tomorrow night, so if you like first rate acoustic guitar music, please go and check them out!

Cool news! On the ReverbNation Jazz Chart, I’m currently #1 for Toronto and #5 for Canada!

Just like most people, I can very comfortably put my head in the sand. While I knew this day would come — I’ve been selling out of all of my CD titles — I was putting off making a decision about what to do about it. Should I press up more CDs or not?

Other than a few short run CDs for Necessity, my last few releases have been digital only (they were only available as a download), so you would think my decision would be an easy one. But it’s not. I put a huge amount of time into the CD format. Spent time learning about printing, pressing, shipping costs and learned a few hard lessons about distributors along the way too. I’m an indie, so I’ve also done a whole bunch (read thousands and thousands and thousands…) of packing up and mailing CDs. I guess you would call that skin in the CD game.

But the reality is, pressing up thousands of CDs in the current market is not an easy decision for me to make. And short run CDs are such a hassle — they cost a lot to make and they don’t play in every CD player. To top it off, I’m finding I’m endlessly busy these days doing non-creative stuff. That has to change and part of that change is stopping selling CDs. So I’m taking my head out of the sand — it’s all digital from here on out.

Here’s a new track I’m working on called Just A Thought. Not sure yet if I’m going to finish it off or not, but I think it has a nice vibe.

One of my favorite guitarists, Jamie Bonk, told me he intended to have a holiday music album out this year, but life intruded and he only got one track done. That’s a shame because it’s a great track (no surprise since it is Jamie Bonk we’re talkin ’bout here). The carol is “Noel” and features Bonk, his wife Sonya Mitlewski on keyboards and vocalist Wendy Irvine-Patel. For all intents and purposes, it’s really more of an instrumental as Irvine-Patel’s vocals are only heard singing the refrain. Bonk’s trademark breezy, jazz-inflected guitar flows through the 3:16 duration and wife Sonya’s keyboards flesh out the song nicely. The rendition fuses a touch of rock and jazz into the carol’s melody, but only strict purists would object to the variation. What we’re left with is the desire to hear much more from the Canadian guitarist. Come on, Jamie…give us a whole album next year, huh? The track is up on Bandcamp: http://jamiebonk.bandcamp.com/track/the-first-no-l

– reviewed by Bill Binkelman on 12/6/2013