Looking forward to another gig tonight with the Len Aruliah Quartet at El Barrio.
Len has a book of new tunes and some Kenny Wheeler compositions as usual. Stan Taylor on drums, Tommy Babin on bass. Tommy and Stan can get quite rambunctious as a rhythm section so it should be a lot of fun.
I met Tommy in Montreal in 1998 when I was there auditioning for the MMus program at McGill. Tommy already knew Len, who was also living in Montreal then, and Len arranged for Tommy and a drummer (either Karl Jannuska or Claude Laverne, can't remember which...) to play on my audition. The audition was successful and I thought I'd be heading to McGill, but greener pastures in Oregon seemed more appealing to my wife (we just got married a few months before) so we didn't go to Montreal.
A few years after I returned to Vancouver, Tommy came out here as well, following his wife Tamara, who had just got a faculty job at SFU. He called me up and we played a gig that very week. Since then we've been pretty regular collaborators in a variety of different bands: East Van Jazz Orchestra, Djangophilia, Koan, Len's band etc.... He is a marvelous player with a very aggressive and powerful time feel and right-hand attack plus a very fluid and seemingly effortless technique and flow of ideas.
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