What: David Vest
Where: Hermann’s Jazz Club, 753 View St.
When: Saturday, April 7, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $25
Rockabilly. Gospel. Honkytonk. Boogie woogie. David Vest tackled these styles and more on his new self-titled recording — and he did so in Victoria, with a core of Vancouver Island players, for a Victoria-born record label.
The Victoria singer-pianist was urged to look locally by Nanaimo drummer Billy Hicks, who co-produced David Vest for Cordova Bay Records, the local imprint that will issue the recording on April 20. “I recorded three straight albums in Toronto, but it was time to come home and get my West Coast homies in on the action,” Vest said of the recording, which he will celebrate on Saturday with a release party at Hermann’s Jazz Club. “They are the band I play with all the time, and people were asking me when they were going to be on a record.”
Another relatively new facet for Vest was the use of acoustic bass. On each of his recordings since 2000, Vest had used a traditional electric bass, but recent gigs with upright bassist Ryan Tandy — a notable name in the Victoria jazz community — gave him the idea to get Tandy in the studio “and turn him loose,” Vest said.
“I don’t see the point in hiring musicians if you’re not going to let them play. Micromanaging every note? I’m not interested in that, I’d rather have a good time and play music.”
The transplant from Birmingham, Alabama — who moved to Victoria in 2004 — always seems to have a good time playing music. From the 1960s, a time that saw him open for Roy Orbison and join the backing band for rock ’n’ roll pioneer Big Joe Turner, to the present, where he tours internationally, Vest has always lived a by a simple credo. “I’m an ordinary person having a good time playing music. Which is what it’s all about for me. Always has been.”
He does well in Canada. In fact, Vest could be considered among the top blues pianists in the category, with four wins for piano player of the year at Toronto’s Maple Blues Awards since 2012. His music comes from a pure place, which makes him a favourite of his peers, as well. His family, on the other hand, seems less impressed by his career accomplishments and fawning press clippings. His two daughters jokingly call him a ‘living myth,’ rather than a living legend.
“You try and impress teenage girls with that stuff, you’re out of luck,” Vest said with a laugh.
With nearly 60 years as a professional player, Vest has outlived many of his mentors. He has grown accustomed to the heartbreak, but vowed early in his career to keep an even keel where that was concerned. Musicians who got their start in the hard-scrabble U.S. South, during the 1940s, were never meant for the long haul. Big Joe Turner, his mentor and employer for several years, was a rare exception; he died in 1985 at the age of 74.
“I often reflect on how fortunate I am to have gotten to do this in the first place, and to still be doing it. I one day started making a mental list of all the wonderful folks I played with who aren’t here anymore, and it got kind of somber and heavy. But that’s the way music is.”
Vest prefers to look at life and death in the music business with a pay-it-forward philosophy. “You play with people, you learn stuff, and they might learn something from you that you got from another guy. It’s passed down like that. I’ve always thought of music as a community. You could see it as a natural resource to plunder, as some people seem to. But it’s a community that you want to be a part of, that’s you’re proud to be invited into.”
The community in Canada quickly embraced Vest, and not simply because he’s one of the nicest guys going. He’s also respectful of those who laid the foundation in Canada, who kept the flame burning in a country with very little blues background. Vest counts himself a fan of Canadian artists such as Jack de Keyzer, Paul James and Suzie Vinnick, whose reputations preceded them. It’s a privilege to now call them friends, he said.
“I can’t stress this enough, I had no idea the depth and breadth and range of music talent in Canada. I knew the big names, and the most popular Canadian songs, but I didn’t realize that I could go anywhere in Canada and have world-class players and put a band together. If I go to Calgary, and I need a guitar player, there’s Tim Williams or Amos Garrett. And it’s like that across the country.”
When he tours North America, Vest sings the praises of his adopted hometown. He has seen Clarksdale, Mississippi, first-hand, and the so-named birthplace of the blues has not aged well, Vest said.
“You go down to Clarksdale, and it’s like an old ghost town theme park. There’s no actual music being made there. It’s a tourist thing, but it’s not a thriving local music scene. The past is glorious and wonderful, but where’s the music being played now?
“Canada has as big a claim as any place. I mean that. I knew I was going to stay the minute I set foot here. I feel like I came home. I really do. The first Maple Blues Award, I felt like they were saying: ‘Welcome to Canada, take a seat.’ When they kept on giving me awards, I felt like I had come to place where my music was being heard. The feedback I get is just incredible. It’s inspiring to have your music accepted and be embraced.”
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