Jessica Stuart always comes with strings attached. The perennial top-flight Toronto guitarist with the cascading hair appears everywhere in town from bars to concert halls and on stages around the world.
But last Saturday she returned to her favourite home base, The Tranzac Club in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.
Dozens of her friends and fans denied themselves the blessing of a dazzling summer afternoon to attend a very special celebration there: a retrospective of her unique, long-running series of concerts that required participants to create new Canadian songs.
Six years ago, Jessica initiated a monthly songwriters’ showcase, JS Presents, inviting individuals from her wide spectrum of professional connections to present their original compositions with the stipulation that each artist must debut one new song, and she challenged herself to do the same for every edition as well.
The concept endured through the COVID years, with a few hiatuses – first for a significant personal quest, documented in CBC’s short film, “Finding Fukue”, the story of her search for a childhood friend in Japan. Then there was a musical investigation into and a reconstruction of the elegant legacy of Canadian composer/songwriter Joan Beckow, culminating in a multi-disc collection, and a documentary entitled Unsung. And then there was her gigging life with a multitude of parallel talent vectors.
Most recently, her regular residency was onstage in the guitar chair of Mirvish Theatre’s production of Six: The Musical on King Street West, Toronto’s Broadway.
On Saturday, the event reached a milestone 50th episode, and Jessica took the opportunity to welcome her BFF from Vancouver, Zoe Thiessen, along with musician/painter Katey Morley and Katie DuTemple to an intimate and interactive opening set, as they shared renditions of each others’ songs, with the hostess adding wisps of harmony and encouragement.
For the second set, she then welcomed back many of the performers who had headlined earlier chapters of the series.
A retinue of club legends came to the stage for one song each, recreating songs that they had invented for her shows, or to provide commentary on the emotional level of the event at hand.
Charles Tilden, Chloe Watkinson, Harley Card, Erika Werry, Kobena Aquaa-Harrison, Joshua Lopez, and Andrea Kuzmich all provided a variegated display of lyrical affections with heartfelt performances on the piano or Jessica’s black Gibson, as a brimming tip jar, “The Jug of Generosity,” made the rounds through the crowd.
The final reward was experiencing the sense of community that has evidently crystallized around the ongoing miracle mixture of talent and dedication that the afternoon had re-invented once again, and the announcement that the series would be continuing next month and going forward with the apparently endless pool of committed creative artists that Jessica Stuart is capable of inspiring.
Episode 51 happens in August in its regular time slot on the third Saturday of each month (with singer/songwriter Doug
MacNaughton).
