POWELL ST. FEST
Keyboard ace Jason de Couto really gets around
The Powell Street Festival performer is one of the city’s most in-demand organists and piano players
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by Steve Newton
f you’ve ever gotten out and seen any local cover bands or jazz gigs in Vancouver, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard the piano, organ, or synth playing of Jason de Couto. He’s one of the most in-demand keyboardists in town, performing with such acts as Meridian, Rain City 6, Side One, and the Steely Dan tribute band Steelin’ In the Years, plus various formations of his own organ trio. He’s also been a sideman for Gabriel Mark Hasselbach and Goby Catt, shared the stage with Cory Weeds, Jodi Proznick, and Bill Runge, and performed at the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the Harmony Arts Festival, the Illuminares Festival, and the Vancouver Writers Festival. And this weekend (July 30 and 31), he’ll be playing two shows at the Powell Street Festival. The guy really gets around. “I find myself kind of straddling two worlds in the local music scene,” says de Couto, on the line from his South Van home near Fraser and 41st. “One is kind of in the jazz-funk and creative kinda music, which I really love and is almost more like passion projects, and then I’m in the more, I suppose, lucrative world of event-band playing as well. “I’ve played with a lot of different cover bands,” he adds, “and right now I’m in a couple that I really enjoy. The one that I’m really proud to be a part of, that I just kind of have made my way into in the last couple of years, is a band called Side One. I just really, really like working with them because they’re so professional and so well organized, and they pay very fairly. And they seem to really respect the musicians that play with them.” De Couto—who has been teaching music for 15 years at a variety of elementary and secondary schools in Metro Vancouver and who will be an instructor this fall at Lord Byng secondary—has been making music most of his life. He grew up in a household where his parents avidly encouraged it. “I noticed early on that it was something that really resonated with me and was something that was really important for me,” he says. “Obviously, on an emotional and spiritual—and, I guess, psychological—level, it hit me hard. But also on a biological level. I’m on the spectrum of perfect pitch, so it was one of those things where, in taking my piano lessons early on, I was always able to just pick up things a little bit quicker, especially the ear-training exercises and stuff. I kinda realized that there was just something there, within me.” By age five, de Couto was studying piano at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and he grew up playing classical music,
Jason de Couto teaches music to local high-school kids, but he’s best known for adding his impressive keyboard skills to a wide range of local bands and artists, like his own d.A.B. Trio.
I find myself kind of straddling two worlds in the local music scene. – Jason de Couto
but by the time he was in high school in the early ’90s, his musical interests took an abrupt turn. “I was really getting into rap music and hip-hop,” he explains, “and as I got into high school, I got deeper and deeper into trying to learn about where the samples were coming from in a lot of the stuff that I was listening to. Because, as you may know, a lot of the hip-hop music from that era just did some really creative things with sampling in those days, and I remember being really intrigued by a lot of the musical aspects of it. Then I got into actually deejaying and record collecting and started realizing that a lot of the music that was being sampled was from
these old jazz and funk records. “So that really piqued my interest, and then I realized, ‘Oh, well, maybe that might be a new direction for me with my piano playing,’ because I liked classical playing but I didn’t love it. By late in high school, it started to get a little dry for me, and jazz, on the other hand, seemed so exciting and riveting.” De Couto’s newly discovered love of jazz led him to study at Capilano College and earn a bachelor of music degree in jazz studies, with a focus on jazz piano. “It was a really good experience,” recalls de Couto, whose latest music purchase was the McCoy Tyner Trio’s 1995 album Infinity. “And not only was it great for the course
content and the musical content, but it was also great as a beginning hub for networking. I think a lot of students who go through Capilano will acknowledge that, that it’s a great place to meet like-minded people and really start getting gigs.” Hundreds of gigs later, de Couto is setting his sights on his next one, which will see his d.A.B. Trio—featuring him on Hammond B-3 organ, with guitarist Alvin Brendan and drummer Bernie Arai—performing at the Powell Street Festival this Saturday (June 30). The next day, de Couto will be notching another festival gig in Oppenheimer Park, backing up local indiepop singer Kaya Kurz. De Couto has played in organ trios with Arai and Brendan before, but never with all three of them together, so there will no doubt be a fresh, adventurous vibe to the combo’s mix of jazz, funk, pop, Latin, and blues music, with influences ranging from organists Jimmy Smith, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Jimmy McGriff to de Couto personal faves such as Larry Goldings, Sam Yahel, and Joey DeFrancesco. “I use the Powell Street Festival shows as an opportunity to do something new,” he points out, “or to at least work with musicians that I haven’t normally worked with. And the Powell Street Festival is a place where they are advocating and supporting musicians and people of Asian-Canadian backgrounds, so I do try to make an effort to create groups that will celebrate that. So obviously Bernie Arai is Japanese, and Alvin Brendan is of Filipino descent.” Brendan is a younger up-and-coming guitarist, whereas music veteran Arai might be as in-demand as a drummer on the local scene as de Couto is as a keyboardist. “I find Bernie is an incredibly musical drummer,” de Couto raves. “Very creative. Definitely a force to be reckoned with. He’s somebody who listens very intently, so it’s kind of fun playing with him because he’s very interactive, and sometimes when I’m watching him while we’re playing together he’ll be very expressive not only in his playing but in his facial features. So he’ll shoot me a smile if there’s something he likes, or maybe laugh at something that goes a little unexpected. I really respect him on a lot of levels, not only as a musician but as a human. And he’s a dad as well.” g Jason de Couto’s d.A.B. Trio performs at the Powell Street Festival’s Street Stage, at the intersection of Jackson Avenue and Alexander Street, on June 30 at 1:15 p.m. De Couto will also be playing with Kaya Kurz at the festival’s Diamond Stage in Oppenheimer Park on July 31 at 5:30 p.m. See the full festival schedule at www.powellstreetfestival.com.
JULY 28 – AUGUST 4 / 2022
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
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