CKUA staff and alumni find so many ways to make music

It’s a well-known fact that many members of the CKUA staff, and the loosely knit and unofficial CKUA alumni association, have exceptional creative talents on the musical side of things, that go well beyond programming music or producing shows for the Network.


Fine musicians have been part of the CKUA make-up for decades now, and those individuals have collectively cut a swath through all genres of music. A generation that was listening to CKUA in the fifties will remember the voice of one Robert Goulet, who was an announcer at the station before making his way back to the U.S. to seek his fame and fortune. Marc Vasey, who was a galvanizing force on the live jazz scene as a promoter and producer, was a trumpet player, while a little known piece of trivia concerns Holger Petersen, who was the original drummer in Hot Cottage. The list goes on.

Our current staff strongly reflects those artistic impulses. If it’s singers you want, let’s begin with our receptionist Erica Gayler who is firmly entrenched in the a cappella scene.

Diane Donovan’s love of song goes far beyond seeking out the finest recorded performances of jazz vocalists of the last 75 years, as the ex-Edmontonian was one of the most popular jazz vocal stylists in the city before she relocated to Austin, Texas a few years ago.

Of course there is Lark Clark who was the sparkplug in the vocal group Juba for years, where she her own world spinning as that ensemble was solidly plugged into African music. I’ll never forget David Ward hosting a pretty cool road show that was built around the music of O Brother Where Art Though and Craig Korth is simply one of the best
banjo players in the land.

Our good friend Orest Soltykevych is either singing in or conducting choirs, and between his commitment to those endeavors and his career that finds him inspiring kids in the school system, it’s a wonder he has time to program classical music for three hours every Saturday morning.

Hang out in the hallways of CKUA and in the time it takes to drink half a cup of coffee you could put together a pretty good roots band, acoustic or electric, as rhythm sections are easy to come by.

In the drum chair we have either Grant Stovel who has played with his fair share of national and regional blues and roots champs, from Sue Foley and Big Dave McLean to Jim Guiboche and The Swiftys. If you want double drum duty go no further than our resident tech producer Paul "Duke" Paetz who careened back and forth across this country, in a fashion that would make film director Bruce McDonald proud. Duke was in not one, but two high wire rock and roll bands, Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra and Jr. Gone Wild. Tony King is our resident bass player.

Of course, there is our librarian Monica Grove who is known to open her violin case from time to time and serenade friends and family.

Putting an exclamation mark on the troupe is the guitar playing singer Lionel Rault who has probably stood on as many Alberta stages as any musician on the scene in the last 40 some years.

So given the history and collective talents of CKUA staff past and present, it isn’t a shock that Don Berner, the former host of A Time For Jazz, has fashioned one of the best Canadian jazz albums of the year with the recent release of Live At The Beatniq.


The alto sax player/composer has been leading a superior ensemble under the Don Berner Sextet banner and this is one hot band where members tear through the charts while staying on the same page at all times.

Comprised of eight compositions, the Live At The Beatniq recording is a complete team effort from the saxophonist/ bandleader, award-winning drummer Sandro Dominelli, Berner’s trumpet blowing brother Doug, bassist Marc Beaudin, keyboard player Rob Thompson and trombonist Audrey Ochoa, who incidentally is also the bandleader’s wife.

Berner confirmed that everything heard on the set was “written for the project, with the exception of Thank You Very Much”, which comes from the book belonging to respected west coast jazz man Hugh Fraser.

“You can hear that all the performances are intense but there is a shift in tone from piece to piece. For instance Marc’s Number 22 has a Latin flavor but we rock it out on Hugh’s piece,” says Berner who, speaking of intense, took the ensemble to Calgary last summer for seven shows in three days. It was the final show of the seven that was documented, and the 70 or so minutes of music on the disc was culled from three hours of recorded material.

Berner himself has two compositions that made the final cut, one being The Road To Banff and another titled Gabriels’ Horns. The former swings out of the gate as a feisty solo from Ochoa gives way to Berner who places a warm, spirited tone on top of the piece, that comes across as a sure fire crowd pleaser.

“What is very gratifying about this project is that it really does feel like a team, which you don’t always get when everyone is committed to other projects and there are long periods when we are not able to work together,” says Berner who will be presiding over
official release party concerts in early 2011. The sextet returns to the Beat Niq for a two night stand Feb. 18 and 19, the band hits the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton Feb. 26 before taking the full bodied, layered sound to the Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver on March 3.

The sponsors that supported Berner, those being the Beat Niq, CKUA, First Alberta Financial and The Copperpot Restaurant, put their resources behind a very worthwhile project that is already getting attention from major jazz programmers across the country.

Live At The Beat Niq from the Don Berner Sextet will be available in Edmonton at indie stores like Blackbyrd and the Gramophone for the holiday shopping season and in HMV’s as of January 1.

Who in the extended CKUA musical family is up next for a release?