Reid, John (Charles)

Reid, John (Charles) , Canadian jazz tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, flutist; b. Toronto, Ontario, Dec. 13, 1951. After playing with local rock bands in Calgary, he joined the 25-piece show group Stratus Faction in 1971, touring North America and performing on TV shows for CTV and CBC networks. He also toured with funk bands in the 1970s before completing his B.M. at the Univ. of Calgary in 1979. He has been leading his own jazz groups since 1974 when he was encouraged by teachers Phil Nimmons and Oscar Peterson to form a quartet to play for Jazz Radio Canda broadcast at the first annual Banff Centre Jazz Workshop. A stint with Alberta Culture took Reid to Edmonton (1980–81), where he played with Tommy Banks, George Blond-heim, Bob Stroup and others before returning to Calgary where gigs with the Saturday Pro Band gave him the opportunity to perform with guests Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Horn and Bob Brookmeyer. He has also done gigs behind Harry Connick Jr., Kenny Wheeler, Delia Reese, and Lou Rawls; in May 1991, he opened for Mel Torme at the Calgary Centre for Performing Arts. He was a member of the orch. that recorded music for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. He premiered his “Improvisation No. 1” for solo tenor saxophone for the New Works Calgary Society in September 1991. He is founder and past chairman of the Calgary International Jazz Festival and founding secretary and past president of the Jazz Calgary Society. His quartet is still active in Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Calgary. He began working on his M.A. in Jazz History and Research at Rutgers-Newark in 1998.

Discography

Island Shuffle (1993).

—Lewis Porter