Well it’s spring again, which means its time for us here at Tunnel Six to reunite for our THIRD (!) spring Western Canada/US tour.  We’re really looking forward to playing together again.  We’ll have brand-new tunes and we’ll be recording the last 4 gigs of the tour for a new live album to be released later this year (or possibly early next year).  Our itinerary will start in one of our favorite places, Gibsons BC where we’ll play at the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival.  From there we’ll go out to Alberta for a few days and then back to Vancouver and Nanaimo before heading to the U.S. to play in Washington and Oregon.  Full details are at the “Performances” page and you can read our full press release here.  Hope to see you this June!

Welcome to the site of Tunnel Six, a Canadian-American collective jazz sextet.  We’ve been playing together since 2009 when we all met at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada.

We had a great year in 2011 starting off with the release of our debut album “Lake Superior” on OA2 records (see link in right sidebar!) and an accompanying Western Canada tour with performances in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, Gibsons, and Roberts Creek.  We even had some legitimate band photos taken in the Sunshine Coast (see above!)

We traveled out to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in July to perform at the Halifax Jazz Festival and the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival in St. John’s, NL.  It was many of our first times out in Eastern Canada and we had a wonderful time.

We’ve also gotten some attention in the past month on several end-of-year lists from emusic (right ahead of Brittany Spears!) and All About Jazz.  Several more publications have reviewed our album including All Music Guide, Cadence, and a full review at emusic as well.

Thanks to everyone for your support and we’re really looking forward to lots of good music in 2012, we’re planning a western Canada tour which will also reach down into Washington and Oregon and hopefully a fall tour in Ontario as well!  You can always find us over at Facebook as well.  Cheers and happy new year to everyone.

Also, we finally have some new band photos from a great shoot in the Sunshine Coast with Raquel Fors:

We were very excited to return to the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton, one of the greatest clubs in all of Canada run by one of the most amazing jazz societies anywhere.  They even had  a nice feature in their program:

Then began the long drive westward through the Rockies and Cascades:

Ending at last in a suburb of Vancouver (the blurriness of the photo reflects our mental state at the time):

Then we moved on to one of our favorite areas, the Sunshine Coast (off the coast of Vancouver).  Ferries and great natural scenery greeted us:

We had some great times in Gibsons and Roberts Creek, and played a wonderful concert at a small recording studio for an amazing audience, where we also gave a community improvisation workshop earlier in the day to a wide diversity of instrumentalists (5 fiddles, drums, voice, harmonica, and piano), which was really a positive experience for us and the participants.

Coming soon, the “Tunnel Mountain” music video…

We were very lucky to be able to stay at a great timeshare courtesy of Chad’s family.  They treated us very well despite our lengthy rehearsals in the main recreation room:

We played a couple of “secret” gigs at restaurants in Canmore to get warmed up for the tour.  The first one was at a very wood-filled place called the Iron Goat, with great food and a view of the epic mountains:

The following evening we played at an amazing Spanish restaurant called Tapas, where we were absolutely stuffed with extremely fine food and drink and had a generally great time.  Despite our best efforts, more food and drink kept mysteriously appearing, resulting in a fantastic evening for all:

Yesterday we decided to make the first Tunnel Six music video.  More on that very soon, but here’s a couple of images to whet your appetite, as it were:

We played a fun but somewhat turbulent gig at the BeatNiq in Calgary last night.  We debuted new songs by Chad and Brian, which went very well, and had a pretty good and relatively full house too!

Now we’re on our way to Edmonton where we’re playing at the Yardbird tonight!  See below for the really nice preview from the Edmonton Journal.  More to come!

Tunnel Six jumps into jazzMost of the time they’re spread all over the continent, but ever since the musicians of Tunnel Six met about two years ago, they have shared a special simpatico that continues to grow.

“We come from somewhat different backgrounds and from all over the country,” notes trumpeter Chad McCullough. “I think that’s one of the strong points of the band, but we also have a very similar musical esthetic. Even though we write very different tunes, they all seem to have the same vibe.”

He sums up their sound as strongly melodic contemporary jazz. The three Canadians and three Americans met as participants in the 2009 Banff Centre International Jazz Workshop. Trumpeter McCullough (based in Seattle) is joined by saxophonist Ben Dietschi (Toronto), guitarist Brian Seligman (Toronto), pianist Andrew Oliver (Portland), bassist Ron Hynes (Halifax), and drummer Tyson Stubelek (New York). All six contribute compositions.

Their name Tunnel Six refers to the Tunnel Mountain that rises behind the Banff Centre, and that’s not their only play on place names. When the group reunited last year for a cross-continent tour, they had one particularly satisfying, if chilly soak after being cooped up in a van for many hours. In memory of jumping into that lake, the album they recorded at the end of that tour is titled Lake Superior.

That all-original collection of tunes has just been released. “That tour really had a huge effect in helping us sort out our musical directions. We like to break down some of the traditional roles of instruments,” McCullough explains, “like using the guitar as another horn, or at other times, like a piano.”

Tunnel Six will perform tunes from the CD Lake Superior and newer works when they hit the stage at the Yardbird Suite (102nd Street at 86th Avenue) Saturday at 9 p.m. Tickets are $18 for members, $22 for guests, from Ticketmaster (780-451-8000) or at the door.

Tyson, Chad and myself (Andrew) started 2 days ago in Portland, where we discovered that the station wagon was in fact too small for the amount of gear we had…somehow made it work however:

After that somewhat uncomfortable short trek to Vancouver, we had a long day of driving yesterday all the way out through the Rockies (in all their still-snowy glory) and picked up everyone else at the Calgary Airport.  We enjoyed a nice morning in Canmore and enjoyed the excellent weather:

Not too much else to report, but we’re really excited to be working on some brand new music and hitting the road again!  Brian and Tyson are tweeting as well, there is a widget to the right, and of course you can find us on Facebook as well.  We’ll have some more pictures from official tour documenter Tyson very soon.

Last year in Canmore

We’re gearing up for our 2011 Western Canada CD Release Tour coming up in just a week!  It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since our last tour, and we’re very much looking forward to getting to play together again. We’ll be getting ready to bring you some fine music with a few days of rehearsal in Canmore, Alberta, not far from where we all met in Banff.  We’ve posted some new tracks from last year’s tour for your listening pleasure as well, there are now a total of 6 over at our Bandcamp site, which you can access to the right.

We’ll be updating the site with pictures and info as the tour progresses so stay tuned.  Meanwhile enjoy the tunes and see you very soon!