Tunnel Six

Hello and welcome to the site of Tunnel Six, a new collaborative jazz project featuring up-and-coming musicians from Eastern Canada and the Pacific Northwest U.S.  The band completed an extensive Canadian-American tour in May of 2010, blog entries and photos from that tour can be found below.

At the end of that tour, we recorded a new full-length album which will be released on Seattle-based Origin Records in May of 2011 with an accompanying Western Canada tour.  Stay tuned for more details coming soon!

Well it’s been about a week since we all departed from Portland, with great fatigue and a sense of accomplishment, to go to our respective homes.  Since then, we’ve been asleep, recovering from the excessive driving, but now having reawakened, here are some thoughts and pictures to wrap up the account of our tour here on the site.

After our much-needed day off in Seattle, which featured lots of salmon-eating and microbrew-drinking, and clouds (of course), we proceeded northward to Vancouver where, after a relatively simple border crossing, we met up with another Banffer, Meredith Bates, a violinist, who provided excellent hospitality.  After a large afternoon sushi feast, we headed down to the Cellar, one of our favorite rooms on the tour, where we played a couple of high-energy sets for a really enthusiastic and raucous crowd, which was refreshing after a couple of subdued gigs in a row.  We really enjoyed the city too, and were sad to leave quickly the next day to hit the road one last time to Portland.

Upon our (rain-filled) arrival in Portland, we were treated to a great meal by my friend Colin’s parents, who also graciously put up a couple members of the band.  We then proceeded to hit the studio the following morning for what essentially amounted to a setup day, then headed over to the Old Church for a concert that night.  Though we were all quite tired, the concert turned out to be really fun and we really loosened up a bit and started interacting in some new and fun ways that hadn’t necessarily happened throughout the tour.

The next day, which was the final day of the tour, was quite lengthy but really rewarding as we laid down studio versions of all the material we’d worked up over the course of the tour.  We’ll be mixing and mastering soon, and we’ll be releasing the new album on Origin Records early next year.  And, just as abruptly as it had begun, everyone flew off the next morning and it was over!

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us, put us up, contributed money to our toonie campaign, or anything else that I’m forgetting to make this tour a success, it was even better than we could have hoped and we’re really looking forward to one (or maybe even more) tours in 2011 in support of our new album!  We’ll keep you posted on here and by email about happenings in the mean time, and once we finish sorting through all the gig recordings, we’ll post a few highlights too.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the last few days of the tour, enjoy:

at the Space Needle in Seattle

at Tula’s in Seattle

Meredith eats sushi and explains the universe

final border crossing

Bob Stark, engineer

See you next year!

We’ve arrived in Seattle, where we played a nice show last night at Tula’s Jazz Club, and now we have one of the only days off of the whole tour, which is MUCH needed as we gear up for Vancouver, Portland, and our album recording this weekend!

We’re really enjoying the Northwest, we visited Pike Place Market today and bought some great salmon, which we are about to eat!  Here are some recent photos now that the internet is of decent speed:

Waking up in Canmore

The return of Tunnel 6 to the Banff Centre!

Edmonton

Tyson in the Yardbird Suite Green Room

Ferries!

At Tula’s.  Photos by Jim Levitt

Gearing up for Vancouver tomorrow and Portland on Friday!  See you there!

Well we’re really blasting across North America here in MOOSE WARRIOR!  We’re in the van so internet is somewhat slow and pictures are not uploading properly.  I will update with pictures later today.  Meanwhile, a brief recap of the past few days:

We rolled into Calgary on Thursday after a lengthy drive across the plains.  We played a nice though poorly attended gig at the BeatNiq, mostly due to a freak snowstorm (which actually is still dumping snow on Calgary – more on that in a minute).  The room and people were nice and it was certainly a good stop which we hope to repeat next time, but without the horrendous weather!

The next morning we played our “homecoming” gig at the Banff Centre, during their lunch break.  It was awesome to be back there and see Dave Douglas and some other good friends of ours who were back from last year.  We then blasted north to Edmonton for an amazing gig at YardBird Suite, one of the finest jazz clubs any of us has ever played.  It’s all volunteer run, they have amazing gear, a great piano, a highly attentive audience, and they treated us amazingly.  It was certainly the best gig of our tour so far, and we really hope to have the chance to play there again!

Since then, we’ve been driving constantly and are about to arrive at the West Coast at last for what promises to be a really nice gig tonight at the Sunshine Coast Arts Center, the kickoff for the Gibson’s Landing Jazz Festival.  We’re very excited to have finished up our last super-long drive, now we just have some short drives and ferries for the rest of the tour!  Huzzah!

More pictures and audio from Edmonton coming very soon!  Cheers y’all…

Well we’re blasting across Saskatchewan here on our way to Calgary and the West Coast!  We’ve just posted some new press from Brandon, Seattle, and Ottawa on the “Press” page, so check it out when you have a chance.  We received an especially nice feature in the Brandon Sun for our concert last night.

Meanwhile, we’re looking forward to the Alberta and BC gigs in the next few days, especially our return to the Banff Centre tomorrow morning for a brief visit and performance at noon.  More soon!