Music T Friday: Oh the Divine Ms. Jones...

I'm always amazed by how seemingly random things turn out to have significance. Picking a music tee for today was a process centred mostly on "I'm wearing black slacks today. I don't want to wear a black tee as well". So I pulled out the Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings shirt I picked up at the Commodore Ballroom show in 2010. It's also a very nice fit still. At the time of the show, I was a contributing freelance photographer for the Guttersnipe website (rebranded The Snipe News a little while ago) and parked myself up close to the stage to get my shots in.

There are certain shows where the tableaus are the thing, where the act holds a still frame in the audiences mind, where there are certain iconic "flashbulb" moments. Those photog opportunities are all about timing, and have a generally satisfactory pay-off because if you can capture that one definitive picture, you've done your job. This was not one of those events. The SJDK performance was all movement, all energy, all power and verve and not at all suited to the fairly pedestrian still photography that I was capable of. Instead, it was all I could do to get a series of images in focus that might one day make a good flip-book recount of the evening. The gallery I submitted to Guttersnipe/The Snipe News is still up (sorry, the browsing function is a little slow) and still doesn't do justice to the fantastic performance Ms. Jones and her Kings put on for Vancouver. There are 26 pictures in the gallery. There are 153 in my Facebook album from that night.

The fangirl and Ms. Jones

The next day, the show was touted one of the best of the year by several industry friends and music concert aficionados, many who had attended with no idea what to expect of the show. The next time Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings played Vancouver, the show was in Malkin Bowl, an outdoor amphitheatre venue and Stanley Park came alive with their unique sound which claims the "territory between ’60s soul and ’70s funk".

Live video of "Let Them Knock" (2007)

I haven't followed the SJDK news over the last half year, being otherwise distracted by life events, so it was a sombre revelation to me today (in researching this post) to discover that, as of June 3, they had had to cancel their most recent tour appearances (and the August CD release) due to Ms. Jones seeking treatment for stage-one bile duct cancer. Her message to fans on the website was hopeful and spirited as the doctors had deemed her situation operable and curable. According to her Twitter-feed, she went in for the surgery on this past Tuesday. She was out the same day, all "tubed up" and tweeting on Wednesday and declaring Life to be good yesterday. Sincerely, I send her best wishes for a speedy and total recovery.

So, there you have it, a seemingly trivial morning shirt selection leads me to a contemplative post on life, cancer, and the joys of music - making it, appreciating it, photographing it. All our lives are all soundtracked by our internal orchestras. It's when we recognize our soundtrack in the music around us, in front of us, that we know we are where we are meant to be.

Cancer

So my own t-shirt collection proved me a liar today. Last week, at the Barenaked Ladies concert, I told the girl next to me (the one who had gestures to match the lyrics in the theme song for The Big Bang Theory) that I had seen the band perform live for the first time at the Juno Awards in 2008. I had forgotten that they had played at this benefit concert I attended in 2002. It was a heckuva a lineup that turned out in memory of the organizer's wife, who had lost her battle in 2001 and the night raised $1.5 million for the new cancer research centre in Vancouver.

Since Jeff and I got together, both of us have suffered losses in our life due to cancer. 

In my case, it was first a former vice-principal, Lorne Bodin, whose passing in January 2011 was not only a loss to his family, friends and colleagues but all the students he had taught and administered to over his far-too-short career. A lovely piece also ran in the Richmond News that captured nicely the emotion felt by those who knew Lorne, detailed some of the great things this good man had done in his life and outlines the legacy he left behind.

This summer, as I was seeing my friend Lesley and her daughter off to their train from Montreal to Kingston and preparing to catch a plane back to Vancouver, I was informed by my magic iPhone Facebook newsfeed that my friend Cheryl Hutcherson had also lost her battle. Standing on the train platform in the hot Quebec summer sun, I was chilled by the thought of a world without Cheryl's smile and laughter, her love for musical theatre emanating through every part of her life, her willingness to help and her always cheerful attitude to the world. She got me hooked on playing Farmville years ago (kicked the habit last New Year's) and I introduced her to the Dutch Wooden Shoe Cafe. Sadly, I was unable to attend her celebration of life, one that she had left detailed instructions for, because I was working that day but my thoughts were with her friends and family and my toe tapped a little, knowing that it would be a ceremony full of music and cheer.

In January 2012, Jeff's mentor and sensei, Les Nielsen, succumbed to cancer as well. Les was someone that everyone knew, in passing or in depth. He was the nephew of a more high-profile Les(lie) Nielsen who passed away of cancer a little more than a year before. A short and tender in memoriam was written by long-time Vancouver personality, Red Robinson, on his blog and Jeff and I decided when we were planning our wedding that we would like to donate the money earmarked for the groomsmen's boutonnieres to a cancer organization in his name. In addition, we would be taking donations at the ceremony to the cause as well.  

Which brings me to recent happenings: Yesterday, I got in contact with the BC Cancer Foundation by email and the Canadian Cancer Society by phone to find out how we would go about making the donation. Turns out that they are two very separate organizations. Who knew? We're not exactly sure yet how to decide where to donate or whether we should split the donation between the two agencies but hopefully we figure that out by springtime. It's hard to think about those who can't be there to share our day with us but we want to at least make the effort to share our day with their memory.