Brian Jantzi & The Lost Mariachis
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada | Established. Jan 01, 2010 | SELF
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The Music City North collection of artists who’ve been appearing fairly regularly at TO’s Free Times Café and elsewhere are stepping up their game this spring.
They offered several shows in April and have a full slate in May, including a May 8-12 festival at several venues. Tonight they have four acts at Free Times, and Thurs., May 2 have a show at Graffiti’s that includes The Jessica Stuart Few and also features versatile Folk artist Brian Jantzi with a slew of talented accompanists that includes Harpin’ Norm Lucien and Glen Gary. - Toronto Moon Magazine, Gary17 Publisher/Reviewer
The Music City North collection of artists who’ve been appearing fairly regularly at TO’s Free Times Café and elsewhere are stepping up their game this spring.
They offered several shows in April and have a full slate in May, including a May 8-12 festival at several venues. Tonight they have four acts at Free Times, and Thurs., May 2 have a show at Graffiti’s that includes The Jessica Stuart Few and also features versatile Folk artist Brian Jantzi with a slew of talented accompanists that includes Harpin’ Norm Lucien and Glen Gary. - Toronto Moon Magazine, Gary17 Publisher/Reviewer
It may sound kind of risque and conjurs up images of Fleetwood Mac when you tell people you’re going to a show at which musicians will be “swapping covers”. But in truth, while it may be somewhat musically risky, the show that you can expect Brian Jantzi and his Lost Mariachis troupe of fellow songwriters plan to stage while doing that at Graffiti’s (170 Baldwin St. in Kensington Market) 7:30-10 or later on Wed. June 12 is not really salacious.
Jantzi has a fetish for doing tunes by other songwriters he actually knows personally and always includes a number of their tunes in his repertoire. Usually those who play with him catch the spirit too, so you often end up at one of his shows seeing a group of musicians doing one another, so to speak… - Toronto Moon Magazine, Gary17 Publisher/Reviewer
November 28, 2012.
" It’s not very often that I book someone to do a feature set at my Wed. 8-1 open stage at Hirut (2050 Danforth Ave.) after hearing them just once, but that’s how impressed I was with the performance that Roots-Pop songwriter Brian Jantzi delivered last week at the event. In addition to his own very skillfully crafted originals, Jantzi did tunes by other local artists I admire, and has made that a feature of previous showcases he’s done of late —most notably the “in the round” show he did with Peter Eastmure and Zoe Henderson on Nov. 20, where they each did some of the others’ tunes.
In addition to songs written by them, when he does the feature set for my open stage tonight you can expect him to include at least one tune by Herb Dale, whose own Thurs. open stage at Dave’s On St. Clair functions as a kind of songwriters’ salon each week. Backing him up for the 10 p.m. feature will be guitarist James Sloan and Norm Lucien on harp.
Jantzi tells me he'll also be bringing along and performing a few songs with his bouzouki! So this set should certainly feature quite a variety of sounds and vibes! " - Toronto Moon Magazine, Gary17 Publisher/Reviewer
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Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
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LONG VERSION
Brian Jantzi is a world folkie who aspires to one day being booed at Newport. His performances and style -- both solo and with his band The Lost Mariachis of Pancho Villa -- have been likened to Lou Reed meets Murray McLaughlan, Neil Young and the Byrds somewhere in Central Asia - a feeling somewhat reminiscent of the spirit of John Fahey or the Incredible String Band.
He began his singing career in the '50s as a toddler in the bathtub wailing out tunes like Volare (Dean Martin) and Battle of New Orleans (Johnny Horton). Early tub crooning included songs by Patti Page, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, The Louies (Armstrong, Prima & Jordan), Ricky Nelson, Sheb Wooley and a couple of Chipmunks.
Brian was born at Salvation Army's Grace Hospital in Toronto of Mennonite- & Irish-Canadian parents. He spent his earliest pre-Bohemian days on St.Nicholas Street hugging the northern red oak trees at Queen's Park. Early years were spent in Old Cabbagetown, and formative years in South Riverdale and industrially polluted Leslieville areas of Toronto.
Summers spent with grandparents in North Bay, Ontario, were immersed in the sounds of Irish music, Canada's north, French-Canadian & Maritime tunes, dancing jigs & reels, Western music, Tin Pan Alley, Rat Pack Vegas, US 78s from the 20s, 30s and 40s, and the two Hanks (Snow & Williams).
In the mid '60s, Brian joined 50-cent afternoons in the 3rd balcony at Massey Hall with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra rehearsing on stage -- and feeling the grand old hall breathe.
Brian sponged up ALL of that music from his early years. He credits a love of guitar to mid-60s mornings picking up a friend on the way to junior high. Brian would sit in that friend's living room every morning - intoning the mantras of a 45rpm record on continuous play: Shakin' All Over (by Chad Allen & The Expressions, aka The Guess Who). In Brian's world, Randy Bachmann was the one true god and his Gretsch, the holy grail. And then there was George Harrison -- Paperback Writer and Day Tripper broke that summer on the car radio; I Feel Fine was still on play. Harrison's Gretsch genius still shivers down Brian's Randy Bachmann back bone.... he's got the shakes in his thigh bones, he's got the shivers in his knee bone... Shakin' All Over.
Brian picked up the guitar in the late 60s with a Harmony f-hole archtop acoustic, learning by ear and from songbooks (such as Gordon Lightfoot & Bob Dylan) and by ear from many others. Within a few years, he was branching out to mountain banjo (w/ John Hartford, Pete Seeger & Jerry Garcia songs), and flute (w/ Moody Blues, Traffic & Fairport Convention songs). Brian's first record interests were Electric Ladyland - a dreamy jazz-folk-blues-rock double-record masterpiece by Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding and The Steve Miller Band's Brave New World. Serendipitously in '69, Brian acquired a friend's entire record collection, including the pre-68 Bob Dylan catelogue - inadvertently helping to finance the band Merryweather's Chevy migration to Los Angeles.
Brian's essential early live music and festival audience experiences included: The '68-71 Electric Circus (with Nucleus), The Toronto Rock & Roll Revival (Varsity Stadium, '69 - with everyone from Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Jerry Lee and Bo Diddley, to the Doors and John Lennon, playing), The Festival Express (Coronation Park '70 - a free concert hosted by The Grateful Dead and Eric Andersen), Frank Zappa & The Mothers, Ravi Shankar, Gordon Lightfoot, Jesse Winchester, The Good Brothers, Max Webster, and endless pub crawls starting at The Embassy, Pilot and down Yonge St. to Gasworks and all ending at The Nickelodeon with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks (Bill Dillon on Rickenbacker guitar!), and miscellaneous Garcia-Saunders-Fogerty Band (at the Keystone, Berkeley California '75), Bob Dylan & The Band (Maple Leaf Gardens,'74-76). The range and roster in the 80s and 90s was long. Both both JJ Cale and Buddy Guy signed Brian's Fender Stratocaster in the early 90s.
Brian credits his vision of how he wanted to live his musical soul to a warm Christmas day he spent in the audience with The Perth County Conspiracy at Bathurst Street United Church (1971) -- a spontaneous, multi-instrumental jam session involving a dozen kindred musician spirits, who also shared a beautiful meal with the audience. Brian had the pleasure and honour in 2011 of thanking Cedric Smith for that evening of presence and inspiration so long ago.
Brian learned his craft by ear, over time, playing with Central Tech friends Wally Matas and Bobby Lee. Then, while living out
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