Reno jack and Sunday wilde

 "Black Pearl blues -  I caught Sunday Wilde and  Reno Jack at the Arts Centre's coffee house a few  weeks ago, and their brief show for the Ontario Arts Council  luncheon a week earlier,  and was just simply blown away. 
   
Jack, a stage veteran (Herald Nix, Cadillac Bill and the Creeping  Bent, The Handsome Neds, The Tom Waits Appreciation Congregation, J.  P.. Wasson Band, High Lonesome), made his name playing the stand-up  bass, but the man certainly knows his way around the guitar, and his  growly vocals are perfect for the blues. 
   
Sunday is a newcomer to performance, and is a thrilling singer. She  'sings from her toes', putting it all out there on the line. It's  almost a shame to put a microphone in front of her - the raw power of  her voice and delivery is best appreciated live, and right in front of  you. Her voice is one made for the blues. She brings a dark power  reminiscent of Janis Joplin and Billie Holliday, and a flowing,  spontaneous musical inventiveness that harkens back to Ella Fitzgerald. 

Together these two have something special going on: vocally, they  complement one another perfectly, and the interplay of their voices  gives all the old standards a whole new feel." 

Mike McKinnon, Editor - Atikokan Progress

 "Black Pearl blues -  I caught Sunday Wilde and  Reno Jack at the Arts Centre's coffee house a few  weeks ago, and their brief show for the Ontario Arts Council  luncheon a week earlier,  and was just simply blown away. 
   
Jack, a stage veteran (Herald Nix, Cadillac Bill and the Creeping  Bent, The Handsome Neds, The Tom Waits Appreciation Congregation, J.  P.. Wasson Band, High Lonesome), made his name playing the stand-up  bass, but the man certainly knows his way around the guitar, and his  growly vocals are perfect for the blues. 
   
Sunday is a newcomer to performance, and is a thrilling singer. She  'sings from her toes', putting it all out there on the line. It's  almost a shame to put a microphone in front of her - the raw power of  her voice and delivery is best appreciated live, and right in front of  you. Her voice is one made for the blues. She brings a dark power  reminiscent of Janis Joplin and Billie Holliday, and a flowing,  spontaneous musical inventiveness that harkens back to Ella Fitzgerald. 

Together these two have something special going on: vocally, they  complement one another perfectly, and the interplay of their voices  gives all the old standards a whole new feel." 

Mike McKinnon, Editor - Atikokan Progress

People aren’t sure just what to expect when Sunday Wilde and Reno Jack take the stage. Dressed in sartorial and satirical splendour, she in black formal wear, highlighted by her grandmothers light catching brooch, he is in a light checkered sports jacket, tie and slacks, each looking like they belong in the time of their music, anywhere from tonight back to 1929.

The instrumentation is equally incongruous. A standup bass, that looks like it has been through a number of revolutions since it left Czechoslovakia in 1912, and a guitar tied to him with what looks like bandages from an Ivan Eyre painting?

Reno sets the crowd at ease in a laid back, somewhere in Canada, drawl. I guess if Salmon Arm had an accent this would be it, tinged with the cynicism of downtown Toronto and many, many years on the road.

Before we know it, they have gathered up and, just like the diving horses of the twenties and thirties, leapt from the precipice of expectation in to the full flood of Delta Blues, Female Black Jazz, original beat poetry and home grown Canadian back country railroad songs.

There was no telling from the outfits and the instruments that they were really a high wire act. The incongruity of two voices set against a solo upright bass, fades quicker than the brief intro, and we are caught up in the sincerity, depth and complete trust with which they exchange vocal riffs, rhythmic challenges and passionate attacks on music that has stood the test of time. At times eye to eye, at times without looking, they take great musical leaps into each others arms. No net, just a belief in the music and trust in each others intent.

Reno is not only an interesting instrumentalist on guitar as well as a virtuoso on the bass, but he seems to be a bit of a musicologist who can name the provenance and composer of the songs as well as the their place in musical history and the development of our ever changing social mores. Some of these, he tells us are a bit outrageous. The blend of historical challenge and modern day moral challenges, such as “My Baby’s Like Crack Cocaine” remind us that music isn’t wallpaper. It is part of the fiber of living, the sinew of reality, the grit in your minds eye.

Reno’s guitar, purchased form the prop department at the end of a movie, in lesser hands might sound as it looks, like an inexpensive small bodied Seagull six string, manufactured right here in Canada, Quebec to be exact. It isn’t clear if he plays it so damned well just to show up the American actor who refused to play it in the movie, “Cause he was a professional musician, don’t you know”, or that its voice just speaks out to him and he can’t help himself. “I heard it across the sound stage,” he says, by explanation, “and I said; now THAT’S A GUITAR.” And, in his more than capable hands, it sure as hell is. Like the bass, it is tuned to a note somewhere in his mind, not some electronic device devoid of feeling, understanding or musical intent. Time and pitch are neither static nor abstractly at a safe remove in this performance, they are bent and woven into the total of the whole. It’s like listening to someone making love next door, in a steamy hot motel room, on some lost southern summer bayou afternoon.

The audience didn’t know what to expect, but they sure didn’t expect to be sitting on the edge of their musical seats as the duo wound them ever tighter into the energy of their performance. Faces are intent; toes tap and lips mouth choruses heard for the first time just now. One needs to exercise great caution with this pair and their music. It is infectious and the infection is contagious.

All too soon the first set is over and Reno announces the break. You can almost hear the audience let out a collective breath just before they burst into enthusiastic applause.

The comments among the audience at the break run along the lines of; “These guys are amazing!” “What a voice she has!” “You’d think she was born on the Delta.” And perhaps most telling a member of the audience seeks out the musicians to say, “I have to tell you, I’m from Louisiana, and your music is making me homesick!” From the smile on his face we can see that this is a good thing. They shake hands and he makes his way back for a beer and to take his seat for the second act.

The second set moves ahead as quickly as the first. This time they are already warmed up and Sunday Wilde attacks her songs with an intensity that is all but physical. Her voice moves from pleading lyricism to growling determination. She moves like someone in a trance and follows her inner musical path with a writhing, twisting movement that takes her dipping, dancing and diving around her microphone, almost oblivious of the audience. Reno is her foil, taking a solid stand behind his invalid guitar, or assaulting his bass, in his own fit of passion. Love, hurt, triumph, despair, prayers and sexually loaded and coded tales of the thirties and t - Stewart Communications & House Concert Host

People aren’t sure just what to expect when Sunday Wilde and Reno Jack take the stage. Dressed in sartorial and satirical splendour, she in black formal wear, highlighted by her grandmothers light catching brooch, he is in a light checkered sports jacket, tie and slacks, each looking like they belong in the time of their music, anywhere from tonight back to 1929.

The instrumentation is equally incongruous. A standup bass, that looks like it has been through a number of revolutions since it left Czechoslovakia in 1912, and a guitar tied to him with what looks like bandages from an Ivan Eyre painting?

Reno sets the crowd at ease in a laid back, somewhere in Canada, drawl. I guess if Salmon Arm had an accent this would be it, tinged with the cynicism of downtown Toronto and many, many years on the road.

Before we know it, they have gathered up and, just like the diving horses of the twenties and thirties, leapt from the precipice of expectation in to the full flood of Delta Blues, Female Black Jazz, original beat poetry and home grown Canadian back country railroad songs.

There was no telling from the outfits and the instruments that they were really a high wire act. The incongruity of two voices set against a solo upright bass, fades quicker than the brief intro, and we are caught up in the sincerity, depth and complete trust with which they exchange vocal riffs, rhythmic challenges and passionate attacks on music that has stood the test of time. At times eye to eye, at times without looking, they take great musical leaps into each others arms. No net, just a belief in the music and trust in each others intent.

Reno is not only an interesting instrumentalist on guitar as well as a virtuoso on the bass, but he seems to be a bit of a musicologist who can name the provenance and composer of the songs as well as the their place in musical history and the development of our ever changing social mores. Some of these, he tells us are a bit outrageous. The blend of historical challenge and modern day moral challenges, such as “My Baby’s Like Crack Cocaine” remind us that music isn’t wallpaper. It is part of the fiber of living, the sinew of reality, the grit in your minds eye.

Reno’s guitar, purchased form the prop department at the end of a movie, in lesser hands might sound as it looks, like an inexpensive small bodied Seagull six string, manufactured right here in Canada, Quebec to be exact. It isn’t clear if he plays it so damned well just to show up the American actor who refused to play it in the movie, “Cause he was a professional musician, don’t you know”, or that its voice just speaks out to him and he can’t help himself. “I heard it across the sound stage,” he says, by explanation, “and I said; now THAT’S A GUITAR.” And, in his more than capable hands, it sure as hell is. Like the bass, it is tuned to a note somewhere in his mind, not some electronic device devoid of feeling, understanding or musical intent. Time and pitch are neither static nor abstractly at a safe remove in this performance, they are bent and woven into the total of the whole. It’s like listening to someone making love next door, in a steamy hot motel room, on some lost southern summer bayou afternoon.

The audience didn’t know what to expect, but they sure didn’t expect to be sitting on the edge of their musical seats as the duo wound them ever tighter into the energy of their performance. Faces are intent; toes tap and lips mouth choruses heard for the first time just now. One needs to exercise great caution with this pair and their music. It is infectious and the infection is contagious.

All too soon the first set is over and Reno announces the break. You can almost hear the audience let out a collective breath just before they burst into enthusiastic applause.

The comments among the audience at the break run along the lines of; “These guys are amazing!” “What a voice she has!” “You’d think she was born on the Delta.” And perhaps most telling a member of the audience seeks out the musicians to say, “I have to tell you, I’m from Louisiana, and your music is making me homesick!” From the smile on his face we can see that this is a good thing. They shake hands and he makes his way back for a beer and to take his seat for the second act.

The second set moves ahead as quickly as the first. This time they are already warmed up and Sunday Wilde attacks her songs with an intensity that is all but physical. Her voice moves from pleading lyricism to growling determination. She moves like someone in a trance and follows her inner musical path with a writhing, twisting movement that takes her dipping, dancing and diving around her microphone, almost oblivious of the audience. Reno is her foil, taking a solid stand behind his invalid guitar, or assaulting his bass, in his own fit of passion. Love, hurt, triumph, despair, prayers and sexually loaded and coded tales of the thirties and t - Stewart Communications & House Concert Host