ARTIST
Perry, PJ
"...absolutely brilliant as a saxophone player."-Bobby Hales
December 02, 1941—
INSTRUMENTS Tenor Sax, Alto Sax
VENUES CBC Vancouver | Cellar, the
"I sorta feel like I come from Vancouver and also Alberta."
-PJ Perry
A premier saxophonist in North America, PJ Perry was fourteen years old when he started playing in his father Paul Perry's dance bands at Sylvan Lake, Alberta. Like PJ, bassist Bob Miller and drummer Jerry Fuller also spent their summers playing in Paul Perry's band at Sylvan Lake and their winters in Vancouver. "Those were the guys that actually started me playing jazz music," says PJ, who would listen to them jamming in the vacant dance hall during the daytime. "It was there that I said, 'What are they doing?', and 'Is that ever beautiful', and 'How did they do it?', and 'I've got to be a part of that scene,'" says PJ. "And I remember Bob Miller saying, 'Well, bring your horn and we'll teach you how to play jazz music.'"
"In those days and maybe still today... the visiting jazz musicians had time and cared enough about the young cats coming up that they would spend time with them and teach them things."
-PJ Perry
Back in Vancouver after the Labour Day weekend, "We would've come back to Vancouver... and gone, needless to say, straight to the Cellar," says PJ Perry, whose quartet with Bob Miller on bass, Jerry Fuller on drums, and Ray Sikora on trombone evolved from Sylvan Lake and became a stronghold on the Cellar scene. "It was a fabulous place to play and there were good musicians to learn from." Perry remembers the visiting jazz musicians who were brought into town to play at the Cellar such as Eddie Moore and particularly Thelonius Monk, who took young PJ aside one time, sat down at the piano, and showed him the melody and the changes to "My Old Flame." PJ remembers: "You'd go into a corner and he'd play four bars and you'd play four bars back... and the next thing you know, you'd learn the tune that way and thereby doing it that way never [forget] it. It's indelibly imprinted on your mind for years and years."
"There's a neverending series of musical adventures along the path."
-PJ Perry
Before continuing his career over the next two decades (moving from Toronto to Europe and then back to Edmonton) working extensively with many renowned musicians along the way including Ron Collier, Sonny Greenwich, Tommy Banks, and Slide Hampton, a highlight from PJ's Vancouver days was sitting in with Dizzy Gillespie at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 1962. PJ's performance was greeted with "a huge hometown applause." Perry smiles as he remembers what Leo Wright (Dizzy Gillespie's alto saxophonist) did after PJ played his solo. "I found that to be hilarious and beautiful. Leo Wright grabbed his flute and went, 'shoomp!' and pretended to shoot me with a dart. And the crowd cracked up again, of course." Years later, PJ played another concert with Dizzy Gillespie in Toronto. "Beautiful man, intelligent, caring, articulate, humorous, fabulous guy," Perry says as he remembers that night after the concert in Toronto. "Nobody had bothered to arrange a ride home for Dizzy Gillespie who, in my estimation, was God. So, needless to say, I offered him a ride, and my wife Rhonda and I took Dizzy Gillespie home in the car. And I'll never forget that."
-PJ Perry
A premier saxophonist in North America, PJ Perry was fourteen years old when he started playing in his father Paul Perry's dance bands at Sylvan Lake, Alberta. Like PJ, bassist Bob Miller and drummer Jerry Fuller also spent their summers playing in Paul Perry's band at Sylvan Lake and their winters in Vancouver. "Those were the guys that actually started me playing jazz music," says PJ, who would listen to them jamming in the vacant dance hall during the daytime. "It was there that I said, 'What are they doing?', and 'Is that ever beautiful', and 'How did they do it?', and 'I've got to be a part of that scene,'" says PJ. "And I remember Bob Miller saying, 'Well, bring your horn and we'll teach you how to play jazz music.'"
"In those days and maybe still today... the visiting jazz musicians had time and cared enough about the young cats coming up that they would spend time with them and teach them things."
-PJ Perry
Back in Vancouver after the Labour Day weekend, "We would've come back to Vancouver... and gone, needless to say, straight to the Cellar," says PJ Perry, whose quartet with Bob Miller on bass, Jerry Fuller on drums, and Ray Sikora on trombone evolved from Sylvan Lake and became a stronghold on the Cellar scene. "It was a fabulous place to play and there were good musicians to learn from." Perry remembers the visiting jazz musicians who were brought into town to play at the Cellar such as Eddie Moore and particularly Thelonius Monk, who took young PJ aside one time, sat down at the piano, and showed him the melody and the changes to "My Old Flame." PJ remembers: "You'd go into a corner and he'd play four bars and you'd play four bars back... and the next thing you know, you'd learn the tune that way and thereby doing it that way never [forget] it. It's indelibly imprinted on your mind for years and years."
"There's a neverending series of musical adventures along the path."
-PJ Perry
Before continuing his career over the next two decades (moving from Toronto to Europe and then back to Edmonton) working extensively with many renowned musicians along the way including Ron Collier, Sonny Greenwich, Tommy Banks, and Slide Hampton, a highlight from PJ's Vancouver days was sitting in with Dizzy Gillespie at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 1962. PJ's performance was greeted with "a huge hometown applause." Perry smiles as he remembers what Leo Wright (Dizzy Gillespie's alto saxophonist) did after PJ played his solo. "I found that to be hilarious and beautiful. Leo Wright grabbed his flute and went, 'shoomp!' and pretended to shoot me with a dart. And the crowd cracked up again, of course." Years later, PJ played another concert with Dizzy Gillespie in Toronto. "Beautiful man, intelligent, caring, articulate, humorous, fabulous guy," Perry says as he remembers that night after the concert in Toronto. "Nobody had bothered to arrange a ride home for Dizzy Gillespie who, in my estimation, was God. So, needless to say, I offered him a ride, and my wife Rhonda and I took Dizzy Gillespie home in the car. And I'll never forget that."
PHOTO GALLERY
Click on thumbnail for larger image
VIDEO
PJ Perry on The Cellar: "the formative years"
PJ Perry Interview - drugs & alcohol (part 1)
PJ Perry Interview - drugs & alcohol (part 2)
PJ Perry Interview - drugs & alcohol (part 3)
PJ Perry Interview — drugs & alcohol (part 4)
PJ Perry Interview — drugs & alcohol (part 5)
PJ Perry Interview — drugs & alcohol (part 6) (Conclusion)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
JazzStreet Vancouver Interview
Perry, PJ. Personal Interview with Gavin Walker. Vancouver, BC. 20 Apr 2005.
JazzStreet Vancouver Interview
Hales, Bobby. Personal Interview with Fred Stride. Vancouver, BC. 10 Nov 2005.
FOR MORE INFO
PJ Perry Official Websitewww.PjPerry.com
