Eric LeBlanc was a long-time host of CFUV’s Let the Good Times Roll radio program and a much-loved member of the local blues and jazz scene. ‘Blues for Eric’ is an ongoing series of benefit concerts raising funds for the Eric LeBlanc Memorial Scholarship that funds music students in the jazz program at UVic.
Patrick Boyle heads the UVic jazz program, and on Saturday, April 13, this trumpet star will lead his Hot 4 in celebrating the seminal music of Louis Armstrong while raising funds at a Blues for Eric benefit concert.
This academic year, Boyle’s trumpet playing has celebrated the music of Chet Baker and contributed to the jazz program’s big band compositions inspired by the silent film Potemkin. Boyle’s latest CD includes jazz interpretations of Michel Legrand’s “You Must Believe in Spring,” William Walton’s “Touch Her Soft Lips And Part,” Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” and Boyle’s own “After Forgetting” title track.
For his ‘Blues for Eric’ benefit concert, Boyle will team-up with Don Cox on tuba, Tom Acreman on clarinet and saxophone, and Matt Pease on drums. They’ll be playing some of Armstrong’s early hits like “Tin Roof Blues,” “Potato Head Blues,” “Black and Blue,” and “Basin Street Blues.”
Armstrong’s Hot 5 and Hot 7 recordings launched the improvisational art in the 1920s with his breathtaking trumpet solos soaring above the band — Boyle’s Blues for Eric benefit will be a crash course in jazz music’s origins.
This is the ninth ‘Blues for Eric’ benefit concert in the series. The show starts at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 13 at the Oaks Restaurant and Tea Room in Oak Bay. Tickets are $20 and cash only.
