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 Trumpeter John MacLeod was born in Toronto in 1955. He took his formal musical training at Humber College where he was the recipient of the music department's award for outstanding jazz improvisation in 1975. Although his primary interest has always been in jazz performance, over the course of a twenty year career John has been involved in almost every area of the Canadian music industry. He has worked extensively in live theatre and as a backup musician for visiting entertainers such as Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Nancy Wilson and Linda Ronstadt. As an active studio musician, he has performed on soundtracks for feature films and television, as well as countless commercial jingles for radio and television. As a freelance jazz artist, John has performed with virtually every major figure on the Toronto scene, as well as such visiting players as Zoot Sims, Kenny Wheeler, John Abercrombie, Phil Woods and Maynard Ferguson. In addition to leading his own group, which has appeared at all the major jazz festivals across Canada, he is currently a member of the Duncan Hopkins Quintet and the Mike Murley Quintet, with whom he has recorded and toured with extensively. He is also a long time member of such permanently organized groups as the Spitfire Band and the world renowned Rob McConnell and Boss Brass. Of the dozens of jazz recordings he has performed on, there have been numerous Juno and Grammy Award winners. In the mid 1980's John opened and operated a small recording studio catering exclusively to jazz music and became well known in jazz circles for his engineering and production skills. He recorded hundreds of sessions and over forty albums and CD's including two Juno awards for jazz albums of the year. In 1986 he released his own album entitled "RUIN" on the co-operative label UNITY RECORDS he helped form and with whom he served as chairman of the board for many years.
During the 90's John's focus has shifted away from recording and towards
arranging and composing. He has become the main writer for a Toronto
area big band known as Freeflight (which released it's first CD early in
1997) and his charts are being performed by student bands at McGill
University, Queens University, University of Toronto, Mohawk and Humber
Colleges. He has studied with Ron Collier, Rob McConnell and Kenny
Wheeler, and was a recipient of a Toronto Arts Council Award for
composition.
DISCOGRAPHY
MANAGEMENT Contact:
(416) 465-4515
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