The music will go on but a key player will be missing.
A longtime fixture in the Salmon Arm jazz scene, Sandy Cameron is moving to Victoria with his wife Maggie.
Marking what he jokingly refers to as his “fifth year post-amputation” following cancer surgery in which part of his leg was removed, Cameron says both he and Maggie have mobility issues and need a more gentle climate.
“One of things I’m gonna miss is the cultural richness of Salmon Arm,” he says, making special mention of SAGA Public Art Gallery.
An immensely talented musician, Cameron plays sax, clarinet and, more recently, flute. While he is happy to talk about the various bands he belongs to, Cameron is loath to blow his own horn – even though he does so in private practice every day.
A retired School District #83 music teacher, Cameron has been instrumental in feeding Salmon Arm jazz fans their favourite musical diet over the past several years.
The Jazz Club at SAGA began several years ago when talented musicians and Salmon Arm Secondary grads Jacob Verberg, Leon Power and Darren Herting were looking for a place to play.
“Delores Mori helped them to get it going at the gallery – she’s the mainstay other than Tracy, of course, so she makes things happen,” says Cameron, noting that when the young musicians moved on, he and PJ, popular SAS music teacher Brian Pratt-Johnson, agreed to take over. “They created an audience; they made it obvious that there were people who wanted to hear it (jazz).”
Cameron says he and Pratt-Johnson began hosting Jazz Club twice a month for a couple of years.
“Somehow the word started spreading beyond Salmon Arm, so we started hearing from other people in other cities, particularly Toronto and Vancouver,” Cameron says with something akin to awe. “These people, they’re Canada’s best, they’re Juno Award winners. One night we had three Juno Award winners.”
When Pratt-Johnson withdrew from the Jazz Club to spend more time with his family, Cameron carried on by himself - planning, putting up posters, setting up chairs, playing…
A call for help from arts council member Gary Lomax led to the creation of a committee that “changed the note” of the club and freed Cameron up to play more.
“We have a huge component who often comes because they know it’s Sandy playing, or Sandy and his buddies,” says committee member Linda Erlam, remarking on the notable change Cameron’s departure will have on the club.
In the tight musical community, Cameron has many good buddies, friends that held a huge benefit concert for the only sax player in town when he had to have part of his leg amputated.
“Gord Waters and Rich Thorn put it together, but we didn’t need the money, so we steered them into spending it in Vancouver,” says Cameron, pointing out money was put towards enhancing the cancer centre’s roof-top patio where he found peace and healing during his treatments.
“I was very pleased that they would think we needed money.” he says. “I’m glad they did the concert because I got to play with all the guys.”
And playing with the “guys” has been a vital part of the fabric of Cameron’s life – including the more recent Babalu, a talent-filled Afro-Cuban concoction that featured the talents of guitarist-composer Jordan Dick, Jim Johnson on piano, Cuban bass player Arianne Charon and drummer Jeremy Tymkiw.
“Babalu; well that’s funny. Jimmy Johnston and I heard there was a new bass player in town and Bill Lockie had said he wanted to relax a bit, so we were looking for a bass player for our dixieland band,” Cameron laughs. “We got to know Arianne, we decided we wanted a Cuban band and Jeremy had been studying Cuban.”
Cameron said there was an instant musical connection between Charon and Tymkiw, and the band began rehearsing.
Like Cameron, the members of Babalu belonged to several other groups of note.
A longtime member of the popular Dixie North that folded a few years ago, Cameron started The Cliff Jumpers to “kinda fill that void.”
Delighted with the growing opportunities for musicians to perform locally, including music crawls, Lunch Box Stage and Jazz at the Plaza that “fill the hole in the summer,” Cameron points to another one of his favourite gigs – the annual “Young Lions” Christmas concerts organized by Pratt-Johnson.
Considering the growing appetite for jazz and the success of the Jazz Club, Cameron says his wife can visualize a jazz festival in Salmon Arm’s future. As to his own future, the musician who practises one to two hours a day has no favourites between his clarinet, sax and flute and has no intention of calling it quits. An appreciative Cameron says he will miss the community and the fans who have told him how much they’ve enjoyed his playing.
“Music when it’s going well and I feel good about what I sound like, it makes me feel good,” he says. “I get the opportunity of playing in this town way more than I anticipate will happen in Victoria, but I’ll certainly give it a stab. I guess I have to live with that.”