Celebrated multi-instrumentalist Tom Keenlyside will be performing jazz at TOSH on Sunday, July 8 with three fellow musicians.
With a history of performing with bands like Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Styx and Alice Cooper, as well as writing and playing jingles and co-founding the band Skywalk, Keenlyside will take up his tenor sax to perform with Ron Hadley on piano, Rick Kilburn on bass and Don Leppard on drums.
Born and raised in Vancouver, Keenlyside took up the trumpet in 1962 at the age of 12, and played in various rhythm and blues bands throughout the 1960s.
He played is first “gig” for money in 1964. He started to play the flute at the age of 15. In the 1970s, Keenlyside played flute and trombone with the band Sunshyne during which time he began to play saxophone.
Keenlyside earned a bachelor of arts degree in music (flute major) from the University of British Columbia before embarking on an extensive tours and recording collaborations with popular rock music artists Prism and Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO).
He was invited to perform and record with such acts as Alice Cooper, Blue Öyster Cult, Foghat, Alvin Lee, Styx, and many others.
In the late 1970s, Keenlyside began to focus on commercial studio work, writing and playing jingles and album cuts which gained him popularity with Vancouver recording studios and artists for his flexibility, improvisational talent and multi-instrument skills.
He worked on large orchestral arrangements for commercial sessions for Safeway, McDonald’s, and many major oil company advertising campaigns. During this time, Keenlyside also accompanied many studio recordings for disco music artists.
Keenlyside co-founded the band Skywalk in the early 1980s which produced five albums for MCA, Zebra and Mesa Blue Moon, which took the band on two major U.S.A. tours. In the 1980s, Keenlyside also toured Canada with the Tom Keenlyside Quintet.
Keenlyside also arranged tracks, collaborated, and recorded with various popular artists including Aerosmith, David Lee Roth, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, INXS, and others.
Also during that time, Keenlyside worked on several TV variety series and staged shows, playing saxophone with popular acts such as Tom Jones, Chaka Khan, Boz Scaggs, Paul Anka, Kenny Rogers, Teddy Pendergrass, Peggy Lee, Dizzy Gillespie, Jack Jones, Mel Tormé, Andy Williams and more.
Keenlyside also played alto saxophone with the Don Costa Orchestra for a full television season. Since then, Keenlyside continued to hone his craft focusing on jazz and jazz fusion for saxophone and flute, and playing live with Natalie Cole, Harry Connick Jr., and Diana Krall, and recording with more popular artists such as the Barenaked Ladies and Jim Byrnes (for which Keenlyside earned a Juno Award for production on That River).
Keenlyside currently composes and produces music commercially and for personal enjoyment.
He writes and produces advertising and a great amount of television and cartoon scores (with partner John Mitchell).
His love of jazz composition and live performance is realized through notable collaboration with many talented, local and visiting singers and instrumentalists.
— Submitted by Ron Hadley
