UPCOMING GIGS

  • June 10'20 Nice Bistro Whitby, ON
  • Apr.15'20 Princess M Hospital Atrium
  • Apr.11'20 HIRUT 2050 Danforth Toronto
  • Dec.14 '19 HIRUT 2050 Danforth Toronto
  • July 26 2019 Gull River, Minden ON
  • June 19, 2019 The Nice Bistro, Whitby
  • Sun.May5, 2019 Hugh's Room, Toronto
  • Sat.April 6, 2019 The Old Mill, Toronto
  • 15 marzo 2019, el gallo restaurant, san pancho, mexico
  • Feb. 26, 2019 Relish Bar/Grill, Toronto
  • Jan.23,2019 Nice Bistro, Whitby
  • Sept.29,'18 12:30-3:30pm; Glass Eagle Studio, Haliburton
  • Sept.19, 2018 Private Function, Toronto
  • July 27&28, Haliburton Arts&Crafts2-4pm
  • June 6, 2018 The Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • Feb.23,2018 San Pancho Music Festival, Mexico
  • Jan.20,2018 The Old Mill Toronto, Home Smith Bar
  • Sept.30,2017 All That Jazz & More, at the Minden Legion
  • Aug. 5, 2017 Private Party, Carnarvon, ON
  • Aug. 4, 2017 Music by the Gull, Minden, ON
  • Aug. 2, 2017 The Nice Bistro, Whitby ON
  • May 17, 2017 The Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • April 29, 2017 Minden Cultural Centre, Minden, ON
  • March 24,2017 The Old Mill Toronto, Home Smith Bar
  • Feb.26,2017 San Pancho Music Fest. Mexico
  • Nov.5, 2016 Radio Hall, CanoeFM, Haliburton, ON
  • Nov. 2, 2016 le Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • Sept. 4, 2016 The Red Umbrella Inn, Minden, ON
  • July 26, 2016, Head Lake Park, Haliburton, ON
  • Jan. 29, 2016, The Home Smith Bar at the Old Mill, Toronto
  • Oct.23, 2015 Gate 403
  • Sept. 9 The Nice Bistro, Whitby, ON
  • August 22, Gate 403, Toronto
  • August 14, Music by the Gull, Minden, ON
  • July 29 Hugh's Room, Toronto
  • June 13, Gate 403,Toronto

Friday, March 28, 2014

WILL SPRING EVER COME?

I know it's not the most urgent problem in the world, BUT - it certainly is dreary out there, and not many signs of future improvement.
i'll have to resort to my imagination.

so last weekend was the big 2 gigs on friday and saturday, and that was great.  i do have photos; see below.  it's so great to be able to perform with the musicians i do.  i'm a lucky girl.

and on top of all the existing luck, i'm heading to Derry city in ireland for the jazz fest in may.  if my luck holds, i might be able to sing at a couple of venues there, thanks to my good derry friend and sax player, who will pass on some contacts to me.  won't that just be the grand time?

perhaps that's why the weather is so shitty here - raining and all.  it's a kind of preparation for the 'wet' over there.  well, 'that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be soaking wet'.  bring it on.  i've got irish AND sicilian blood.  i can take lots of oppression, and still smile.

but before derry, i have two gigs in april, and we're not far away:

Dorset Community Centre
Friday, April 11  6:30pm
with John Deehan, saxophone
the annual artists and artisans exhibit
Dorset (Haliburton county), Ontario

and

The Nice Bistro  Wednesday, April 30  7-10pm
117 Brock St. North
Whitby, Ontario
with Danny McErlain, piano


John Deehan, sax; Zoe, vox; Ron Johnston, bass; Mike Allen, guitar at the Uptown Wine Bar

same as above; Mike is to the right, not visible; this is Gate 403

Thursday, March 13, 2014

UPCOMING GIGS

March 21,2014   8:30-12:30
The Uptown Wine Bar
473 Cosburn Ave.
Toronto   425 2020
 
I'm singing; Mike Allen, guitar; John Deehan, sax; Ron Johnston, bass.  Lots of cool tunes, and the wine is great, plus food available too.  Please join us. no cover.
 
then - 
March 22, 2014  9pm to 1am
Gate 403 Restaurant
403 Roncesvalles Ave.  toronto
416 588 2930

Trio as above, with meself, on vocals.   No cover, great food, and lots of wonderful tunes by us... 

then,

April 30, 2014   7-10pm
THE NICE BISTRO
117 BROCK ST. N.
WHITBY, ONTARIO
905 668 8839

ZOE CHILCO, VOCALS, WITH DANNY MCERLAIN, PIANO.  JAZZ STANDARDS, FRENCH AND ENGLISH.
DINNER AND PROGRAM, PRIX FIXE.
just trying to remember what it's like in summer, with some warmth

Friday, March 7, 2014

CARRYING ON IN THE COLD

This morning marks one week since I returned from a sunny and warm land to this country of cold, cold cold.
But the sun was shining here, reflecting all the white snow and bouncing it all around my kitchen, so I decided to take advantage and get out there.  First problem:  couldn't open the back door - the snow has hardened into a pile of ice-encrusted cementy-type stuff - do the inuit have a word for that kind?
Out the front door with me and to the back gate, frozen into place by the same piles - even higher ones that had slid off the porch roof.  But i'm pretty skinny, so i forced my way through a very small opening and got busy with the pointy shovel- the one for gardening or digging post-holes, but the one with a sharp tip to cut the ice.
as i dug i thought of my cousin- a lovely man who died this week, very suddenly, doing just this activity.  it's a strange world, with the good people dying and so many evil rats living long and rich lives.  dig, zoe, dig, i said.  enjoy the sun, and even the cold, which turned warm enough, with all that effort, to force my jacket off.

when i finished, i was craving more sun still, so decided to go for a walk, but got only a few yards down the road to the park at the end of our little dead-end street.  and there, the iron bench, surrounded by even more stretches of lovely white - not the black mounds at the sides of the roads - it beckoned to me, and i lay me down.  yes, i did.  just like a summer's day in the hammock.  i was warm and cushioned well by all the layers of clothes - snow pants, down-filled vest and jacket, two pairs of mitts, and the crowning glory: my father's special hat for shoveling the driveway.  i put it on and in my head i hear, "Joe Chilco here!" - just the way he used to answer the phone.  and then when i put on my glasses, the picture is complete.  as i get older, i look more and more like both my parents.

I lay in the sun and thought more about all the cousins, a lot of whom I saw yesterday, and all the cute little faces, now also aging along, and i couldn't get myself to get up and get going anywhere.  just seemed like lying there and going back in time, and thinking about the shortness of life was more important.  also, the sun was lovely, the air was clean - far enough away from the fumes and exhaust of the roadways; no snotty-nosed children like the ones i used to teach, or desperate subways riders hacking their germs all over me; no radio or tv with their crap-yap of commercials or stupid reality shows.  Hey, man - this is reality!!  Quiet peace and gentle warmth.  And then a propeller plane went overhead, and even though it was friday morning, not sunday afternoon, when that sound is particularly nostalgia-producing for me, it just completed the scene.

Of course, I did get up eventually, but not before trying to burn the experience into my brain, for further recall.  Life is short, one piece of the mosaic of our family fabric is now gone, even as new pieces get added.  And on it goes.

the picture of two people in an embrace - life and death together - was taken on an archeological dig when they were found.  Maybe all the love feelings and thoughts get fossilized somewhere, and live on the same way.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

PLEASE, GOOGLE, TALK TO ME

can't help being very annoyed with google.  every time i'm not at home and try to blog or get into email, they say "who are you?  what's the answer to these (sometimes years old) questions?" and "let us confirm with you via mobile phone".  don't have, don't want a mobile phone, google.  so what then?
i'm just a little frustrated.

fortunately, I set up an email and a blog that is not google, to stay in touch with the world.

when I get home, there's an email on the account I couldn't access with the information that 'someone' tried to access my account from where I was. sent from a "no reply" address.
brilliant.
useless.
leads-to-drinking.
please, google, figure out a way for users to let you know when and where they're going to be, if not at 'home'.
please let me like you.
please stop the blocks.

two recent 'away-from-home gigs:    may the music live on......