Crowell Shares Wow Moments

From days with The Floorboards, to teaching music and now the Stadacona Band, musician's career blossoming
By STEPHEN PEDERSEN / Arts Reporter
2005-04-19, F4

Krisanne Crowell, at the piano with her sax, is a player with the Stadacona Band who one day would like to delve into more music arranging.

KRISANNE CROWELL'S musical life is bookmarked by wow moments. After years of miscellaneous gigging on sax, piano and voice, as well as teaching school music, she joined the Stadacona Band three years ago and she hasn't stopped smiling since.

"The next day after boot camp I was told, 'Get your passport. We're going to Rome,' " Crowell said Saturday morning over coffee. "My first marching gig with the band was around the Coliseum. It was a spectacular parade to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Republic of Italy - traffic was cut off, the sky was clear, the temperature was 25 degrees.

"I had a moment in the parade when I said to myself, 'Wow! How did I get here?' "

The first step in getting there may have been when she started playing piano at age six. But it may have begun even earlier in Windsor, where she was born, and where one of her playmates was Windsor's gift to Canadian jazz, saxophonist Mike Murley.

"I envied him in music class because he got to play the triangle on my first day in Primary," Crowell said. Perhaps that was the very first wow moment. But Crowell has many talents besides those that make her one of Halifax's busiest musicians today. She likes to run.

"My mother played the piano, my older brother played classical music - I was a bit lazy. I didn't practise that much. I got to be a good improviser, and it was probably Wayne Baker's fault that I took up trumpet for a year.
"But I missed out on music because I was chasing my dream of being an Olympic 100-metre competitor. At the age of 15 I got to the 1977 Canada Games in Newfoundland where I competed against all the future steroid users. The experience was wonderful, but I didn't set any records."

Her family moved to Halifax where she entered Grade One in Sir Charles Tupper Elementary, and followed the usual route to Cornwallis Junior High and Queen Elizabeth High School. Her passion for running took a few hits - an injury, hormones, a bit of a weight gain. But she continued to train, broke off for a couple of years to study arts in Concordia University, came back to study arts at Dal - clearly on a yo-yo bouncing between running and music.

"So at 20," she said, "I took a year off, travelled in Europe by myself. Then I was on a train heading toward a commune on a beach in Spain. I was drinking red wine. And I had a moment of clarity: Go home. Take phys ed and sax."

Crowell has always played what she calls recreational piano, though she quit taking lessons in Grade 9. Now, well into her 20s and feeling she had really missed something, she began playing sax in Dave Staples's Continuing Education stage band. Then she left for England to finish her phys ed degree on an exchange program to Eastbourne. Finally, the yo-yo stopped bouncing.

"In Eastbourne I hung out with musicians, hooked up with a pop-rock band. At rugby parties we'd get tanked up, put on Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong records and sing away. One of my friends made me a mixed-tape - Ella, Louis, the Ink Spots.

"When I came home I started an eight-piece blues band with Sandy MacDonald, called The Floorboards. It was a rehearsal band in the beginning. Then I auditioned on piano for Humber College, was accepted into a double major in performance and arranging for three years. In the summers in Halifax I had a gardening job with the city."
The Floorboards, with pianist Ross Billard, Crowell on sax, MacDonald on guitar, John Chiasson on bass and singer Ted Hilfiker began to gain visibility. But Crowell still lacked confidence that she could make a living at music. She kept her day job, then decided to go back to Dalhousie and get a music education degree.

As a music teacher her first job was in North Preston. Music teachers travelled from school to school. Crowell taught full time for five years. The next wow moment in her career came when, as a music teacher, she invited the Stadacona Band to play a school concert.

"I heard them play, and I wanted to be up there on stage with them," she said.
When a position on piano opened up, Kim Dunn was at first interested, but turned the job down when offered it. Crowell jumped at the chance to audition. "I think it helped on my audition that I played the sax and arranged music."

The physical side of boot camp hardly fazed her - it was her forte. It even served her interest in people in large groups working together. "It was a good experience I wouldn't want to repeat," Crowell said with a smile.
In the Stadacona Band, since they are short of sax players, there is not as much need for piano as there is for sax. Instead of assisting with percussion, as most pianists do, she got the opportunity to play sax with great players. When Derrick LeLacheur left the band, they were looking for musicians who could sing, and Crowell again filled the bill.
"There is more singing than I could have guessed - both in the stage and the concert bands," she said. "It's a rare opportunity - very exhilarating to have a full stage band behind you."
Playing tenor sax on parades, arranging work for trios and jazz combos, experiencing the emotional highs of playing on the jetty when the ships go out and come home, playing with the band for divisions, inspections, award ceremonies and important announcements is her life now.

Her experience as a freelancer during all those yo-yo years has now come to fruition in the opportunities she has to write and arrange. Some of the bands she has played with over the years include The Tritones (with pianist J. P. Ellis and drummer Dave Skinner), The Groove Gurus (rhythm and blues band with Skinner, Dave Gallant on guitar and bassist Danny Sutherland), the Mike Oliver Band, the Dave James Orchestra, her own band, KC and the Sunshine Men (Jamie Gatti, bass, Paul Harris, piano, Rick Waychesko, trumpet, Dave James, drums).
Crowell also joins singers Eileen Joyce, Lela Coles and Shirley Jackson as the Ladies in Blue who perform this Friday in Wolfville (The Acadia Cinema Co-operative, 8 p.m.) and Saturday in Halifax (Neptune Studio Theatre, 8 p.m.) with guest Pam Marsh on piano and singer/entertainer Donna 'Marilyn' Scaglioni as emcee.
Crowell credits Dave James with pushing her to do more composing and arranging which she now thinks of as her forte. "It's a juggling act, which seems to be my lot in life," Crowell says. "I like music to be challenging, and that gives everybody a chance to shine.

"I never will be a powerful singer, but I work my ass off putting things together. I'm not big on head arrangements when playing standards. I have to bring something new to the song."
Her years as a freelancer also taught her a sad lesson about the music business. "I realize that people who have been doing music get a little bit hurt," she said. "There's a real loss of appreciation for great musicianship. It's a little alarming.

"A whole generation of people have lost their depth of aural perception. They haven't developed their listening skills beyond 'See Spot run!'
"Some youth are starting to listen to bands again, but not a lot of it is creative - it's rehashed. I like to play music that engages the listener rather than being a pleasant background."
Before the Stadacona Band, Crowell never made her living as a musician. Despite the hard grind of getting there, she says music still thrills her. "There's so much room to grow. I can't wait to get at things I want to do, like arranging for the full band - I haven't got there yet, but I'm using this time to listen to the bass and the bones and timpani behind me in the band, to hear and learn textures before I jump into writing for it."
All Krisanne Crowell's wow moments have coalesced into her daily work with the Stad Band. "It's still magical to me to rehearse with a 34-piece concert band," she said.