Climax’s British style traditional jazz, rooted in new Orleans, nurtured in pubs and clubs, gets the audience involved. Outstanding musicianship, great humor, and a wondrous variety of tunes for listening and dancing. Knocks your socks off! Toronto-based Climax is a six-piece band with clarinet, cornet, trombone, banjo, drums and double bass. They play marches, blues, spirituals, rags, latin and popular tunes with lots of entertaining vocals. They’ve performed with many outstanding guest musicians including Oscar Peterson, Turk Murphy, Herb Hall, Wingy Manone, Kenny Davern, Mr. Acker Bilk, Humphrey Lyttelton, Bob Wilbur, Monty Sunshine, Graeme Bell, Phil Harris, George Segal, George Melly and Carol Leigh. They opened for Benny Goodman and shared gigs with The Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey Bands, The Dutch Swing College, The World’s Greatest Jazz Band and Bob Barnard’s Australian Jazz Band. Climax has made over 30 recordings with more than 250 different tunes including: The Entertainers (for the Canadian Talent Library), Direct To Disk (15,000 sold worldwide), Konnichiwa! Japan and Konnichiwa ll (live in Japan) and Toronto To New Orleans and all the girls go crazy

(Canadian Collectors’ Congress Award Winners). They’ve performed across Canada and The U.S.A., in Japan, Britain, Germany and Holland and on many cruises to Hawaii, Alaska, Panama, The Caribbean and Mexico.

Ray Heitger, clarinet is leader of the venerable Cakewalkin’ Jass Band, Toledo, mentor to many musicians. His son Duke performs in and out of New Orleans. Professor Dave Kosmyna cornet/piano, joined in 2002, is tenured at Ohio Northern University Ada, has performed in Australia and Europe and many festivals. ‘Moosejaw’ Tom Richards trombone/piano, Berklee graduate, has his own band ‘Riverrun’ and performs with many other groups. Andy Macdonald banjo/guitar, Humber College graduate, Concordia U. music therapy, traveled in N. America and Europe w/ Django style Les Petits Nouveax. ‘Long’ Jon Foster drums, York and Toronto Universities graduate, has toured Canada, Australia, Asia and Europe and leads Toronto’s young musicians’ Collective. ‘Captain’ Chris Daniels double bass/vocals, performed in bands in London, Nottingham, Manchester and Montreal, founded Climax 1971 in Toronto.