Stephen Thirlwall
On December 2, 2023, Josh Rager, an exceptional jazz pianist and composer, gave a homecoming performance at GigSpace Studios to a packed audience.
He has played internationally across North America, Europe and Japan. He has appeared on the main stage at the Ottawa International Jazz Festival over a number of years, each time with a different band and style of jazz, and been a regular at the festival’s jam sessions.
On this evening at GigSpace, the quartet played in the style of great jazz standards such as “I’ve Grown Accustomed to His Face.” But, as Josh explained, he tends to speed up and add touches of more modern expression. Most of the tunes were his own compositions and clearly mixed new elements with the older standards framework.
The drummer and bass player had been Josh’s teachers and mentors as he was developing his own sound. Along with a young guitar player, they had been practicing together and realized they should record and perform together.
For this performance, however, their guitarist fell ill and was replaced by a young local guitar master, Matthieu Soucy, at the last minute. During the show, Matthieu played one of his own compositions and Josh asked him what past standard he would like to do with the group and they played it.
The musician
Born and raised in Ottawa, he now lives in Montreal. On a professional level, Josh is an associate professor of music at Concordia University. He teaches, composes, arranges, records and performs jazz.
His wife, Min Rager, is also an extremely good composer and performing jazz pianist, and has many performances and some recordings in her own right.
Josh is an easy going musician. He is very humble and seems quite relaxed in his playing. His slender fingers move very rapidly across the keyboard.
Josh was very generous with the audience that evening, chatting with them throughout the show. During the half hour intermission between two 45-minute sets, he talked individually with many of those who came to hear his concert.
GigSpace
GigSpace is an intimate concert venue which offers masterclasses, workshops, and music education courses, as well as hosting a series of live and live-streamed concerts. It is a charitable organization that is one initiative of the Ottawa Live Arts Community.
It leases the concert space at Gladstone and Loretta (just across the tracks from Centretown) from Alcorn Music Studios, who have a professional sound recording studio. For a listing of their upcoming shows: www.gigspaceottawa.com/.