About Keenlyside

Story

I was lucky. The idea that music was to be gradually embraced as a profession with which to make a living while working a day job just didn’t happen. It was immediate and, for me, electrifying. This is how it happened.

Every morning during the week in 1964, when I was thirteen, I walked by my friend Tony’s house on the way to our first year in high school. We’d amble to school chatting about the usual…cars, girls, and the rest. One particular morning in late fall as I came up to his steps, the front door was open and his mother was playing a record…”Time Out” the American masterpiece by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. As Dave finished up his lovely intro to the gorgeous “Strange Meadowlark” Paul Desmond’s poetic saxophone played its first notes, and I was instantly hooked. I knew, in that moment, that music was what I was going to do for the rest of my life, even though I had no idea if it could generate an income. The sounds I was hearing coming from that hi-fi were new, startling and transformative for me. The music filled me to the brim, those notes cascading from Desmond’s horn, and I just knew…this is what I do.

“I knew, in that moment, that music was what I was going to do for the rest of my life”

Tom Keenlyside

Some of the artists Tom has performed and recorded with are:

Dizzy Gillespie
Tom Jones
Natalie Cole
Harry Connick
Phoebe Snow
Van Halen
Mel Torme
Peggy Lee
Sammy Cahn
Pat La Barbera
Lew Tabakin
Aerosmith
Jon Bon Jovi
Richie Sambora
K-OS
Noah Preminger

Diana Krall
Ingrid Jensen
Chaka Khan
Dionne Warwick
David Foster
Leon Redbone
Jack Jones
Kenny Rogers
Sheena Easton
Bruce Hornsby
Motley Crüe
Don Costa
Gord Downie
Bare Naked Ladies
Melissa Manchester
Alexis Baro

Michael Bolton
Jann Arden
Michael Bublé
Shania Twain
The Temptations
The Four Tops
Little Anthony and
the Imperials
Jay McShann
David Lee Roth
Hard Rubber Orchestra
VEJI
Gene Cipriano
Chuck Findley

Keenlyside has also double-billed with:
Oscar Peterson
Michael Brecker
John Scofield
UZEB
Freddie Hubbard
Larry Coryell
Pablo Sanchez
John Lee Hooker
Alice Cooper
Rodney Dangerfield
Blue Oyster Cult

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