ARTIST LINKS
FREE MUSIC
Recordings
Animations
Purchase
Email
Recordings
Animations
Purchase
Email
Purchase
Email
Released in November 2007, Patrick Godfrey's new album, Still Life Still, features 8 solo piano improvisations recorded at his studio on Vancouver Island, Canada. Each piece is created in the moment, shapes and patterns emerging and evolving with flowing energy and meditative calm. As former Globe and Mail jazz critic Mark Miller once wrote of Godfrey's playing : "His piano technique has remarkable clarity, and his rhythmic sense is hard and sure. His shifting themes create a striking musical effect - something akin to a crystal winding and unwinding in bright sunlight, sending off flashes and colors and wonderful patterns in all directions with splendid unpredictability."
Born in Toronto, Godfrey began playing piano for church dances in 1960 at age 12. Early influences were Fats Domino, Henry Mancini, Leonard Bernstein and JS Bach. He played and sang in a number of rock bands including The Omegas, The Diplomats and RCA recording artists, Simon Caine. His performances led to session work with many well known Canadian musicians including Bruce Cockburn, Murray McLaughlan, Raffi,Marc Jordan, Shirley Eikhard, Ben Mink, Daniel Lanois, Ken Whiteley, Stan Rogers, David Essig, Fraser & Debolt and Mendelson Joe.
Since 1970, Patrick has scored all of Richard Condie's animations including the Academy Award nominated classics The Big Snit and La Salla, as well as Getting Started, about a procrastinating pianist who bites his piano. Other projects include the NFB Oscar winner, Bob's Birthday and Canada's most successful animated TV series, Bob and Margaret, seen around the world.
As a producer, Godfrey's credits include the Classical Kids' CDs, Mr. Bach Comes To Call, Mozart's Magic Fantasy and Beethoven Lives Upstairs and albums featuring artists such as Holly Cole, The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, The Lafayette String Quartet and Michael Jones.
Patrick has continued his recording career on his own Apparition Music label. In 2005, he released These Blues, a collection of songs and instrumentals. 2007 saw the re-release of his earlier recordings: Ancient Ships, Bells of Earth and Small Circus along with Still Life Still.
Critics found an "enormous sense of calm and joy" and "clarity and grace" in Ancient Ships. Downbeat gave Bells of Earth four stars. Cadence called it "the most distinctive solo piano LP of the previous two years" and The Montreal Gazette described it as "a refuge in troubled times." Of Small Circus, The Globe and Mail said: "The harpsichord pieces team with ideas and roll along with a wonderful kinetic sort of energy; the instrument has never been as funky."
The Montreal Gazette's John Griffin described Godfrey's solo piano concert at The Montreal International Jazz Festival as "positively spiritual . . . the stunning material he played to an awestruck crowd ranged freely from Bach to boogie, with flat-out jazz, romance and the hypnotic music of the East filling in the spaces in between . . . he kept the audience in mute wonder with the delicate beauty of his melodies, superhuman left hand patterns and a right that moved with the delicacy of a butterfly in flight."
Patrick is completing an album of new songs. He teaches improvisation, composition and songwriting at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
Purchase
Email