Paul Dwyer

Winner of a "best soloist" award in a BBC big band competition in 1989, Paul Dwyer has remained one of Canada's top instrumentalists. His album, Fables & Dreams, received a Juno award (Canada's equivalent of the Grammy) as "best mainstream jazz recording of 1993". Originally released on the small, Sunny Moon label, it was reissued, in September 1993, by Justin Time. While he continues to lead his own group, featuring bassist Dave Young and drummer Michel Lambert, Dwyer remains one of Canada's leading sidemen, performing with such artists as Rene Rosnes, Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole and Boz Scaggs. He toured with Canadian pop singer, Gino Vannelli, in 1995, and Vancouver-born trumpet player Ingrid Jensen in early 2001. Studying music since early childhood, Dwyer received a Canadian Arts Council grant, at the age of seventeen, to study privately in New York. While in the Big Apple, he played with such influential jazz musicians as Steve Grossman, Kenny Barron and Lenny White and sat in with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Returning to Vancouver, in the mid-1980s, Dwyer worked with bassist David Freisen's trio and Hugh Fraser's quartet. He relocated to Toronto in 1989. Dwyer has increasingly garnered acclaim as a composer. He debuted his original piece, "Variations On A Theme By Barber", in 1999, and was commissioned to write "Land Of Sleepless Dreams", for chamber group, Amici. He performed orchestral arrangements of his work at the Liepaja International Piano Stars Festival in Latvia. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide