NOJO completed a two-week tour of the U.S. in February, and the band was very excited to make its debut at clubs such as New York's Jazz Standard, Washington DC's Blues Alley, Night Town in Cleveland and The Fire Fly in Ann Arbor. The highlight of the tour was the concert the group did for the Charleston Jazz Series in Charleston WV, where the band was treated to an enthusiastic crowd and great hospitality. Some tour photos can be seen in the gallery section of the web site. There's more commentary on the tour below, and please check out the great review of the CD at www.allaboutjazz.com ( a great web site in general). Thanks to the site's manager Laurence Donohue-Greene for coming to our Jazz Standard gig.

In our drives in the NYC area we discovered WKCR.org, which has great jazz between 12-3 pm weekdays. Check them out!

NOJO is pleased to announce that their CD City of Neighbourhoods with Sam Rivers has received a 2005 JUNO Award nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. The JUNOs will be awarded April 2nd and 3rd in Winnipeg. Michael Occhipinti and Paul Neufeld will perform as a duo for the JUNOFest celebrations in a concert sponsored by Cool TV on Friday April 1st. Stay tuned for details.

On April 8th NOJO will return to Winnipeg to start a two week tour of western Canada. Confirmed dates include:

Friday April 8th - Winnipeg Centre culturel franco-manitobain www.jazzwinnipeg.com
Saturday April 9th - Gretna Manitoba - Buhler Hall
Sunday April 10th - The Bassment, Saskatoon SK www.jazzbassment.com/
Thursday April 14th - Lorenzo's Cafe, Enderby BC www.lorenzoscafe.com
Friday April 15th - Kamloops BC Pavilion Theatre www.kamloopsjazz.com
Saturday April 16th - Kelowna BC University Theatre www.okanaganjazzblues.org
Sunday April 17th - Jazz Cellar, Vancouver www.cellarjazz.com
Tuesday April 19th and Wed. April 20th - Gumboot Cafe, Roberts Creek, BC www.thegumboot.com/
Thursday April 21 - Powell River BC venue tba
Friday April 22 - The Yardbird Suite, Edmonton AB www.yardbirdsuite.com
Saturday April 23rd - The Beatniq, Calgary AB www.beatniq.com

NOJO will headline a very special concert on May 20th at the Distillery Jazz Festival where the band will combine a few different projects into one special concert. NOJO will perform with a 12-piece string ensemble made up of members of the National Ballet and Toronto Symphony, as well as featuring guests Hugh Marsh (electric violin) and rapper Phatt Al. Visit www.distilleryjazz.com

NOJO is also schedule to open the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival at 12 noon on June 24th, with a special guest to be announced soon.

The US tour: Touring with a 9-piece band is a pretty daunting proposition. We were lucky to receive some assistance for this tour, and NOJO wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Music Fund for this project.

We covered nearly 5000 kms in our two weeks in the US, all of it done
in two mini-vans. Many days started with a 6 hour drive followed by a
hasty hotel check-in, a rush to soundcheck, a quick dinner, and then
the gig, and the next day would be much the same. The guys in the
band deserve a special thanks for playing great every night despite the
fatigue that sets in after a few days on the road, and they were great
travellers. We met some great new fans and hope we can get down to the U.S. again sometime soon. While we have great memories of many gigs, a couple of clubs let us down by not doing the simple things: putting up posters, listing the gig on their web site, and worst of all (thanks Cambridge!), forgetting to put our gig in their monthly calendar! We did incur a little debt as a result and to try and get rid of it we're
offering great deals on cds: Any of NOJO's 5 CDs is yours for $15 CDN
(plus postage). Any two or more yours for $25. Buy any three titles
or more and they are only $10 each. Please contact us at
info@nojomusic.com if you want to order cds by mail.