Vol. 1 no. 3

AW: Tell me about your new record label.

MM: We cut our teeth on the Unity thing; when we started there were only a few people making CDs. It got so large, now everybody's making a CD. So now Barry Elmes, Al Henderson and I have started Cornerstone records. They approached me about starting it, because Unity was just getting too big, it was becoming an administrative nightmare. We're a little more serious about the business side. All three of us have our own bands and Time Warp is a co-op band. It's going well; we're doing the distribution ourselves and we have some deals. I don't know whether we'll expand to include other people or not.

AW: Do you think it's actually possible to make a go of this, to actually make this a profitable business?

MM: It's basically a break-even thing. The company is supporting itself, but we're not making huge revenues. It could be possible if somebody picked up the label.

AW: The distribution thing seems to be a real bottleneck in Canada; there seem to be three or four guys that really have a stranglehold on Canadian distribution.

MM: We felt is was easier to do it ourselves than get swallowed up by some larger company. This way we can target certain stores, and keep our prices down.

AW: Do you think there's more interest in jazz in Canada in the last few years?

MM: Yeah. Ten years ago a lot of the festivals were just starting up; the school programs are doing well. There's a lot of good young people coming up. Seems like in Toronto there was a crop around Lorne Lofsky, Barry Elmes, Mark Eisenman, and Al Henderson. Then there was Kevin Turcotte, Jim Vivian, Perry White, Jeff Johnston. Now there is a new bunch.

AW: How has the scene changed in Toronto?

MM: It's a lot more open, although there is still an overlying conservatism. If you're playing in jazz clubs, you're expected to play jazz. My new band goes over, but not like a more mainstream bop band would.

AW: What about when some of the top Toronto musicians badmouth each other? I've noticed that certain players don't want to know about certain other players, and in most cases these players are great musicians.

MM: John Sumner has a theory about that; nobody's working enough. He's been around for a while, and he used to work a lot. Back then everybody was working somewhere, whereas now it's kind of an event when you get a gig, so it's more uptight. There's less sitting in, because you get a gig and you want to do your thing. You don't want anybody to mess with it.

AW: What would you like to do that you haven't done?

MM: I'd like to travel outside Canada with my band. I'd like to play with other musicians from other places, or get a chance to play with somebody like Elvin or Charlie Haden or somebody like that. I'd like to make a record that more people liked(laughs). I don't want to pander, but I like to communicate with my audience. Nobody likes to play in a club and feel like it's not going over. I'll write off certain people who don't have any interest in trying to get what I'm doing, but the people who are interested, I want to make sure I'm communicating something. You want to get your thing so strong that people can get something from it. Something spiritual and powerful.