There is a guitarist in Toronto named Mike Murray and he did a sold out show at the Pilot on a Sunday evening.  If you haven’t been to the Pilot in Yorkville for a while, I urge you to start looking into this place again. They opened up a music room upstairs that are bringing in some of the best underground bands in our city.

You can find their listings on our directory, so you have no excuse that you can’t find them.

The story of Mike Murray

I first met Mike as a guitar player for one of my favourite artists here in Toronto, Yiannis Kapoulas. They have been friends for quite a while and the chemistry they share would be beneficial to both of them as they explore the musical realm of possibilities.

I met him again when he played with Paul DeLong’s band One Word. This band pays tribute to the great Jazz Fusion bands that we all love like Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report.

He is a very lucky and busy guitarist. Besides being in numerous bands around Toronto and sometimes Montreal, he plays at Mirvish Productions and is a teacher of music at Centennial College.

Well, this time I got to see him stretch his wings like a bird of fire and take us on a personal journey of new discoveries. Mike got to put together a dream gig that he has been planning for years.

This time around he partnered up with a band from Pakistan. Let’s go see what happens…

Mike and Mekaal Hasan Band

This was a long and winding story about how they got to share the same stage. Mike prefaced this with my Mom is ok. This is a butterfly effect story.

Mike’s mother was struck by a car during Covid. She ended up in a coma for about a week. Mike could not get out because he unfortunately contracted Covid. He was stuck indoors due to this disease. So being a musician, he decided to shop online for some new music. I did the same thing. We all need some new sounds every now and again.

He went online and picked up one of Mekaal Hasan’s CD. He was a big fan and left a message on Bandcamp how much he loved his music. Mekaal called Mike within half an hour after he left his massage and reciprocated how much he enjoyed his music, and a friendship was born.

Mekaal Hasan was raised in Pakistan and formed his band in the city of Lahore back in 2001. The band is deeply rooted in South Asian sounds but he brings a fresh contemporary sound. He blends in Rock, Jazz, and Progression and fuses them together flawlessly.

Mekaal was lucky enough to score a deal with the Aga Khan Museum here in Toronto, and they were invited to have a residency there whenever they came to Canada.

So the story continues, and Mekaal knew about Mike. He contacted Mike to say he was coming to Canada and he needed musicians to play with. That is where the idea was born to get together on the same stage and play with each other. I find this incredible, that we have  chance to see top notch musicians just get on stage and play as if brokering a peace deal for the world!

What truly drew me to him was how excited the audience was to have him here in Toronto doing a show. By my guess, the room was 80% South Asian and 20% the rest of us. This was a dedicated crowd. A friend of mine told me he was a legendary artist for his complex way of creating.

I just found out that there was a lot of political strife in the east. The countries of India and Pakistan banned musicians to play together. This was probably the time that Mekaal came up with an ingenious idea.

When I had a chance to talk to him between sets, he told me that he is on a mission to travel the world and to play with high quality musicians.  Now this is a way to truly broker a peace treaty around the world. Just stop by and share each other’s culture. Does this sound too difficult?

Just on that idea alone, I would hand over the noble peace prize to Mekaal, not to Donald Trump!

The Show must go on

Let’s just start with the amazing musicians of the night!

Mike Murray- Guitar

Mekaal Hasan – Guitar

Mujeeb Mustafa- Vocals

Vasu Bisht- Flute(Bansuri)

Jack James-Lemaire-Bass

Giovanni Campanelli- Keyboards

Dan Klas- Drums

Shoury Jain-Vocals

The evening stared off with a hypnotic flute that ushered in an epic opening that ran the gambit of athletic moves, like extreme Skiing.

Once Mike got through his first big solo, I could see the smile on his face that he was exactly where he should be. He began to conduct the stage like cheerleader going for a championship win.

Mike shared his gratitude for this show; it was something he wanted to do for years.

Things got mystical when Mujeeb began to sing. It was a sweet blend of traditional South Asian sound mixed wonderfully with a rocking jazz style.

Mujeeb stories were filled with hope. He says we should all go to a place where we are blind. I have held onto that though since I was a tiny boy.

Another beautiful moment is when Mujeeb dedicated a song to a couple sitting at the front table. The woman was delightfully shocked.

The two bands switched back and forth between western and eastern sounds.  This brought on a new level of sound, compositions and fusion. The sounds began to drift away from traditional time signatures and typical riffs. It was as if Mike was playing the spaces between notes sometimes. Whatever he was doing was pretty damn cool. It was as if he was trying to grow his own branch in the tree of sound.

A night at the Pilot-

Connections

Mujeeb was highly evocative with his vocal performance, keeping the south Asian crowd fully satiated and the western crowd in awe of his vocal gymnastics. You could hear the passion of his culture come through and connect with every listener in the room.

There was a moment where the band performed a protest song and it felt like you were a witness on a train slowly watching the horror and grief this world sometimes feels.

It was so powerful; a guy sitting at my table got up and began to tip each and every member of the band for making his world a better place. This was a first for me and hopefully many more times to come.

Mike went out on a limb and decided to play a piece called Blimpalasi amateur hour. . The song is called Blah standing for Bhimpalasi Amateur Hour. That’s a bit of a joke name, because it’s written in raag Bhimpalasi, a very complex and deep scale from the north Indian raga system. People study it for ten years before they’re considered good at it. The joke is that obviously I wrote that within two weeks of learning it from some website

He continued with an instrumental song, but he always wanted some vocals to really add a new dimension to the song. So, he invited Sourya Jain back on vocals. She really did a marvelous job raising the bar on this piece.

The Final Horizon

The last two pieces really sealed the deal. The first one was filled the atmosphere with hope for the future. That is what a world class flutist can do in a show. It was like he transported you through an Oracle’s tunnel only to be blown away by a huge drum solo via, Dan Klas. I swear I could hear a distorted version of Siberian Khatru from Yes in some of those guitar riffs.

Mike finished off the evening with a gentle jam session for those people who wanted to exit quietly into the night. As he was playing, I swear I could here yet another distorted riff from a famous song. This one was Norwegian Wood by the Beatles.

Everybody in that room tonight walked away with some kind of personal fulfillment. It was a meeting of two cultures and we all walked out feeling like one.

If you want have a chance to see Mike live or buy his music go to – Mike Murray Guitar

If you want to discover the magic of Mekaal Hasan go visit- Mekaal Hasan – Musician, Producer, Festival Programme Director, Festival Technical Head, Audio Engineer, Studio Owner, Composer, Guitar Player

Please visit our Directory and find out who else will be flying at the Pilot!- The Pilot – Blast Toronto

As an added bonus to this article, Mike Murray will be performing at the Painted Lady on Sept 7^th at 7pm. If you love Rock and Jazz, this is the night you want to be out. The poster is on my events calendar at www.blasttoronto.com/events

If this is the kind of stories that make up the beautiful music scene in Toronto, please hit the Buy us a Coffee and contribute to our cause of bringing all music together! The button is at the bottom of our home page.