March 18, 2011   Contact: Email Us LentFraserWall

The Lent Fraser Wall Trio is current on hiatus. Stay posted for further info! You can listen to our music clips & order our CD, "Shadow Moon" Listen to Music Clips: Click on a track title below to hear a sample MP3 file: Your Light Claire Drowning in You Hamish Goes to Barcelona Sweet Lorraine Hidden Love Ryga's Window The Real World Shadow Moon Something Else West Coast Blues Go Ahead All Along the Watchtower CD Orders Send cheque or money order to: Lent, Fraser, Wall 3109-32nd Avenue Vernon, B.C. Canada V1T 2M2 Canadian: $25.00 (Preferred) American: $21.00 Euro: $17.50 About The Trio The Lent Fraser Wall Trio has been playing in The Okanagan Valley for ten years. It grew quite naturally out of two other groups---The Copeland Fraser Wall Trio (a popular jazz trio for four years) and John Lent and Neil Fraser (a noted folk duo for three years). Its distinctive, eclectic mix of jazz, roots, folk, rhythm & blues owes a lot to these earlier groups, and to Lent, Fraser and Wall’s individual histories that go back to bands in the 70s and 80s when the three of them performed in quite different genres as each was ‘paying his dues.’ The trio’s upbeat fierceness in combining genres---the not-so-easy-to-label aspect that seems so evident in its first CD, Shadow Moon---and its ability to write a lot of original material are what audiences seem to like about this group: a hybrid intensity that comes out of years of playing a spectrum of musical material and disciplines. Though the Trio has played regularly in the Okanagan and Kootenay valleys, it has also opened for touring artists including The Campbell Ryga Jazz Quartet, Long John Baldry, UHF, Chilliwack , Leahey and, this summer, the PJ Perry, Tommy Banks and Mike Lent Jazz Trio from Edmonton. Bios John Lent John Lent is a singer, a songwriter and a literary writer. Lent moved with his partner, the painter & writer Jude Clarke, to Vernon in the late 70s and has taught Literature and Creative Writing at new Okanagan College for twenty-six years. He has also published a series of books of poetry and fiction, the seventh a novel called So It Won’t Go Away. Lent grew up in a musical family in Edmonton , and played in a variety of bands there in the late 60s and early 70s. He has four brothers and one sister who are professional musicians, and Lent has been writing and performing songs for himself and them for thirty five years. Lent is able to shift from literary writer to song lyricist with ease, concentrating his rich imagery in the more ‘pared down’ forms of songs like ‘Something Else,’ ‘Real World’ and ‘West Coast Blues.’ Lent’s laid-back vocal phrasing, like a long prairie stride, tempers the insistent guitar rhythms of Fraser and Wall, creating the unique LFW sound. Though Lent would say his songwriting has been heavily influenced by singer-songwriters like Randy Newman, Jesse Winchester, John Prine, Robbie Robertson and Lucinda Williams, his collaborations with Fraser have drawn him into newer and newer territory. Neil Fraser Neil Fraser grew up in Burnaby , BC , and moved to Vernon in the early 80s. A noted guitar teacher, Fraser has run his own school for guitarists, and has been a highly successful teacher of guitar at The Vernon Community Music School for the past ten years. Though Fraser’s obvious love is jazz, he can move from genre to genre with both ease and tremendous delicacy and intensity. Audiences get spellbound by Fraser’s range, the way he can draw the sound back to an almost minimalist touch, then explode in a variety of never-to-be-heard-again improvisations in a blues song or rhythm and blues piece. Fraser is also a noted arranger and composer. Four pieces on Shadow Moon are Fraser’s original compositions and many of the remaining pieces are collaborations with lyricist, John Lent. Neil has a deep admiration for the guitar works of Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Doc Watson and Martin Taylor. Fraser lives in Vernon, BC , with his partner, Julia Stead, and has two children, Monica and Kevin. Shelby Wall Shelby Wall was born in Saskatchewan and spent his formative years in Southern Alberta . He moved to the Vernon/Armstrong, BC, area in the late 70s. Coming from a background of rock and ‘country rock’ bands in the 80s, Wall became interested in Jazz around 1988, and has since evolved into a highly-skilled acoustic rhythm player. He has a metronomic pulse and uses it to full advantage to anchor this drumless/bassless trio. Wall has worked with Fraser in a Jazz duo and the two have developed an almost telepathic rapport. From traditional ‘boom-chick’ rhythms to walking Bass line accompaniments, Wall performs a very physical role in the LFW Trio with a ‘digging-in’ kind of resolve that most rhythm players can only dream of. Though Shelby is the anchor of the group’s sound and delivery, he is also a songwriter and collaborated with Lent on the title track, Shadow Moon. Wall has been inspired by the guitar playing of Freddie Green and various gypsy-style rhythm players. Shelby Wall is a Senior partner in the accounting firm of Clark Robinson in Vernon , BC . He lives in Armstrong with his partner, Therese Molloy, and has two children, Angela and Kevin.