He has been an assistant professor of jazz at McGill University, a faculty member at the University of Ottawa, performed with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and taught for many years at Humber College in Toronto. Armas continues to perform in Ottawa and beyond, and impress audiences with his masterful performances of both classical and jazz pieces. He did double duty most recently in Ottawa on Saturday September 29th at Barrhaven United Church, when he played classical pieces and gave an overview of the evolution of jazz.
The first half of the concert featured Armas Maiste's friends and most prominently Margit Viia-Maiste who not only was one of Armas's friends that evening, but his wife the rest of the time. Margit, in addition to conducting the Ottawa Finnish Singers and providing piano accompaniment to other performers, played Romance and Valse by Jean Sibelius. The concert could easily have been called Armas and Margit and friends.
Of course, it is hard, if not impossible to outdo Armas when it comes to music and playing the piano. Armas took the stage in the second half of the concert and displayed his talents as both artist and pedagogue. Before his jazz presentation, Armas performed two classical pieces, Robert Schuman's Aufschwung (soaring) and Claude Debussy's Pour Le Piano. He then took us through the evolution of jazz as he introduced and played pieces from the 1930s and 1940s, the Stride Piano era, the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, the Be Bop era and finally the 1950s and the 1960s, the Post Hard Bop era. The audience remained spellbound as Armas showed that a great artist can entertain and inform his audience at the same time. At the end of the evening, there was little left for the audience to do but give Armas a well-earned standing ovation. The performance clearly showed that Armas and his piano are keeping a step and many notes ahead of father time. If that is the secret to a long and productive life we should all take up music or at least listen to Armas play the piano.
Tõnu Onu
