420TUNES TALLBROTHERS

The Tallbrothers are the legendary reeferjazz band based in Vancouver. They are Bill and Thomas G Small, actual brothers who grew up in south-western Ontario in a musically-gifted farm family of six. Their father was a child-prodigy pianist who commenced public appearances at age 5. Their mother taught herself Debussy by ear on her parent’s baby grand piano.
Bill led 70’s rock bands in his early teens moving on to jazz bands with horn sections in his late teens. He married young, had kids, bought a house in Ottawa and then acquired and oversaw a hundred-million-dollar real estate business until the stress, including life-threatening ulcers forced him to re-evaluate.
He divested all of his real estate holdings and became a Red Cross director. He formed a bluegrass band with his brother and started gigging in Montreal clubs honing formidable jazz vocal chops. Upon discovering that marijuana had cured his ulcers he moved to Vancouver and helped launch the British Columbia Compassion Club Society, initially operating out of his apartment. This organization provides low-cost, high quality organic medicinal marijuana to anyone with a doctor’s prescription. Still strong after over 10 years, the club now services more than 4000 members and has assisted another 2500 sadly departed.
Thomas G began playing different instruments and writing music at age 8. At 14 he was a featured guitar soloist in his high school jazz orchestra leading them to a 1st place victory in the Canadian Stage Band Festival competition. He studied music production at Fanshawe College’s Music Industry Arts program under the tutelage of Jack Richardson, acclaimed producer of all 14 Guess Who records, many more for Alice Cooper and mentor to protégé producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”)
After several years as an audio engineer and playing many genres of music in as many bands, he worked for Swing Dynamique on double-bass. This Montreal institution featured two but as many as five Duke Ellington alumni at once and boasted the legendary Guy Nadon on drums. They played for crowds of up to 250 000 people at the Montreal Jazz Fest and their self-titled CD must still receive regular airplay on Quebec radio judging by the royalty checks that keep coming.
Thomas G moved to BC’s Sunshine Coast in 2002 to join Bill and Tallbrothers were deployed to satisfy a growing niche market spinning off of BC’s famous seven billion dollar industry. He wasted no time writing up charts for three sets of 30’s and 40’s reefertunes gleaned from the archives of Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and many others. The band moniker derives from one of these entitled “Man With the Jive” (“Light up baby and get real tall!”). Their own songs soon eclipsed these classics in quantity and perhaps in accesibility too, updating the genre to address today’s heroes and issues for a younger generation while maintaining the easy bounce that turns grandma into a teenager again.
Their fame spread internationally when they headlined the 2004 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam and has continued with song licensing deals in TV, films, web-casting and their overnight internet sensation hit CD “Simply Business.”
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