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Vancouver: A city where jazz is everywhere

There are 240 strings in the jazz trio String Stories, 230 of them on the Steinway grand played by Paul Plimley. And he uses them all. Brubeck-like rhythms give way to tiny toy piano songs at the top of the register. Sometimes Plimley rises from the bench to get a better grip on the keys, or cocks his ear to the keyboard, as if hearing the music for the first time.

“There’s no telling what will happen playing with these guys,” Plimley admits before the early afternoon concert. “It’s a mystery to me.”

These guys are Tommy Babin on upright bass and Phil Emerson playing an f-hole electric Gibson guitar. In one song, Emerson starts playing a bottleneck blues, with Babin following him note for note, sometimes bouncing the bow on the strings. Plimley holds back and looks concerned, as if not sure what to play, then sidles in and slowly alters the rhythm until it sounds like something by Jean Coulthard.

A few blocks west, the music is cooler, matching the temperature of 12 degrees on the outdoor stage at Granville Island Market. The Rick Reynolds Trio is playing a cerebral composition by Bill Evans called A Simple Matter of Conviction . Bassist Reynolds is understated, supporting the spiralling notes from Jon Roper’s guitar and broad bright chords from pianist Steve Geiger. It’s jazz purist music that, despite a few lingering raindrops, keeps a mostly tourist crowd of about 150 in their seats for the rest of the set, which includes originals and standards by Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk and J.J. Johnson.