Album Notes

One of Jamie's inspirations as a young boy was his grandmother who was a concert pianist. It was because of the many afternoons he sat on her knee, mesmerized while she played the piano that Jamie developed a passion for music and decided that his destiny was to follow in her footsteps.

While he continued to study the piano, Jamie developed an interest in the saxophone which he picked up at the age of fourteen. His love for the instrument led him to saxophone great Pat Labarbera with whom Jamie studied saxophone and jazz improvisation.

Jamie recorded his first CD in 1994 which included a selection of jazz standards. He played tenor saxophone and recorded with jazz greats Peter Appleyard on vibes, Ed Bickert on guitar, Don Thompson on bass and Joe Labarbera on drums

Jamie Mitges recorded his second CD”Density” during the summer of 1997. Jamie co-wrote a number of instrumental pieces with a good friend of his Brent Bodrug and then assembled a group of some of Toronto’s finest musicians to record these songs. On July 21, 1997 “The Jamie Mitges Group” went into Phase One Studios, Toronto. Jamie played alto sax on the session, Brent Bodrug who studied under Oscar Peterson as his Protégé and was subsequently honoured by receiving the Toronto Arts Protégé Award in 1993 played keyboards, Kevin Vienneau was the guitarist, Drew Birston played the bass and our drummer was Denton Whited from The Philosopher Kings,

Jamie’s third CD “Boptronica” is a re-mix of The Jamie Mitges Group Density Produced by Brent Bodrug. The following is Brent’s description about “Boptronica”

I started with the multitrack tapes from the “Density” session. I spent hours listening through the performances and “sampled” what I felt were the most interesting bits. Using these “samples” as the foundation, I created new arrangements for the songs. I then overdubbed some new keyboard parts, programmed some new drum grooves, and recorded some vocals for a couple of the tracks.
The result? B O P T R O N I C A



Heard (Australia) Review

Mitges – BOPTRONICA

A truly fascinating release from an apparently Canadian based outfit. The project, for want of a slightly better description, is something of a recreation & reworking of an earlier release, titled Density, where Jamie Mitges has pulled some samples from the original sessions, which were apparently more jazz oriented & has created a marvelous electronic world of music.

It’s a very interesting album, with 21 tracks, around half of which are short unnamed instrumental interludes. However, it’s the full length songs that these interludes link together which are the real meat in the sandwich so to speak.

There’s some excellent material here, including the wonderful bluesy “Thinking Man”, which could easily have been pulled from and Morphine album, as well as numbers like “Summer Daze” & “Density”. If you’re into innovative electronic sounds, interspersed with jazz influences, then you’ll be more than ready for this album beholds.