MEMBERS
The members of Ataraxia have years of experience performing improvised music. Some members had performed together prior to forming Ataraxia, but all have come together in a mutual love of performing improvised music together. The initial stylistic focus was on the genres of Hard and Post Bop, a sub-genre of the jazz idiom, popular from the mid fifties through the late sixties, that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues, as well as combined elements of bebop, hard bop, modal jazz, avant-garde jazz, and free jazz sometimes incorporating unusual harmonies, mixed meters and polyrhythms, and exploratory structures. Although Ataraxia maintains a strong connection to those influences, the band has evolved to include a vast sampling of modern improv music.
JAY STEEVES / TRUMPET
Jay Steeves is a trumpet player who is passionate about expressing himself through music. After privately studying the trumpet at the Royal Conservatory of Music in the mid-1990s, he took a self-directed approach to his jazz development and education. In the early 2000s, Jay became involved in the RCM jazz ensembles led by Bruce Redstone, while also attending Peter Smith’s jazz workshops. He became a member of the Advocats Big Band in 2003. Since then, he has played a number of festivals and music venues in and around the city, and appeared on two recordings with the group. Over time, Jay began assembling players who shared his musical sensibility, which resulted in the formation of his own JS Quintet and JS Quartet. With these groups, Jay has performed at various corporate events, private parties, weddings, restaurants and fundraisers. In 2006 he was a member of another quartet where he first met talented drummer Kevin Ball. From 2012-2019, Jay and Wally Brooker co-founded a co-operative group called the Concord Jazz Quintet who recorded a self-titled EP and played venues in the city. Late in 2019, Jason collaborated with long time musical partner Kevin Ball to begin exploring another direction as the co-founders of Ataraxia.
STEPHEN HARMELINK / KEYBOARD
Stephen Harmelink has been sitting at a piano bench ever since he found out that those 88 keys could make some cool melodies. For some reason his parents thought his noodling on the piano could use some more structure and they subsequently found a teacher for him. He completed his ARCT in Piano Performance but never stopped the noodling. He attended jazz workshops in Toronto taught by Howard Rees, and later went on to Concordia University in Montreal to complete a BFA in Jazz Studies in 2002. He was lucky to spend his years there studying with Wray Downes and Jean Beaudet. Although he works as a music teacher in the public school board, he has spent the last two decades playing in a variety of formats; on cruise ships, in various jazz and rock groups around Toronto, for contemporary dance classes, and as the keyboardist for this newest project - Ataraxia.
ANDREW FERGUSON / BASS
Andrew Ferguson is an upright and electric bass player who resides in Richmond Hill. He caught the AC/DC bug when he was 13 and started playing the bass soon after, moving into jazz and fusion after hearing Jaco Pastorius for the first time. Andrew went on to study jazz performance at York University and has spent the ensuing years performing professionally and learning about a number of varying musical genres, including jazz, big-band, rock and roll, bluegrass, reggae, blues, gospel, classical, opera, Bollywood, country, and folk. In his spare time, he loves to read and watch the Leafs and Raptors.
KEVIN BALL / DRUMS
Kevin Ball has been playing drums for over 45 years. Like many drummers he came up listening and learning from the music of his time, mostly rock. After a year or so of guitar lessons, he convinced his parents to let him switch to drums (they were reluctant). Banging away in his attic bedroom, Kevin was mostly self taught, until beginning lessons at the Ontario College of Percussion, where he was exposed to many new styles of music, including the fusion of the early '70's and traditional jazz among others. After high school he spent two years on the road playing in rock bands and then pursued music as higher education. He attended music programs at Humber College and the University of Windsor. During this time he developed an interest in music of other cultures, Indian Classical, in particular and took up the study of tabla drumming. Kevin taught private drum lessons for many years in Toronto. After a departure from playing for over ten years, Kevin gradually returned to playing and eventually joined the Concord Jazz Quintet which included trumpeter Jay Steeves, with whom he would later form Ataraxia.