Would you like to hear some playful, beautiful, quirky tunes with a bit spiced up jazz? If your answer is yes, you are at the right place. Makeshift Island is one of the most joyful bands in Toronto. We were lucky enough to discover their music on a wine and cheese night while working on some reviews for deary music. We fell for them and we thought that all deary music followers must hear their music.
Makeshift Island is led by the trumpeter of the band, Rebecca Hennessy, whom sometimes features the band with her vocals, is also the composer. This lovely quartet has Tania Gill on piano, Michael Herring on bass whom you’ll most likely remember from the band Peripheral Vision, and Dave Clark on drums. Sometimes they also have some guest musicians such as Tom Richards on trombone whom accompanied them on some of their concerts so far. Rebecca Hennessy regularly plays with other bands as well but Makeshift Island and FOG are her main projects. Once we learnt that they were going to play at Tranzac, we called it as a date and captured that beautiful performance for you.
We grabbed drinks and chatted with band members as they are very down to earth musicians. We were so ready to capture best scenes even brought two cameras to the show.
They started the set with There’s One Thing, then continued with Calypso #1 (You Make Me Feel So Good) Bully The Clown, Fearless and Kind and Quick, Don’t Panic. It is hard to pick favoruite ones but we must admit that “You Make Me Feel So Good” is a great one since it cheers us up and puts a little smile on our faces. “ Quick, Don’t Panic” may take you the deep down places in your heart that you have never been before. The hottest song was Fearless and Kind as its name is quite powerful too. Makeshift Island takes the listener to a musical journey of epic proportion.
Just for the heads up, if you love jazz, you would most definitely like their music. They used to play at Tranzac regularly but these days Rebecca Hennessy plays with FOG more often. We don’t even need to mention that she is a marvellous trumpet player and she has a naïve voice. All other band members are also very well-know, talented musicians in Toronto jazz scene that makes Makeshift Island even more successful.
We’d recommend you to check them out at Tranzac or Emmet Ray when you feel like you need to listen “good music”. We haven’t heard any upcoming shows or a single/album release so we’d definitely recommend you guys to follow their Facebook page and check out Rebecca Hennessy’s personal website once in a while. You may want to listen FOG which is also another band of Rebecca Hennesey. They make great music as well. Toronto jazz scene is better than we know. You just need to check out the local bars and give a little love to jazz.
And don’t forget to take a look at our video below 
Cheers!
Itir & Mustafa