JAZZ SPOTLIGHT ON
David Rehorick: Jazz Composer
Rehorick has written music and
lyrics for five albums
- VIDEO PLAYLIST: 14 songs on YouTube from a Dec. 2022 live performance at Frankie’s
- PLAYLIST: 11 songs on YouTube and Spotify
- UPCOMING CONCERT: Burnaby Brentwood Presbyterian Church, Saturday, May 16, 3:30 pm
with the Miles Black Trio featuring vocalist Steve Maddock - CONCERT LIVESTREAM here
- MORE ABOUT DAVID REHORICK on his Website
David Rehorick (left) and Miles Black, his mentor and collaborator in jazz
A RETURN TO JAZZ
From academia to composing jazz: David Rehorick plays
by Karim Ratib
Jazz pianist and composer David Rehorick saw his first “jazz fake sheet” when he was 30 at a workshop by renowned Toronto musician Phil Nimmons. “I was perplexed by the absence of notes on the music sheets wondering how jazz musicians can possibly play,” he says.
So began Rehorick’s early forays into the genre and a sideline to a fulfilling academic career at the University of New Brunswick. He played semi-professionally with two Fredericton bands for 15 years. However, his duties as a university professor and research scholar left no time to continue jazz jobbing or writing tunes.
Upon retirement and moving to Vancouver in 2007, he rekindled his passion for jazz taking private and group jazz classes. That’s where he met Miles Black, an established and busy Vancouver jazzman who gave him the support and space he needed to explore and refine his interest in composition.
Their pairing has been productive. “On reflection, how wonderful it has been to compose original tunes – some with lyrics – and release five albums after the age of 70,” he notes. His albums include: Step Up (2018), Just One Moment (2020), Live at the Silk Purse (2022), and Full Circle (2025). A collaborative digital album called Canadian Horizons (2021) was created online by Roland Bourgeois, Miles Black, and Rehorick during the pandemic days of isolation.
Finding the creative impulse
“Much of my creative musical expression arises through late evening, open-ended piano explorations,” says Rehorick. “Sometimes the music and lyrics surface together. Sometimes I begin by generating narrative text for unfolding lyrics. Sometimes I’m just surprised by the source of the musical ideas, for instance, surfacing within a dream.”
He also draws on his academic knowledge. “Many themes emerge from reflections on personal experiences as well as the presence of ordinary, mundane objects that are present in our daily lives.
“This turn to the ‘everyday lifeworld’ is foundational to thinking in phenomenological
sociology, one area of my research as a university professor.”
Rehorick’s compositions span the gamut of the jazz idiom, from standard-sounding bossa (Vancouver), to modal jazz (Step Up), to groovy numbers (Edge of Darkness) all the way to meditative and spoken-word pieces (the Covid-era In Relief suite, Dark Fragments). He doesn’t shy away from songs – his lyrics are often infused with humorous, tender and reflective takes on real-life topics (Cozy Sizzle, STRATAsfaction, Blue Bag Folly, Cocoa Girl). With this compositional richness, it’s no wonder that his music is regularly performed and enjoyed around town, from Frankie’s Jazz Club to West Van’s Silk Purse.
What’s next for this prolific and devoted jazz aficianado? “I’m not sure, but I do have about six to eight sets of draft ideas for a project I call Geriatric Jazz,” Rehorick says. “It’s intended to allow older folks to reflect on life’s circumstances, and then just laugh. It feels akin to the job of a solo stand-up comedian on stage — either the audience laughs or it just falls flat.”
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Karim Ratib lives and breathes music, whether jamming with friends, discovering new sounds, attending concerts or programming music software. He is grateful that his best encounters were (and still are) in the context of pursuing this passion.
05 June 2026
02 May 2026
