Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings consider jazz disc

Imagine one day hearing classic rockers Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings  churning out a set filled with jazzier material.

It�s an idea under consideration to follow up last year�s Jukebox, Bachman Cummings� 17-song set of mostly �60s rock covers.

�We�re compiling and sending each other 20 favourite bluesy jazz songs, so we can do, say, a Jazzbox in January or February, maybe,� Bachman, 64, says.

Adds Cummings, 60, �Randy and I both like a lot of the same stuff: Georgie Fame, Mose Allison � artists like those who have influenced us.�

Bachman recently tested the jazz waters with 2004�s Jazz Thing and last year�s Jazz Thing II.

But for both men, their love of jazz can be traced back to their previous bands. Wednesday In Your Garden, We�re Coming To Dinner and Undun came from the same Guess Who that produced These Eyes, No Time and American Woman. Meanwhile Blue Collar and Lookin� Out For No. 1 complemented BTO�s best rockers Takin� Care Of Business, Let It Ride and You Ain�t Seen Nothin� Yet.

�We always liked stuff that swings,� Cummings says. �Back in the �60s, Randy and I were always filling each other�s heads to new stuff. He�d call me up and say, �You gotta come over and hear such-and-such an album,� and vice versa.�

With both Jukebox and the potential for a Jazzbox, Bachman and Cummings are enjoying a close friendship once more. They both have left the Guess Who and BTO and all the ensuing politics behind.

�The real problems between us from way back in 1970, that�s just old baggage now,� Cummings says. �You get older, you let all that baggage go. It�s very powerful now, especially on stage.�

�If we�re daring enough, we�d start to play a song and not tell the other what it is,� Bachman adds. �Inevitably I join in or he joins in, because we both have the same bible of learning � Winnipeg radio.

�We could pull out any song and just do it because we know them � and each other � so well.�
Separately, Bachman keeps busy with, among other things, his popular Saturday night Vinyl Tap show on CBC Radio One and co-writing for various projects. And by September, Cummings hopes to unveil Above The Ground, his first new solo studio album since 1990�s Plus Signs.

�It�s ended up being 19 songs and the first one in my career where I�ve written every song myself, produced the album, paid for it on my own, and so on,� Cummings says. �It couldn�t be any more of a solo project.�

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