The Arvind Ramdas Connections Quartet

As part of the inaugural VanJazz festival, we’re pairing The Arvind Ramdas Connections Quartet with Shirley Clarke’s seminal The Connection (1961), one of the foundational films of American Independent film, featuring hard bop alto sax legend Jackie McLean and pianist/composer Freddie Redd.

Arvind Ramdas’ Connection Quartet is a dynamic collaboration uniting drummer Arvind Ramdas with some of the very best young Jazz musicians in the Vancouver Jazz scene. They perform music from The Connection, the landmark 1960 film featuring an iconic score by pianist and composer Freddie Redd.

This project brings Redd’s hard bop compositions back to life with reverence and vitality, capturing the raw energy, lyrical depth, and cinematic atmosphere that defined the original recording. The quartet approaches this repertoire not as a museum piece, but as a living, breathing body of work—infused with spontaneity, interplay, and modern sensibility.

With pianist Julian Borkowski, bassist David Caballero, and alto saxophonist Tamas Balai, Ramdas honours Freddie Redd’s legacy while celebrating the enduring vitality of jazz. For this special performance, they will be joined by one of the true bedrocks of the Canadian Jazz scene, Cory Weeds.

About the Film: The Connection (110 mins)

Based on a play by Jack Gelber, The Connection helped break down censorship with its frank depiction of heroin-use among New York jazz musicians. But what’s most striking about the film is how already, in 1961, it undermines conventional ideas of documentary objectivity: William Redfield plays an on-screen filmmaker who is recorded staging scenes and admits to giving the musicians money to get their fix. Piano player Freddie Redd (who played with Mingus and Sonny Rollins) composed the score and also acts in the film, as does the Blue Note legend Jackie McLean.

This performance is part of VanJazz 2026, a new Jazz festival running from October 14-25.

Co-Presented with