16-time award-winning Jazz Guitarist-Composer, Radio Producer/TV Director/Producer Kerilie McDowall has had a busy past two months. Spurred on by the lingering trauma of the pandemic, for the past two months into November, guitarist McDowall performed a calming guitar and singing bowl sound bath at the Women’s Spirit Festival, Quantum Leap Your Business Master Class Series, and appeared on TV/podcast with Founders Time, Business Unleashed, The Abundant Woman Podcast, ONStage Podcast, the Globe Sound Healing Conference, and the Awakened Heart Festival. Simultaneously the guitarist and film director has also been actively participating at four international film fests and a local Vancouver Island film festival.
As a 13x award-winning TV Director and creator of the Canadian jazz mini-documentary film, In the Zone: Rick Kilburn, McDowall is currently focused on new music projects and has teamed up with 20-time-award-winning jazz music producer, bassist, composer, and film star Rick Kilburn to release and re-mix five of her original compositions.
Honouring a promise to release her early recordings made to the late jazz drummer-composer and past bandmate Bruce Nielsen (June 25, 1963 – August 24, 2024), McDowall released on YouTube, “Up the Mountain,” “Tree Talk,” and “Way” on August 25, 2024. The jazz quintet and sextet guitar compositions were originally produced as demo tracks by producer Rick Kilburn in 1998 and were remixed, then finalized on August 23, 2024. The 1998 tracks were created with the sextet band members, Kerilie McDowall, guitar; John Korsrud, trumpet; Graham Ord, saxophone; Paul Blaney, bass; Stan Taylor, drums; and Glenna Powrie, piano/keyboard (b. 1962 – d. 2019).
Kerilie released “Peacock Feathers,” (1993) in 2024, featuring her first jazz quintet of Kevin Elaschuk, trumpet; Graham Ord, saxophones; Allan Johnston, bass; and the late Bruce Nielsen on drums from her album project, City Wildflower (not formally released). She was a big fan of Nielsen’s album Between the Lines, releasing “Peacock Feathers,” to show off the band’s and Nielsen’s exceptional improvisational gifts, with plans to release more on a possible future jazz album release. McDowall hopes to release her historical 1990s recordings. The recordings document guitarist Kerilie McDowall as one of the first ever working pioneer female jazz guitarist bandleader-composers in Canada.
Kerilie McDowall is highly-rated as the #1 Alignable Biz Person in Nanaimo, ranked as the top 20th businesswoman on the 9 million user Alignable.com platform. A recent Women's Spirit Festival speaker with 10 years as jazz bandleader, 24 years as a radio host (17 yrs.), TV (host, producer, 7 yrs), and TV Director (6 yrs), instructor, 25 years. Kerilie is skilled in communications and publicity. Her short film’s cast recently had 1.4 billion IMDB Pro hits. Kerilie works with individuals, musicians, creatives, small and corporate businesses, and organizations to rocket launch their potential.