At The Palais Royale

The days when the Palais Royale was home to the big bands of the swing era are long gone, but you can still hear jazz at the legendary boathouse turned dance hall -- some of it on Canada Live (8 p.m.) Thursday evening.

The Palais, if you don't know it, is a beautiful, wooden floored little lakeside hall in the old Sunnyside neighborhood of Toronto, right on Lake Ontario, built in the 1920s. Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong all played there.

Tonight's broadcast features Jeff Healey's Jazz Band Ball, recorded at the Palais. Healey and his band, The Jazz Wizards, are joined by three special guests - banjoist Marty Grosz, clarinetist Dan Levinson and bass saxist Vince Giordano.

btw, the place has been totally renovated and is now a privately run establishment. But if you go to the Palais Royale website you can see some wonderful old photos of it over the years...

The second concert tonight on Can. Live is from The Foggy Hogtown Boys. Great name, eh? They're part of the country's post-Oh Brother bluegrass scene, who have a residency at one of Toronto's legendary watering holes - - the Brunswick House, or the Brunnie, as Torontonians call it. (Not quite as elegant as the Palais, but with its own charm.) Special guest singers are Alex Pangman, "Colonel" Tom Parker and Helen Stewart.