Think jazz and you think of four or five guys on stage in a smoky club, taking turns improvising solos over a 12-bar blues progression.

You don’t think of Winnipeg-based one-man band Ricardo Lopez-Aguilar, who, during a typical live show, is armed only with his voice, a guitar, a laptop named Moses and maybe a drummer.

Sure, the first instrument he picked up as a child was the saxophone – a jazz instrument if ever there was one – but his choice of saxophonists to emulate was questionable.

“I must admit, I listened to Kenny G,” Lopez-Aguilar said during a recent interview in his Fort Rouge home.

And yet, Oldfolks Home will bring his unique brand of experimental, electro art-pop to the 2009 Jazz Winnipeg Festival, opening for Swedish singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez as part of the festival’s club series.

“Aside from a handful of people I know from high school who listen to jazz, it doesn’t seem like a genre that generates enough income to have [its own] festival,” the 26-year-old said, commenting on the eclectic line-ups he’s witnessed at jazz festivals across Canada. “It’s important to get the crowds out, and I think it’s awesome that Winnipeg’s line-up is diverse.”

An $80 club pass will get attendees into as many of the festival’s “Club Series” shows from June 26 to July 5 as they can check out. You can see a jazz act one night, and a band like Oldfolks Home the next. People who are into jazz get exposed to non-jazz acts, and vice versa.

That sort of exposure can only be good, Lopez-Aguilar said.

And indeed, whether they’re jazz purists or open to anything, people who check out Oldfolks Home are in for a treat. Lopez-Aguilar has been the target of a steady flow of rave reviews since he released his debut CD, We Are the Feeding Line, in late 2007.

Recorded at home over the course of four years in Winnipeg and Montreal, where he studied audio engineering at a technical college, Lopez-Aguilar played all of the instruments himself.

He often processed them on his second computer, a desktop PC named Solomon, until they sounded completely different, adding synthesizers and electronic sounds into the mix as well.

The touring he’s done since the CD’s release took him to the legendary South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas this past March. He describes it as a good experience, although not much networking was done.

“There’s little time to talk about music because everyone’s drunk.”

Lopez-Aguilar is now setting his sights on his next album, which he plans to release in 2010. There’s also the jazz fest gig to plan for.

“I felt really honoured to be asked to be a part of the festival,” he said. “I just feel like it’s a higher standard that the people who listen to jazz [have].

“You’ll never see a bad show at a jazz festival.”

Published in Volume 63, Number 28 of The Uniter (June 18, 2009)