Roots drummer, producer and musical director Amir "?uestlove" Thompson is an inveterate multitasker. Tuesday night at the Toronto Jazz Festival media compound, he took a few minutes out from prepping for his band's sold-out show to chat, as he semi-apologetically checked his Blackberry. One could assume that he was going through his electronic ...

Rufus Wainwright has had an eventful and painful past year. Last spring in Berlin, he debuted 'Sonnette,' a Shakespeare-based theatrical collaboration with maverick director Robert Wilson. A few months later in Manchester, he premiered his first opera, 'Prima Donna.' In December, he sang with his mother, Kate McGarrigle, at London's Royal Albert ...

Having bested Andrew WK in a piano duel and set a new world record for the longest-ever piano concert, Chilly Gonzales is now turning his thoughts to a more intense type of competition: chess. The Paris-based provocateur and "entertainist" has scripted a feature-length film centred on the venerable board game and it's currently being filmed in ...

They wore baseball caps, bandanas and cowboy hats. They sported Maple Leaf badges and flags. They came in from the suburbs, from Ottawa, from Indiana. On a gloriously sunny day in downtown Toronto, 1623 guitarists packed Yonge/Dundas Square with one common goal – to strum out Neil Young's three-chord classic 'Helpless' together. The ...