TLDR: Trinity Square Video and Jay Douglas team up for free a screening of Play It Loud! followed by an artist talk tracing Toronto’s ska, rocksteady, reggae, and soul roots. It’s taking place this Saturday in Toronto.
Toronto’s musical memory walks into the room with a grin and a glide when Jay Douglas takes the mic. The veteran vocalist, whose career stitches together ska dance floors, rocksteady slow burns, and soul-soaked showmanship, arrives September 20 at Trinity Square Video to anchor a community screening of Play It Loud! — How Toronto Got Soul. It’s a documentary with a heartbeat, tracking the scenes, side-streets, and stubbornly hopeful venues that shaped the city’s “Toronto sound,” and it uses Jay’s story as both compass and spark.
Jay Douglas isn’t just the film’s subject; he’s its through-line. The doc chases the way migration and memory built a sonic home here—how Caribbean rhythms met downtown grit, and how bands turned tiny back rooms into legend. You hear the crackle of 45s and the clatter of load-ins; you see the faces who kept the lights on when the rent climbed and the audience thinned. It’s a love letter written in basslines and brass, honest about the hustle and high on the communion of a chorus sung back at the stage.
After the lights come up, the artist talk session with Douglas promises the kind of detail you can’t Google: the collaborators who sharpened the sound, the rooms that made it breathe, the choices that almost didn’t happen. Expect candid notes on process, community care, and why this history still thumps in the present tense. In a city that’s forever rebuilding itself, nights like this feel like preservation in motion—part archive, part block party, and entirely necessary.
Presented in celebration of Ontario Culture Days 2025.
- When: Saturday, September 20, 2025 — Doors 12:30 p.m.; Welcome 1 p.m.; Screening 1:05 p.m.; Artist Talk 2:30 p.m.; Close 3:15 pm
- Where: Trinity Square Video, 121-401 Richmond St. W, Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
- Admission: Free for Members and Non-Members
If you care about the past fuelling the next verse, Jay Douglas is the kind of afternoon that turns a film into a movement.
Trinity Square Video
Founded in 1971, Trinity Square Video is one of Canada’s first artist-run centres and the country’s oldest media arts centre. It’s a not-for-profit, haritable organization dedicated to supporting artists working in video, film, digital media, and emerging technologies. For more information, visit TrinitySquareVideo.com.
