Anat Cohen Quartet - L'Astral, 7/6/2009

It was such a pleasure to see four musicians having visible fun onstage. When flowing lines weren't exiting her clarinet, Anat Cohen was off to the side, dancing and encouraging her bandmates with shouts of "Yeah!" She and guitarist Gilad Hekselman shared a similar liquid tone, with more emphasis on the body of the note than the attack. Anchored by bassist Joe Martin and drummer Daniel Freedman, the quartet played a mix of truly swinging tunes.

The set opened with Anat's arrangement of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz," the head as a syncopated 9/8 Latin creature, releasing into swing for the solos. Cohen really hooked into the rhythm section, phrasing her lines with deep rhythmic intensity and locking in with Martin and Freedman. Hekselman phrased more like a horn player, riding over the rhythm section. All the soloists quoted the head, with varying degrees of liberty, to cue the end of their turns. Freedman's drum solo had him using his elbow to alter the pitch of his snare drum.

"The Purple Piece," an original Cohen composition, was a minor 3/4 tune that made great use of Cohen's facility with pitch-bend and glissando. Hekselman unleashed his chops on this tune, tapping a passage on the fretboard - perhaps in homage to visiting guitar heros Jeff Beck and Stanley Jordan. This led into a 6/8 Latin feel with Hekselman's bubbling comping.

"J Blues" opened with Cohen's intro, filling out a solo groove in the vein of Eddie Harris. Quotes from various big band chestnuts came out in the solos, including "Air Mail Special" - fitting, coming off Anat's Clarinetwork tribute to Benny Goodman at the Vanguard last week. Martin and Freedman hooked up on a soft yet intensely propulsive swing feel, Freedman swinging the side-stick like Philly Joe.

After a gorgeous reading of "Body and Soul," the set ended with the choro "Uma Zero" by the grand master Pixinguinha. Freedman used his floor tom as a surdo and nailed the particular brand of snare-drum swing of a Brazilian percussion group.

Hommage Eval Manigat - L'Astral, 7/6/2009

I didn't know Eval Manigat. I didn't know about Montreal's world music scene until a few years ago. By that time, Manigat wasn't as active on the scene as he had been in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing his energy on establishing the St-Marc Music Academy in his native Haiti. So the nostalgic element was a bit lost on me; the emotion I felt was more along the lines of wishing I had known him. A great bassist, vibraphonist, arranger and composer that passed away last year, the program was comprised of his tunes, save a couple of tributes penned for the concert.

The band featured Eval's compatriots from over the years, ranging from singers Karen Young and Sara Renelik, a horn section of saxophonists Yvan Belleau and Jean-Pierre Zanella, trumpeter Jocelyn Couture and Richard Gagnon on trombone, pianist Jean-Francois Groulx, bassist Fritz Pageot (father of Ric'key), and drummer Yvon Plouffe. Jean Vanasse assumed Eval's position behind the vibes on a few tunes.

The show opened with Belleau's tune "Compas pour Eval," a great fanfare and tribute, featuring Belleau and Groulx and the solid percussion section. Manigat's tunes incorporated rhythms from across the Caribbean, from Haitian compa to Cuban descargas, all with a strong sense of melody. All the soloists were in top form - Groulx's montunos were powerful, especially on "Rhapsody pour Haiti" alongside Richard Lalonde's flute; Martial Méroné's crystal clean Stratocaster evoked the Afro-pop diaspora. Young Haitian poet/vocalist Jahnice and pianist Genevieve St-Pierre offered a moving piece called "Bam La Vi," and Young, accompanied by pianist Tim Jackson, sang one of Eval's beautiful ballads, "Le Silence."

May Eval rest in peace - his music lives on in his colleagues, and the St-Marc Academy which will prove to be his legacy.

Le Large Ensemble - L'Astral, 7/3/2009

Dan Thouin could easily move his mattress to the Jazz Fest site. The multi-keyboardist is renowned around Montreal for his sonic mastery and his musical sensitivity, but doesn't always have the room to stretch out. With his Large Ensemble paying tribute to the music of early electric Miles, he had all the room he needed.

The band was comprised of some of the best and brightest on the local scene: Jocelyn Tellier and Olivier Langevin on guitars, Jim Doxas and Tony ("The Buddha of Beat") Albino on drums, Remi-Jean Leblanc on electric bass, Miguel Zaraipa on percussion, and a horn section of Maxime St-Pierre on trumpet, Yannick Rieu on soprano sax and Chet Doxas on bass clarinet and tenor sax. Thouin limited himself exclusively to Rhodes, run through Moogerfooger delay and modulation pedals. His improvising language is as solid as his attention to sound, incorporating elements of all the keyboard associates of that period - primarily Herbie in note choice and phrasing but with Chick's penchant for ring modulator and distortion, and Zawinul's swath of colour.

The band nodded at the 70s Miles era, without mimicing it outright - Yannick sounded especially indebted to Wayne on soprano, and Maxime St-Pierre had Miles' darkness in his sound without always deploying that characteristic weep. Tellier and Langevin combined with Thouin for some swirling soundscapes, while the three drummers and Remi-Jean hooked up to drive the group forward. Chet Doxas took some superb turns on bass clarinet and tenor. Tellier had a smooth, distorted sound for his solos, while Langevin sometimes got lost in the mix, but seemed to be unleashing Nels Cline-ish bursts of sound.

My favourite tunes of the set were the percolating take on "It's About that Time," with the band ferociously owning that groove, and the melancholy read of "In a Silent Way." It should not be another five years between a reunion of this Large Ensemble. If you can't get enough Dan Thouin at the festival, he's playing with Jedi Electro (joined by fellow journeymen Alex McMahon, Martin Lizotte and Jean-Phi Goncalves) at the Savoy at midnight tonight and tomorrow.

Lionel Loueke - L'Astral, 7/5/2009

What a brilliant show by Lionel Loueke and his trio at the new L'Astral. The same members, but different concept, from his Gilfema group, the trio played music from Loueke's Blue Note album, Karibu, far more powerful and engaging live than on the record.

Drummer Ferenc Nemeth and bassist Massimo Biolcati (the brains behind the iReal Book app) have a tremendous hook-up, ranging from the broken straight-eighth grooves to full-out walking swing. The metric shifts that dominate Loueke's music were performed with unified elasticity, and Nemeth's drumming style brings out the musicality of them, and not the mathematics, the way Marcus Gilmore might. Nemeth's small arsenal of percussion - cowbell and woodblock integrated to his kit, tambourine and dumbek off to the side - provided a novel percussive texture change behind Biolcati's bass solos. Nemeth has a way of building and releasing rhythmic tension alongside Loueke and Biolcati, without ever copying their lines verbatim. His solo on "Seven Teens," starting only on the snare and hi-hat while feathering the kick, as Biolcati and Loueke nailed the downbeats, was the highlight of the set.

Biolcati has a plucky attack in his upper register with a round woodiness on the bottom, a great anchor. His opening solo on the second tune had him anchoring the groove on low notes while filling in the gaps. The tune had a feel of metrically-shifted highlife, with Biolcati and Loueke in unison, opening up in the bridge.

Loueke was in phenomenal form throughout the show. Playing a nylon-string Godin guitar (and shouting out Robert Godin, who was in the audience) through Whammy and delay pedals, Loueke's sound was clean, with a warbling chorus effect via the Whammy's not-quite-accurate pitch tracking. In my brief interview with him, he affirmed that African music in all its forms is still a very prevalent and personal influence, and it was clear throughout his music: utilizing the clicks and pops of African dialects as another form of percussion; sticking a piece of paper under his strings to emulate a kora; the vocal harmonizer splitting his voice into a South African gospel choir; and the killing juju groove of "Nonvignon," complete with an audience singalong and a guest on soprano saxophone whose name I didn't catch.

Like The Bad Plus, Loueke proved that powerfully engaging music doesn't always come at high volume - his solo intro to "Karibu" and his coda to the second tune held me and the rest of my table in rapt attention.

Joyce - Club Soda, 7/4/2009

My friend, Rômmel Ribeiro, called me and said "Are you going to see Joyce?" After his recommendation, and Luciana Souza's cover of her "Feminina," I got myself a last minute ticket. What a pleasure it was. Drummer Tutty Moreno had the textbook bossa feel I've heard off the Milton Banana records - laidback, effortless, and swinging like crazy. His fills were subtle - a snare accent here, hi-hat and sidestick rolls there - but highly effective and never disrupted the groove. Pianist Helio Alves is my discovery of the festival so far; for whatever reason his name never popped up on my radar. Featured as much as Joyce, every tune had a fantastic Alves solo, well-constructed, melodically sound and harmonically rich. Very few people talk about the great legacy of Brazilian pianists, from Wagner Tiso to Walter Wanderley to Amilton Godoy and many others. Helio Alves is directly in that line.

Joyce's first set was more languid bossa nova, with tributes to the masters of bossa Johnny Alf, Dorival Caymmi (a fantastic version of "Lá Vem a Baiana") and Jobim (a slow, simmering "Desafinado"). She proved herself to be a terrific self-accompanist on guitar, never getting in Alves' way, and adding another layer of richness underneath her strong alto. She told stories behind her songs, including the English "Band on the Wall" written at the club of the same name in Manchester. The second set was full of more uptempo samba, including a wordless (save the bridge) take on "One Note Samba" and a thrilling rendition of "O morro não tem vez." Joe Lovano and Judi Silvano were in the house, and Joyce dedicated one song to them.

The Montreal crowd, nearly filling Club Soda, had been waiting forty years to see Joyce, and it showed. After an encore of "Berimbau," the crowd clapped strong and slow for minutes through the canned music, with stagehands running around backstage before Joyce returned to the stage solo for another version of "Aguas de março."

Opinions are free

There's a lot of well-deserved brouhaha over this "review" of Maria Schneider on the Gazette blog. When I first read it, like many, I thought it was a joke. I've read bad reviews, I've even written a couple, but I never imagined there was any way a review could be entirely wrong. This is the textbook example of how not to review -- at no point whatsoever does Heinrich talk about the music. I'd have even accepted complete and utter misrepresentations of Maria's music, her musicians, and their instruments, over what wound up being published.

I disagreed with many of Mr. Heinrich's reviews of last year's festival, and I assumed that he was brought in to fill the space of the then-ailing Juan Rodriguez. Juan's better this year and is his usual bright spark around the press room, so why they still sent Heinrich to cover anything is beyond me. I don't recall having read his political or "diversity" writings, so I'll withhold further judgement.

This should not reflect on the rest of the Gazette's music and Jazz Fest team. Juan Rodriguez is one of the best music writers around with his wide range of expertise; Bernard Perusse and Irwin Block produce some great work throughout the year, and are fantastic people to trade concert impressions with; Adam Kinner is a buddy from my McGill days, a killing saxophonist, and an insightful writer; and Natasha Hall is a burst of energy in the press room, seemingly going to every show and dutifully reporting on them. I haven't yet met Jordan Zivitz or T'cha Dunlevy but I admire their work as well. Whether I agree or disagree with their reviews (and I tend to agree with most of them, most of the time) is beside the point -- all of them consistently back up their arguments and word them well. How Heinrich's piece slipped through the cracks is an egregious aberration that I sincerely hope the Gazette will not repeat again.

The Bad Plus - L'Astral 7/1/2009

It seems that a review of the Bad Plus has to address the critical (mis)perception of the band, as well. Ever since they exploded onto the major jazz radar with their cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," they've been painted with the wide brush of being a strictly bombastic band. Throughout their set at L'Astral, they proved that power can come without volume.

The set opened with Reid Anderson's "Everywhere You Turn," almost "Nefertiti"-like in its economy. Dave King rarely strayed from his soft yet propulsive backbeat (until the tune's final build), and Ethan Iverson gave a direct reading of the tune's melody, allowing Reid to solo in the gaps with his amped-up tone.

Ethan's introduction to his own "Mint" featured his distinctive sense of counterpoint, where it sounds like it could go off the rails at any moment but won't because of Ethan's startling sense of control. I really appreciated the dry sound of the trio in the new L'Astral, as opposed to the immense reverb they were saddled with when they were Mike Stern's guests at Place des Arts.

King's "Thriftstore Jewelry" followed, featuring the twisted TBP take on the '60s "Latin" feel. Dave's drum solo seemed to be the percussive equivalent of Ethan's melodic language. By the way they unleash elements of the standard language of common-practice jazz, you can tell by inference that Ethan, Reid and Dave have done their homework, and are tweaking the paradigms with strong intent.

It was quite revelatory to hear two of the modern classical pieces - Ligeti's "Metal" (from the second book of piano etudes) and Babbitt's "Semi-Simple Variations" - live. They didn't sound drastically different from a Fieldwork tune, with the intervallic consistency and logic and the rhythmic twists-and-turns that Dave brought into relief with his drum patterns. The Babbitt served as a prelude to Reid's "Physical Cities," in all its tension-ratcheting, thundering glory. The immense hookup between the three, the massive groove that sometimes comes out, is an underrated element of the Bad Plus.

Wendy Lewis came out for the second half of the set. I really appreciated how the tunes were recast in ways that truly suited the songs - not subversive for the sake of being subversive. In the chorus of Nirvana's "Lithium," the trio starts to wobble like a warped record, pulling the rug from under Wendy. Ethan's harmonic language substitutes for the noise of Cobain's distorted, chorus-laden guitar. Wendy's straight voice, without vibrato, allowed every element to come across clearly. She has phenomenal intonation to keep everything in place over the reharmonized passages. Wilco's "Radio Cure" opened with a duet between Reid and Wendy, as Ethan peppered polytonal flurries over a relatively straight rock beat. The song gradually got dismantled harmonically, before it fell apart rhythmically. Reid showed off his backing vocal chops here, and on "Comfortably Numb."

This harmonic pulling-apart was a characteristic of all the other covers: the lugubrious swing of "Long Distance Runaround," the plaintive plea of "How Deep is Your Love" which started off as is and then gradually disintegrated in the second chorus. Ethan sped up Gilmour's chiming arpeggios in "Comfortably Numb," turning them into beautiful cascades of piano.

Luciana Souza/Romero Lubambo - Club Soda, 7/1/2009

Luciana Souza and Romero Lubambo in duo displayed the variety and potential in such a sparse duo. Lubambo played exclusively nylon-string guitar, and Souza proved to be a terrific pandeirista and triangle player in addition to her tremendous vocal skills. Throughout the evening it was clear that they take great joy in playing together. Souza's time feel is precise, and the two of them share the same sense of swing, be it on sambas, forró or jazz. Lubambo's voicings are rich and dense, full of crunchy semitones, and he unleashes them over a solid surdo-esque bassline. The arrangements were fantastic, breaking up the traditional vocal-plus-accompaniment with counterpoint and supremely tight unison lines.

Their repertoire choice was inspired as well, ranging from Paul Simon's "Amulet" (recorded on Souza and Lubambo's new album, Tide), a gorgeous rendition of "Chega de Saudade," a heartbreaking take on "You Go To My Head," and a jovial romp through "But Not for Me." They closed their first set with Hermeto Pascoal's "Chorinho pra ele," an incredibly difficult song to play, let alone sing. Whenever I hear true bossa nova, I'm fascinated by the nuance that the performers bring to it, instead of the way many jazzers approach bossa as an archetype that must remain in tact the whole way through. The loose version of "So Danço Samba" that opened the concert and the expansive version of "Dindi" that closed it were two more examples of this open spirit.

Stevie Wonder setlist - 06/30/2009, Place des Festivals (FIJM)

I was kind of beyond critical commentary last night. DJ Kobal warmed everybody up with a killer 2-hour set of his own, dropping Michael Jackson classics interspersed with well-known and lesser-known soul and funk gems, and trying to move the clouds with Bill Withers' "Lovely Day."

After an opening speech honouring Michael Jackson, calling the never-ending gossip "bullshit" and proclaiming that tonight would be a celebration, Stevie started his marathon set in earnest. Every time I thought the set had to be over, he continued. The band was supremely tight (will get everyone's names later today and add them here). From my vantage point, I couldn't tell whether the first couple of Michael Jackson tunes were coming through the PA (as they apparently were) or if it was one of Stevie's incredibly talented back-up singers mimicing Michael to a T. During the earliest portion of soundcheck, Stevie's male back-up vocalist stood in for him, sounding note for note like the boss. The show ended with beautiful fireworks, set to among other things, "Manteca."

Set List
I Can't Help It
As If You Read My Mind
Master Blaster (Jammin') [with lyrics about Obama]
Shake Your Body Down to the Ground (PA)
Did I Hear You Say You Love Me
All I Do
Michelle
Knocks Me Off My Feet
[new, Algerian sounding tune from the forthcoming spiritual record]
The Way You Make Me Feel (PA)
Higher Ground
All Blues [done with a 9/8 feel, Stevie on harmonica]
Giant Steps
Spain [Stevie playing Concerto de Aranjuez on harmonica, with each band member taking a chorus]
Our Love is Here to Stay
Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing
Overjoyed
I'm Going to Laugh You Right Out of My Life [Nancy Wilson song with Aisha Morris singing lead]
My Cherie Amour
Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours
Uptight (Everything's Alright)
For Once in My Life
Do I Do
I Just Called to Say I Love You
These Three Words
Sir Duke/I Wish/Isn't She Lovely
Superstition [with "Sex Machine" quotations]
As
MJ Finale: ABC/Got to be There/Never Can Say Goodbye/Shake Your Body/Rock With You/Billie Jean/Way You Make Me Feel/Man in the Mirror (PA)

We can feel it all over

So here's the story of how I met Stevie Wonder, in full.

I was at home, having lunch, waiting to see if ominous storm clouds would roll in as forecast. On the noon news, there was a piece about Stevie Wonder at the Jazz Fest and that he would be holding a press conference at 1 pm. I hustled to get down to the press room, arriving around 1:05 to a lobby full of journalists waiting to get in.

Once we were ushered into the new conference room, it was business as usual: reporters sat down, camera crews took to the wings and back. The lead press organizer made an announcement about how long the conference would be and to limit questions about Michael Jackson.

Festival co-founders Andre Menard and Alain Simard came out with Stevie close behind. After describing the festival's Spirit Award (a bronze statue based on a painting Miles Davis did for the festival) to Stevie, and Stevie's heartfelt words about jazz, the festival and Michael Jackson, they opened the floor to questions.

I had the first question. Identifying myself from CKUT (college and community radio), I asked him to talk about the influences that shaped his unique sense of melody and harmony. Since there was a piano onstage, I figured it would be a good way to get him showing examples and playing tunes - an Inside the Actors Studio moment. Stevie almost answered and then said, "You know, let's take the other questions first, and then you can come up here and hang and I'll show you some tunes."

Other questions were taken about Michael Jackson, child stardom, Motown, a forthcoming spiritual record, etc. I'm not sure who reminded him about me - someone in his crew or someone from Jazz Fest - but he said, "Where's that student? Come up here and let's talk." Not expecting it, the media organizer popped up beside me and prompted me to go up! I went up and introduced myself, thanking him, and he said to me, "So what do you want to know?" Flustered, I blurted out "Bridge of 'Living for the City' and 'They Won't Go When I Go'." He proceeded to talk about "They Won't Go," written on a Monday in New York as he was trying to get out of some contracts, and how Malcolm Cecil and Bob Margouleff's Moog synthesizer programming really made the song come alive. "I Can't Help It" (from Off the Wall) is his take on "A Night in Tunisia." I suppose he was willing to continue, and I didn't want to cut him off but I knew time was running out.

Quite possibly the most surreal and flabbergasting experience of my life.

Jazz Matters 2009: Modern Jazz Piano

When James Hale invited me to be part of a Modern Jazz Piano panel alongside Ashley Kahn, Mark Miller, Alan Stanbridge, Jesse Stewart and Jason Moran, I immediately said yes. Honoured to be in such esteemed company (and honestly a little nervous), the panel took place at the National Arts Centre's Fourth Stage this afternoon. It was a little bizarre to be talking and not playing there, after having done two master classes (Michael Abene and Kenny Barron).

A fair amount of ground got covered in the mere hour we had, and through Mark Miller's comments on Oscar Peterson we landed on the topic of "regional mentorship," or players that are highly influential or inspirational on a localized level, but not on a national or international scale. Other topics included unsung/"underpromoted" heroes of the keyboard, the amount of music for pianists (and musicians in general) to absorb, and the role of electronics and synthesizers in the modern piano world.

Coinciding with the blogosphere's discussion of the knowledge of the tradition among young players, Moran said that some of his students at the Manhattan School aren't as aware of Thelonious Monk as they should be, let alone Herbie Nichols or Andrew Hill (or James P. Johnson). The statement "I have it on my iPod" has come to stand in for actually checking the music out. While I'm far from an encylopaedic fount of knowledge (I certainly haven't checked out enough Nichols or James P.), I can't fathom a jazz pianist not checking Monk. I was fortunate to discover Monk early on, and I'm still digging through the treasure trove there. Then again, I hadn't even heard Paul Bley's Footloose, Jarrett's American quartet, Herbie Nichols, or a good chunk of AACM-related music until well into my university career.

Miller's distinction between "influence" and "inspiration" is intriguing, and it's one that I've come across in my own development many times. As I said on the panel, Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson were my inspirations to pursue jazz piano. Does my music today necessarily reflect that? No. I haven't even listened to Time Out in years; I delved back into OP's music after his death but haven't revisited it since. I have immense admiration for what Vijay Iyer is doing too, but does it feed into my musical process? Somewhat, but not really.

I can't emphasize how important I feel that checking out the traditions - "common-practice" jazz, the "avant-garde," pre-bop, post-bop - are. My favourite musicians are equally at home playing composed music and freely improvising, and their experience in each informs the other. But the truly important thing is to investigate the music that resonates on a personal level - be it Jelly Roll Morton or J Dilla, Julius Hemphill or Djavan.

One of the audience members asked whether the listed pantheon of giants was American-centric. Probably. If it had been a European panel I'm sure Esbjorn Svensson would have been mentioned somewhere, as well as Bobo Stenson, John Taylor, and many others. But I think the approach of European musicians, at least those that I've met, is similar to my own - you investigate a wide variety of music and then cherry-pick elements out of it.

Kudos to James for running a tight ship, and to Ashley, Jesse, Jason, Mark and Alan for sharing their wisdom.

RIP MJ

As usual, Darcy beat me to the punch with his remembrance.

I had Thriller, Bad and Dangerous on cassettes when I was a kid. I don't really remember why I bought them - I think they were just cool albums to have in the late 80s and early 90s, before MJ became dogged by child molestation allegations, melting faces, financial ruin and all-around craziness. It was only in my final year of high school, when a bass player I knew bought all the reissued CDs and played them in his car, that I grasped the depth of what was going on in the production of those albums. YouTube is a treasure trove of live and rehearsal footage, a testament to his skills as a bandleader. As an interpreter, Darcy's got a great version posted, and he obviously makes Rod Temperton's songs his own on Off the Wall.

If you want to talk about rhythmic integrity, MJ is a classic case. Many have written and talkedf about his immense groove and pocket, beatboxing and singing with precision. It's a real shame that James Brown is gone, and his heir (at least in the footwork department) is gone now too. I wonder if there's someone who can galvanize pop culture the way MJ did, even in his lesser moments.

Deux solitudes

I tend not to get political on this blog, but sometimes stories come along that intersect with my life as a musician in Montreal. Big news here this week, on the eve of St-Jean, was the brouhaha over two anglophone acts performing at a St-Jean party.

For non-Québécois readers: St-Jean-Baptiste day, also known as the Fête nationale du Québec, is a summer statutory holiday taken to celebrate Quebec and its culture, originally to unite all the settlers in Lower Canada. More recently, with the separatist/souverainiste/indépendantiste movement in Quebec over the last 30-something years, it's become at times a fiercely nationalistic celebration.

The party in question, L'Autre St-Jean, was booked by a management company called C4. Two of the acts on the roster were Lake Of Stew and Bloodshot Bill - anglophone acts who call Quebec home. One of the co-sponsors of the party, the Association culturel Louis-Hébert, demanded that C4 drop them from the bill, stating that the St-Jean party should be a French-only affair. C4 refused, many Québecois (anglophone, francophone, and allophone alike) supported the two bands and C4, and the ACLH relented.

To me, this whole thing has always been a farce. St-Jean is a celebration of Quebec, and should not necessarily be French-only. The province, Montreal especially, has so many immigrant communities from all over la Francophonie, Latin America, as well as English- and French-speaking Quebecers. If the celebration is to be true to its roots - a reunion of all Canadiens - then it should embrace the whole spectrum of the Quebecois populace. Anglo Quebecers of my parents' generation question why English bands would want to play at a St-Jean party anyway (remnants of the hostile language politics of the '70s and '80s), but for me, I feel that I should be as welcome as a québécois de souche.

***

I've written about how the language barrier can exist among musicians here. I don't think that, in my generation, it's an intentional thing: I think it just happens. Students that move to Quebec from out-of-province or out-of-country to study at McGill or Concordia don't always experience the entirety of Montreal, especially the events that are held in more French-speaking settings.

My first McGill combo was made up of an anglophone trombone player from Ontario, and a Québécois rhythm section. Our coach, Rémi Bolduc, conducted rehearsals in both languages. From the outset, that was my impression of how the music scene here should be. One thing I love about Montreal is that there is a lot of crosstalk between different musical scenes, although I still think there could be more. The world music scene is predominantly French-speaking here, and a handful of musicians aside, it doesn't really interface with the Anglo hip-hop or R&B communities, even when there is artistic kinship. McGill and Université de Montréal foster very different scenes - I've met and played with a handful of UdeM students and alumni, but we seem to hang out at different places, for the most part.

There's some musicians here that are catalysts for the intersection of multiple cultures, musics, and languages - Kalmunity is a hub for all sorts of great players, MCs, and poets; Gordon Allen has set up L'Envers with like-minded Québécois; Tim Brady is a bright spark in the predominantly Francophone new music/actuelle community here. For my part, I've often been the only Anglo in a band, and I love that setting. I get to practice my French, for one, and the experience of growing up here is often vastly different than growing up in Toronto. There's a whole history of Québécois pop and rock that doesn't make it over to Toronto. I invited a Francophone percussionist onto an Anglo R&B gig, and I really hope that all of us collaborate in different settings more often. The Karkwatson shows last year - an amalgam of Patrick Watson and Karkwa - are hopefully previews of more cross-linguistic explorations to come.

Maintenance

I've added the buzzworthy NPR and Nate Chinen blogs to the sidebar, as well as Peter Hum (whom I thought I added a long time ago, sorry Peter!) and Kelly Fenton's new link. Not on the sidebar but worthy of checking out is AccuJazz.com and head programmer/drummer Lucas Gillan's Twitter feed.

I may weigh in - tardy, as usual - on the hivemind's topics of influence/history, and the decline of jazz journalism.

Face 2 Face - Bell Centre 06/03/2009

I am an unabashed fan of piano pop, as I mentioned here. Billy Joel's 52nd Street album is my first musical memory - I credit it with my subconscious gravitation towards the piano. One of my favourite tracks on that album was always "Zanzibar," with its burning Freddie Hubbard solo; not that I knew that it was Freddie until many years later, but I assume it sowed the seeds of my later love for jazz. The original Face2Face tour, fourteen years ago, was my second arena show ever (my first was Neil Diamond at Maple Leaf Gardens). I've since seen Billy and Elton individually, but I haven't been to an arena show since Joel's Air Canada Centre show in 2000.

The sound was surprisingly stellar - aside from Joel's mic not being on for the first line of "Your Song," everything else was crisp and clear. In Elton's set, keyboardist Guy Babylon got his sonic due in his epic opening rendition of "Funeral for a Friend". I don't think people give Elton enough credit as a pianist - in "Burn Down the Mission" and throughout the night he showed his barrelhouse chops and still strong voice. "Madman Across the Water" was turned into a loose jam session, complete with a "Girl From Ipanema" quote from Elton. I saw a few people in my section leave - hopefully it was to fill the floor and not head for the exits after a couple of obscurities. "Rocket Man" keeps getting longer and longer, yet somehow more focused.

Billy's set was spot on, too. He's still in fine voice even though most of the songs have been lowered in key. "Angry Young Man" started a touch on the slower side but picked up and grooved all the way through. Joel, as always, kibbitzed with the audience: "I am not Billy Joel. I am René Angélil. Billy couldn't make it tonight - he's at home combing his hair." Carl Fischer burned up his solo spot in "Zanzibar" on both flugel and trumpet, with bassist Andy Cichon and drummer Chuck Burgi swinging surprisingly well. The break in "River of Dreams" featured James Brown-style stop-time ("hit me five times on the five chord!"). The backing vocals were superb and clear in both sets.

With both bands on stage, it didn't turn into sonic soup. Climaxing with piano trades on "Bennie and the Jets" (with quotes of "When I'm 64") and a Beatles medley of "Birthday/Back in the USSR," the bands left and let Joel and John to close the three-and-a-half hour show with "Candle in the Wind" and, of course, "Piano Man."

Set List
Billy Joel & Elton John, duo
Your Song
Billy & Elton w/ Mark Rivera
Just the Way You Are
Billy & Elton w/ Elton's band
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
Billy & Elton w/ Billy's band
My Life

Elton John's set
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting
Burn Down the Mission
Madman Across the Water
Tiny Dancer
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Daniel
Rocket Man
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
I'm Still Standing
Crocodile Rock

Billy Joel's set
Prelude/Angry Young Man
Movin' Out
Allentown
Zanzibar
Don't Ask Me Why
She's Always a Woman
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
River of Dreams
We Didn't Start the Fire
It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me
Only the Good Die Young

Billy & Elton & both bands
I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues
Uptown Girl
The Bitch is Back
You May Be Right
Bennie and the Jets
Birthday/Back in the USSR

Billy & Elton, duo
Candle in the Wind
Piano Man

THE GOODS present SOUNDSCAPES

With a year of building up to this event, it's finally here:

The Goods and BNL MTL present SOUNDSCAPES
at La Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent, coin St. Joseph)
May 23, 2009 - 10 pm - $10

So by now, I'm sure you know the story: Scott C and Claudio Marzano commissioned me to write an original "soundtrack" based on Rick Leong's painting "Dancing Serpent in Dawn's Quiet." With some hand-picked colleagues, we recorded the piece at McGill's Studio A, and then the Biennale released the multitrack files and score for anyone to remix and re-interpret.

By the time May 2009 rolled around, we had received many remixes from local artists as well as curious minds from Amsterdam and Scotland, and Rick had painted two new works based on the music. It doesn't stop there: on Saturday night, there will be an additional remix of the remixes, performed live by the musicians. It wouldn't be an edition of The Goods without some stellar DJ talent, though, so the dynamic duo of Scott C & Andy Williams will be joined by Dubline to spin tunes throughout the night.

The Dancing Serpent Players:
Mario Allard (MAQ/Papagroove) - alto saxophone & flute
Ben Henriques (Responsibility Club) - soprano & tenor saxophones
Gary Schwartz (Public Transport Project) - guitar
David Ryshpan - keyboards
Scott Kingsley (Kids Eat Crayons) - bass
Mark Nelson (Fieldtrip/Trio Bruxo) - drums
+ special guest KenLo le Narrateur....

Indigone Tour Blog May 2009

Phil and I took the bus from Montreal to Boston, to our gig at Lily Pad in Cambridge. It seems like every city has a better managed subway system than Montreal. Cambridge Street reminded me a bit of College St. in Toronto - a quaint little section of the city lined with restaurants and clubs. Lily Pad is a listening room, much like The Stone - no bar, no food, plain chairs - but with a much warmer atmosphere. We were playing the final set of the night, after a bunch of Scottish expats attending Berklee and a group featuring club manager Gill on piano and glockenspiel. Leave it to my luck to be playing the same night as the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins. Pat kindly showed up even though he had a 7 am class, and it was a good warm up for Phil and I to shake the rust off of playing with Alex.

We drove back to Alex's parents' place on Cape Cod to crash, and then hopped more buses from the Cape to Boston and into NYC. Before leaving in the morning, I saw my BMI colleague Mariel Berger had sent me an e-mail about her show Monday night with the new Anicha Quartet, with vocalist Jean Rohe and Secret Society members Sebastian Noelle (guitar) and Mark Small (bass clarinet). I headed over to VoxPop, which is the Brooklyn equivalent of Montreal's L'Escalier, with delicious vegetarian/vegan food, great beer, and the hub of a certain artistic/political segment of the community. Most of the tunes were by Mariel and Sebastian, full of counterpoint and colour, with Jean's "La Coqueta" flipping between Spanish and English lyrics, and Mark's bluesy tune ("Tumbleweed"?) adding a deeply swinging contrast to the set. I look forward to more from that group - they're all fantastic musicians individually, and the instrumentation is beautiful and novel.

Tuesday was rehearsal day with our NYC string section of Sean-David Cunningham (the only holdover from the album, who happened to grow up in Brooklyn a stone's throw from where everyone else now lives), Zach Brock, Corinna Albright and Jody Redhage. Sean-David assumed a fantastic and necessary leadership role, and Zach, Corinna, and Jody read through the pieces at an incredible level. It was truly an honour to work with them, and I hope to do it again soon.

Wednesday was pretty frantic - with the last-minute benefit for Calvin Weston's son, Dominic, who was killed in a tragic hit-and-run the week before, I was left scrambling trying to figure out whether we should honour our commitment at World Cafe Live or cancel, in order to let everyone attend the show at The Fire. The crew at WCL were highly accommodating, and I hope to reschedule that show, with Philly's Highbrid, at some point soon.

Thursday evening I finally made it out to NuBlu, a club that's been on my radar for years. The home base of Forro in the Dark, Butch Morris' Monday night conductions of the NuBlu orchestra, and Brazilian Girls, it's the nexus of the fusion between electro, Latin and jazz sounds in the East Village. Opening the night was Lotus9, with improvised dubby goodness led by keyboardist Rick Bottari, who reminded me of Mark de Clive-Lowe, seamlessly moving between keyboards. The main event was Forro in the Dark's Davi Vieira and his solo project, Hip Hop Axé. A fusion of the two musics in question, Davi led a multinational band through a whole host of party tunes. An incredibly fun time and a very late night, topped off with samosas at Alex's favourite Indian spot.

Friday was showtime in NYC at Saint Peter's Church. We performed in the series curated by Ike Sturm, in a double bill with Tim Collins' Hell's Gate. Zach and Jody also played with Tim, whose group was rounded out by Ulrike Schmitz on viola, Greg Chudzik on bass and Matt Blostein on alto sax. Tim's tunes are truly gorgeous, and he found a way to get the most common blues ostinato to swing on strings. On the final tune, Greg, Tim, Matt and Zach traded some melodically inventive solos.

As for us, we played everything on our record. Considering we only had rehearsal and the NYC ringers hadn't had the music for long in advance, it went better than I could have hoped. Phil and Alex sounded really good, and Zach took a beautiful solo on "Driscollage."

Off bright and early to Toronto, where we double-billed at Tequila Bookworm with old friends Arkana Music. Ali's tunes are always intriguing, the band is always tight, and the blend between Mark Laver on alto and Tom Richards on trombone worked surprisingly well, especially on the demented klezmer of "Circus Freak." Seb Pellerin joined us again, fresh off playing at the National Jazz Awards gala with Mario Allard, and we blasted through a bunch of the trio-only book. It's a totally different band when we don't play Alex's tunes. I'm still getting used to that. As always, when I play a pass-the-hat gig in Toronto, there's a couple of people that don't want to donate, and there's always one mysterious piece of currency (in this case, a 0.10 Euro) in there.

Roadtrip back to Montreal with Seb and Phil where we passed our iPods around. The playlist included Revolver, Thriller, Songs in the Key of Life, Karkwa, Blonde Redhead, Q-Tip and more.

Emotions taking me over

Via Bernie Perusse at the Gazette, I've read Karl Paulnack's address to the parents of an incoming class to the Boston Conservatory. The speech resonated with me on many levels. As I've written numerous times in this space, I firmly believe that music is intended to communicate - it is not merely a craft, it is a language, as cliché as that may be. All of the music on Cycles is extremely important on a personal level to me, and the newer tunes I've written for Indigone and for big band also have some sort of back story, be it a tribute to a person in particular or, like "Dancing Serpent in Dawn's Quiet," based on a painting. Other songs that resonate most profoundly for me - Djavan's "Oceano," for example - are obviously coming from a very deep and moving place.

Paulnack recounts one listener's reaction to a performance of Copland's Violin Sonata, written as a tribute to a fallen pilot:

“During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, [...] and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”

Paulnack's address to the parents concludes with a portion of his speech to the incoming students. This is something all of us musicians should keep in mind:

I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. [...] If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.

I remember being on the bus not long after starting my undergrad, and somehow I got to talking to a fellow student, some liberal arts student of an as-then-undetermined major, who was avidly seeking out the doctor-and/or-lawyer type. When I told her I was a musician, she asked something to the effect of "Well, what are you going to do with that?" And I responded along similar lines - I can help people, too.

Hivemind: Pedagogy licks and tricks

Nearly a year ago, Darcy posted this questionaire by Mike McGinnis. This was my response at the time:

In general, this is something I've struggled with as I've started teaching more.
I've worked very hard to shed a reliance on licks and move towards a more
holistic, in-the-moment approach to improv, which doesn't make me special but
will hopefully make me "me." As such I'm wary of giving my students licks and
phrases to study, but the other ways of teaching improvisation sound so
convoluted to a beginner. The process, like a snake shedding its skin, seems to
be necessary: studying the vocabulary of past and present masters, and then
finding one's own voice within that.

I've now had students who are at the level of being able and willing to learn some vocabulary, and I find myself being very against teaching all the textbook patterns and licks that I learned myself. It took me as long, if not longer, to realize that those phrases were a means to an end and not the end itself. I remember hitting a wall early on in my jazz studies, realizing that I wasn't truly improvising but merely creating a real-time pastiche of lick A and phrase B.

I'm beginning to think that a better way is to encourage the student to find their own vocabulary. Any student will (or should) have artists that they gravitate towards and identify with - let that be the genesis of their vocabulary, instead of working out of the various compendiums of licks that exist now. Jan Jarczyk once counselled me to take my favourite phrases of a solo, investigate how and why they work, and take them out of the context of the solo and create new permutations: transpose them to other keys, superimpose them on other harmony, etc. Brad Mehldau told me that he would write his own etudes for himself, so that he could practise various technical challenges without having to copy someone else's language. Some of my first lessons with Jeff Johnston were spent writing my own lines over ii-V-I progressions and attempting to arrive at my own sound that way.

I'm not denying the importance of tradition, or of listening to what's come before. In fact, I believe that it's essential to know the history of the music you're playing, and to be able to recall certain stylistic traits of it immediately. But the challenge is to create a relationship with your musical language, and to have that intent behind what you're playing - if I happen to play a Bird or Coltrane lick, it's not done with a wink and a nod, it's done as my genuine musical decision at that given moment.

How have you fellow musicians and educators effectively learned, or taught, improvisation? Is learning licks now a rite of passage for students or is there a better way to do it?

Stand in line and vote

This post is blatantly for the Montrealers and ex-Montrealers. The Mirror is once again holding its Best of Montreal poll. When I first moved here it was a pretty good guide for places to check out in the city, and as I've spent more time here it becomes a matter of curiosity as to who will place in which categories - will the perennial victors keep their stronghold or will an underdog make headway?

Last year, through the power of Facebook spam, I saw a lot of messages to stuff the ballot box in favour of certain musicians or organizations. (No disrespect and I'm not naming names - it's totally fair in online voting.) It's obvious that not many people are filling in the field of Best Montreal Jazz Musician, and that it doesn't take a lot to skew the vote. While I'm not imploring you to vote for me in that category (though I'd be honoured if you did), I am asking you to vote honestly in that category and others. In this cultural and economic climate, with grant programs disappearing and budgets constantly being cut, we need ink to be spilled on the people actively on the cultural scene of Montreal. As much as I love Oliver Jones and the late Dr. Peterson, there's many more players active at this instant that don't get enough love. There's promoters and hidden venues doing great things off the radar; give your neighbourhood café the shout-out it may desperately need.

The only trick about the Mirror ballot is that you need to fill out 25 of the categories for your votes to be valid. So please click on over and vote! Results will be published May 14.