A fine balance

Fellow pianist/writer Peter Hum over at the Ottawa Citizen has been posting a steady stream of blogs discussing his experience with free/avant-garde/creative jazz with candor. The latest entry includes excerpts from Ottawa pianist Steve Boudreau (whom I met at the Kenny Barron masterclass at the National Arts Centre), currently studying at NEC. Boudreau writes:

I think the highest regard goes to musicians who can integrate these (free) elements with their own music. So not just out stuff, but a good mix of musicality with a total open mind.

This summarizes my own experience with avant-leaning music. My favourite musicians are those that can play both completely open and free, as well as in song-form or through-composed settings, and do so with equal conviction and clarity. Through free improvising, my approach to song forms and compositions retains that sense of freedom. And conversely, by playing a variety of different songs and compositions, be it jazz standards, pop tunes, ethnic folk songs or classical repertoire, I become more varied in my interactions in free improvising. I find that balance truly fascinating. One of the most eye- and ear-opening experiences at the Banff Centre was hearing Dave Douglas burn on bebop tunes at a jam session in the pub. Memorably, Douglas said that "all 'free' means is the freedom to make any musical choice at any given time," which runs counter to those who posit that many free players play free because they can't do anything else. It may be true of some, I suppose.

The avant-garde can be daunting, because there are so many subsets of it stylistically, and even within certain scenes, the styles of player to player (or the same person project to project) can vary widely. It's only when I was confronted with "avant-garde" music and started to deal with it on its own terms, away from descriptions by journalists or other musicians, that I started to enjoy it and embrace it. Two moments catalyzed my exploration of avant music:

On a high school band trip to Chicago, we went to see Medeski Martin & Wood in an acoustic setting with Eight Bold Souls opening, at Symphony Centre. As a DownBeat-reading adolescent jazz snob, I knew the Eight Bold Souls were part of the AACM. My only knowledge of AACM music was, maybe, a couple of Art Ensemble tracks where they were all playing "little instruments," and photos of Lester Bowie in his white lab coat. I had just gotten into MMW's groovier stuff like It's a Jungle in Here and A Go Go (with Scofield). I went in expecting to love MMW and despise Eight Bold Souls. It was the opposite: Wilkerson and co. played most of the music from Last Option, with tunes like "Pachinko" and "Brown Town" swinging in their raggedly jolly way, and more brooding tunes brought out by the unconventional and bass-heavy instrumentation. The MMW set, very similar to their album, Tonic, went way over my head at the time. Medeski and Martin would hint at these deliciously funky grooves, and instead of indulging them, find any way to subvert them. As a kid, this was intensely frustrating. It was only years later that Tonic, and that style of group interplay, really clicked for me. I wish I had the tapes of that show now.

The other spark was through CKUT. One of the first Jazz Euphorium shows I hosted solo was a preview of the Suoni Per il Popolo festival. Many artists on the program I knew by name but had never checked out. Steve Guimond, the program director at the time, asked that I do a feature on the upcoming Suoni shows. I headed into the library with dread, pulling albums out by artists coming to town. The one that really knocked me out was Roy Campbell's Ethnic Stew and Brew. I knew of William Parker's playing through some of his playing with Matthew Shipp and David S. Ware; I had given the most cursory of listens to that stuff in the past and flat out didn't like it. I was not expecting the infectious bent reggae of the Pyramid Trio, and I had new ears for Parker's music. With that mindset, I approached many artists, old and new. Some of it I still don't care for, honestly, but I've fallen in love with a whole host of music (Braxton's 70s work, Henry Threadgill, William Parker, Roy Campbell, Marc Ribot, Ken Vandermark and friends, among many others) that I would have dismissed out-of-hand previously.

The final recommendation I'd make for those dipping their toes into the waters of the avant-garde is to go see free improv live, if you can. There's something about the physicality of certain improvisers, being witness to the decision/music-making progress, that gives it a certain kind of coherence that doesn't translate on record all the time. I don't know that I'd listen to a Roscoe Mitchell solo album, but his solo concert last year was truly impressive, and a great part of that was being able to see what he was doing.

Sent you a message, sent you an e-mail

I've spent the holiday weeks rediscovering the joys of the internet: browsing clips on YouTube, and rediscovering the radio station functions on last.fm (hat tip to James Hale). One site in particular has really piqued my interest, though - Indaba Music. After many years of attempts for musicians to jam together, whether in real-time or not, Indaba seems to have married some of the better concepts of Music/Web-2.0 of the past couple of years. I first read about the site in October when they were running a remix competition with The Roots, one of many contests they have held. Similar to Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Dave Douglas and of course the Biennale project, The Roots put the stems of "Criminal" (from Rising Down) up on Indaba for anyone to remix; the contest part of it entailed that the top 10 would proceed to a second round, and the winner would be invited to work on a session live with The Roots. I signed up to participate but never got around to it.

The latest project goes one further: K-Os has put up stems of his entire forthcoming record, and will release a companion remix record drawn exclusively from Indaba submissions. I've remixed three of the songs.

Now lest anyone think that Indaba is geared strictly to the hip-hop or electronica communities, previous competitions have featured Yo-Yo Ma and Joe Lovano. In addition to the competition, members can upload their own sessions, private or public, and collaborate with others. I find it a highly organized system: when browsing sessions, the genre of the project and what the leader is looking for come up as tags. While the membership can be skewed towards hip-hop and electronica, I've seen that some forward-thinking jazz musicians such as Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Greg Osby and Meilana Gillard have profiles up; I've even discovered the profile of Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, a choral director with whom I worked in Toronto. Indaba looks truly promising in finding new collaborators and seems to be an efficient method of sharing ideas. I still love recording live-off-the-floor, as evidenced by the Indigone Trio album. I prefer, if at all possible, to work shoulder-to-shoulder with collaborators, as Heliponto and I did at the Red Bull Music Academy. Failing that, swapping files via e-mail, or in a streamlined session, may lead to new creative avenues.

Montreal Sessions December 30, 2008

Free-for-All #2

*Sam Davidson Group - "Seven and Three" (Perceivable Changes)
James Davis Quintet - "For Another Time" (Angles of Refraction)
*Namedropper - "Beginner's Hoot"
Oliver Nelson - "Hoedown" (Blues & The Abstract Truth)
Wayne Shorter - "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" (Speak No Evil)
Herbie Hancock - "Eye of the Hurricane" (Maiden Voyage)
*Turtleboy - "Drug of Preference" (s/t)
Interview with Jon Lindhorst (Turtleboy)
*Lindhorst/Ryshpan - "Invaders from the Deep" (live on air!)
*Turtleboy - "Etude for Right Hand" (s/t)
Todd Sickafoose - "Warm Stone" (Tiny Resistors)
*Sara Latendresse - "Why?" (Naked)
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society - "Transit" (Live at Le Poisson Rouge)
John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble - "Folkmoot" (A Blessing)
Azymuth - "Os Cara La" (Butterfly)
Ed Motta - "Coincidencia" (Poptical)
Curumin - "Mal Estar Card" (JapanPopShow)
*Indigone Trio & Strings - "Smacked" (Cycles)

RIP Freddie Hubbard

Another master gone. I thought Freddie might have been able to battle back from his most recent bout of illness.

Ethan's already got a great post up in remembrance. Hubbard's moments on Blues and the Abstract Truth and Maiden Voyage were intrinsic parts of my formative jazz years. When I went through my adolescent jazz snob phase, with an avid interest in 1960s Blue Note albums, Hubbard was the beacon of what the trumpet could do in forward-thinking jazz. As I explored the various albums Ethan mentions (many of which I haven't listened to in their entirety, shame on me) Hubbard was one of the first musicians I consciously recognized as breaking the sub-genre "boundaries" that are purported by certain jazz historians and journalists. When I finally listened to Red Clay and the later CTI recordings. the energy and creativity lurking even in the most tepid of settings was fascinating and inspiring. I'm going to go (re-)visit some of those albums in the coming days and weeks.

Montreal Sessions December 23, 2008

Viva Brasil!

Airto Moreira - "Zuei" (Promises of the Sun)
Azymuth - "Partido Alto" (Light as a Feather)
Banda União Black - "Abelha Africana" (s/t)
Caetano Veloso & Banda Black Rio - "Odara" (Bicho Baile Show)
Arthur Veroçai - "Presente Grego" (s/t)
Jorge Ben - "Pais Tropical" (1969)
technical difficulties: when trying to ground oneself from static electricity, don't do it near the DJ mixer. Also, avoid wearing wool sweaters when dealing with electronics...
Djavan & Chico Buarque - "A Rosa" (Djavan)
3 Na Massa - "Estrondo" (s/t)
*Monica Freire - "Beira" (Na Laje)
Jackson Conti - "Berimbau" (Sujinho)
Curumin - "Compacto" (JapanPopShow)
*Monica Freire - "Todo Dia" (Na Laje)
Edmilson do Pifano - "Forró de dois amigos" (Soprando no Canudinho)
Jackson do Pandeiro - "Cabo Tenorio" (O rei do ritmo)
Jean Rohe - "Eta Baião" (Lead Me Home)
Forró in the Dark - "Riacho do Navio" (Bonfires of São João)
Luiz Gonzaga & Camargo Guarnieri - "Paraiba" (s/t)
Ivan Lins - "Formigueiro" (A noite)
*David Ryshpan - "Oceano" (live on air!)
Kiko Continentino - "Soul Niteroi" (El Pulo de Gato)
Interview with Samito Matsinhe
Arthur Maia - "Cama de Gato" (Planeta Musica II)
Mu Carvalho - "Acenda e Fogueira" (Ao Vivo)
Zimbo Trio - "Bebê" (s/t)
Hermeto Pasocal - "Papagaio Alegre" (Lagoa da Canoa...)
Milton Nascimento - "Raça" (Milton)
Timbalada - "Ginga pa Balé" (Rough Guide to Bahia)

Montreal Sessions December 16, 2008

Electro-Soul

*Moonstarr - "Broken Bossa" (Instrumentals Forever)
Heliponto f/ David Ryshpan & Mara TK - "Algodão Doce" (Eletronia)
Kez YM - "A Cup of Ocean" (Sweetly Confused)
*David Ryshpan - "Serpent's Cave" (BNL MTL remix)
*Arch_Typ - "3333" (Next Stop)
Ron Blake - "Tom Blake [DJ Spinna RMX]" (Sonic Tonic)
Kat Heath/Torreblanca/Sarah Lahey - "Qué Esperas?" (Various Assets 2007)
Luis Davis f/ Ben Lamar - "Hype Clouds" (Peace Love and Sound)
Sly & the Family Stone - "Sing a Simple Song" (Stand!)
Medeski Martin & Wood - "Think" (Shack-Man)
Herbie Hancock - "Watermelon Man" (Headhunters)
Stevie Wonder - "Creepin'" (Fulfillingness' First Finale)
*GrooveAttic - "By My Side"
Interview w/ Dali & Metik
*Dali/Metik/The Doctor - "Use Me" (Live on air!)
*Dali - "How Sweet it Is"
Electric Wire Hustle - "Perception"
Flying Lotus & Andreya Triana - "Tea Leaf Dancers" (Various Assets 2006)
Pat D & Lady Paradox - "Summertime [Think Twice rmx]" (Kind of Peace)
Elektro4 & Bombay Sapphire - "Elektro4 for President" (Drop the Needle vol. 1)
*Dali - "New Beginnings"
Radio City f/ Bajka - "The Hop" (Music is my Art)
*Incubator - "Dakar Pockey" (Next Stop)
Peixe Kru - "Nostaugia"

Attention fellow Brazilian fanatics

As many of you know, I've been heavily into Brazilian music for the past few years, to the point of starting a trio to play my favourite tunes. More on this project to come in the next year. But this post is to share a link I just discovered, a fantastic site created by a team of Brazilian music fanatics (including Zecalouro, the force behind Loronix): Musicos do Brasil. At the moment, it's only in Portuguese (and mine isn't very good) but it seems to be easy enough to navigate.

Muito obrigado to everyone involved. We need more of this stuff. What's always impressed me about Brazilian music is how keen certain people are to preserve and disseminate it. At Upstairs, we premiered a new tune called "Keeper of the Flame," which I wrote as a tribute to Almir Chediak. He took on the project of collecting the music of the great bossa and MPB songwriters and putting them into accurate songbooks, working alongside them to make sure everything was correct. If only somebody would do that for Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon - all the stuff I've ever seen is full of errors.

Montreal Sessions December 9, 2008

The record is out, and winter is here with a vengeance. Time to warm up with music by some influences, colleagues, and friends. A big hello to those coming here from Ropeadope and the Red Bull Music Academy sites. Click around and make yourselves at home.

Theme: Free-For-All #1

*David Ryshpan - "Dancing Serpent in Dawn's Quiet"

Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos - "El Espejo" (Live in Barcelona 2005)

FLY - "JJ" (s/t)

Alison Wedding - "This Fear" (Sometimes I Feel)

Jean Rohe - "Lead Me Home" (Lead Me Home)

*Sienna Dahlen - "One Man" (Off the Floor...Into the Garden)

*Jon Day - "Cantilever" (Exhibit B)

*Ben Hammond - "What I'm Supposed To" ([Reasonably] Honest)

*D.W. Lee Trio - "Speaking Voice" (Somnambulist Love)

*Nista - "Water" (s/t)

Lumi - "Staying Here" (Two Tears in Water)

*Ndidi Onukwulu - "Move Together" (The Contradictor)

*Fieldtrip - "The Lioness, the Hunter and the Wal-Mart"
Interview with Colin Power (Fieldtrip)

*Common Thread - "Gnawa" (The Guessing Game)
Ablaye Cissoko/Volker Goetze - "Faro" (Sina)
Bill Frisell - "Baba Drame" (History, Mystery)
Gilfema +2 - "One Mind's Eye" (s/t)
Punch Brothers - "Punch Bowl" (Punch)

* = Canadian Content

Montreal Sessions December 2, 2008

Music for Strings

*Indigone Trio & Strings - "Driscollage" (Cycles)
Quatuor Enesco - Debussy's String Quartet in Gm, op. 10, 2nd mvt. (Debussy/Ravel)
Bournemouth Sinfonietta - "Summa" (Arvo Part: Fratres)
Quatuor Enesco - Ravel's String Quartet in F, 1st mvt. (Debussy/Ravel)
Edo de Waart (San Francisco Symphony) - "The Chairman Dances" (The Chairman Dances)
*Byproduct - "Erostratus" (Le Mur)
Interview with Chet Doxas
*Chet Doxas/David Ryshpan - "Eighty One" (live on air!)
*Byproduct - "Le Mur" (Le Mur)
*Quinsin Nachoff - "A River Remembers Rain" (Horizons Ensemble)
The Beatles - "Eleanor Rigby" (Revolver)
Elton John - "Sixty Years On" (Elton John)
Djavan - "Agua" (Djavan)
Ethel - "Arrival" (Light)
Mark Feldman/Sylvie Courvoisier - "Azriel" (Malphas: Masada Book 2)
Osvaldo Golijov/Kronos Quartet - "Tenebrae II" (Oceana)
*Indigone Trio & Strings - "Shahgely" (Cycles)

Notes on Cycles

From the Maria Schneider interview that's been circulating amongst the blogs, this is her perspective on sharing the stories behind compositions:

I like it when people get it because I think it helps bring people inside the music and relates the music to their own worlds. They kind of dive into it as a story, especially people who aren't musicians.

I agree. The majority of my music is programmatic to an extent, be it a full-on tone poem, or merely that the catalyst for the piece comes from something I've experienced or read. Much of the music on the album, Cycles, is coming from a very specific emotional place. Consider these the program notes.

1. Driscollage - Named after our friend, drummer Chris Driscoll, who passed away in January 2005. After former Indigone Trio drummer Liam O'Neill called me to tell me the news, this melody popped into my head. I was thinking of the music Driscoll loved, especially David Binney. He and I shared a love for bad puns in song titles. I wrote the majority of it on the bus to Prince Edward Island for his funeral, finished it at the house where I was staying, and it was premiered at a memorial concert for Chris, in PEI.

2. Bella - A text setting of a Pablo Neruda poem from The Captain's Verses. It was the first Neruda poem I read, and as I was reading it I immediately heard the voice of Caetano Veloso singing the words, which is the bass solo at the beginning. The rest came from there.

3. Shahgely - Bassist Graig Earle brought this traditional Egyptian melody into our ensemble at the Banff Centre, and the group, led by Dylan van der Schyff, came up with an arrangement that juxtaposed a drone with burning free-bop. This arrangement is very similar.

4. Love is the Reason - Written by Alex Mallett for his girlfriend, Lina. As he writes, "When I was in my third year of college, I was exchanging e-mails with my good friend in New York, Dave Moore. Lina had recently moved to Montreal and (as always) I was having trouble balancing everything. I wrote him that things were going well, but I was finding it distracting having Lina around. Dave wrote me back, 'Love is never, never, never a distraction. Love is the Reason.'" Lina's been a great supporter of the band - that's her cheering on the live EP.

5. Smacked - I wrote this at the Banff Centre, and was really stuck on it. I met with Dave Douglas, and he shared some sage advice that I rely on to this day. But even after the meeting, I was still stuck. I left to go to the club, and while putting on my sweater outside, a bird flew into my head. Once I got to the club, the tune wrote itself. I'm never sure whether to credit Dave, or the bird. Michael Bates came up with the idea for the backgrounds.

6. Piece for Open Strings - Alex's experiment with minimalism, exploring the basic texture of a string group based on rhythm and timbre, rather than pitch. It was originally written for just strings and bass, but Alex later revised it to have Phil and I improvise texturally to contrast with the strings.

7. Heraclito - A tone poem based on the Jorge Luis Borges poem of the same name. I was taken with the structure of Borges' poem, and allowed that to guide my writing. I assigned musical phrases to the phrases that repeat in the text.

8. Visions - All this music grew out of an assignment in advanced arranging class to write for trio and string orchestra. I couldn't decide which song to use, so I booked the recital (which later became the EP) as an excuse to write all the arrangements I had in mind. This was the assignment. Stevie Wonder's melody is gorgeous, and though we're working on achieving the vision in our mind, we're not quite there yet.

9. Erghen Diado - Dave Douglas gave a lecture on his work with odd meters and Balkan music at the Banff Centre, and gave the names of artists I'd never heard of before, like Le Mystère des voix bulgares. When I got back to Montreal, I found their first record, and this song immediately captivated me. I had a visceral reaction to the music, similar to the first time I heard A Love Supreme. It's really a simple song, and its power and beauty lie in that simplicity.

10. Throughout - This Bill Frisell song has become incredibly important to me. It was played as part of Driscoll's funeral; saxophonist Becky Noble and I performed it in Banff; and that summer I got to meet Frisell at the Montreal Jazz Festival. The song in all its contexts came to epitomize the cycles of life and death, and provided a means of closure. On another level, it was the last piece on the recital, which was the last concert of my undergraduate studies. In French, undergraduate and graduate studies are sometimes referred to as cycles. I feel that this is my best string writing on the whole album.

Expozine Set (Nov. 29, 2008)

My first real DJ set (not counting radio) was today at Expozine. I was astounded by the amount of indie 'zines, postcards, posters, CD/record designers and others that were exhibiting: the quality of the work was uniformly excellent. The crowd that turned out to support these underground, fiercely independent artists was heartwarming, though one exhibitor joked, "They're just here working off their hangovers."

Beck - "Black Tambourine"
Jamie Lidell - "Little Bit of Feel Good"
Herbie Hancock - "Actual Proof"
Ed Motta - "Eu Avisei"
Curumin f/ Lino Crizz - "Olhando De Lima Janela, No Centro Da Cidade"
Lekan Babalola - "Elegba (Bob Sinclair RMX)"
The Cheebacabra - "Sneak Attack"
Gilfema +2 - "Question of Perspective"
Fly - "JJ"
Joel Miller - "Cabeza de Vaca"
The Bad Plus - "Flim"
Floratone - "Floratone"
Makoto, DJ Zinc, Denius & Om'Mas Keith - "Close to Me"
Mara TK & Jake One - "Look What You've Made of Me"
Me'shell Ndegeocello f/ Sabina Sciubba - "Aquarium"
Jaco Pastorius f/ Sam & Dave - "Come On, Come Over"
Shuggie Otis - "Inspiration Information"
Stevie Wonder - "Creepin'"
The Roots - "Long Time"
Bad Medicine - "Trespassin'"
Blackalicious f/ Chali 2na - "4000 Miles"
Karma & Lotus - "Monk Swing"
Juba Dance - "We Will Wait for You"
Flying Lotus f/ Andreya - "Tea Leaf Dancers"
Elizabeth Shepherd - "Start to Move"
Kate McGarry - "The Target (Miracles Like These)"
Medeski Martin & Wood - "Pappy Check"
Bruce Hornsby - "Big Swing Face"
Domenico +2 - "Te Convidei Pra Samba"
Elton John - "Out of the Blue"

Radio Residency

First of all, thank you to everyone who donated to CKUT during our past funding drive. I think the final tally was somewhere around $32,000 - a bit shy of our $50,000 goal, but we'll take it. Of course, you can still donate online.

To celebrate the release of the new Indigone Trio & Strings record, and to motivate me to stay out of hibernation mode, I will be curating a show called The Montreal Sessions on CKUT which airs every Tuesday from 3-5 pm EST. Each show will feature an interview and a live performance, as well as music from my friends, colleagues, and the records I love. The themes and guests will be:

December 2 - Music For Strings w/ Chet Doxas (whose group, Byproduct, has released their own fantastic album with strings, Le Mur)
December 9 - Freeform Free-for-All 1 w/ Fieldtrip
December 16 - Electro-Soul w/ Kweku
December 23 - Montreal Brasileira w/ Robin Gorn
December 30 - Freeform Free-for-All 2 w/ Jon Lindhorst of Turtleboy

Of course, if you can't tune in live, there's always the CKUT archives. And the playlists will go up here after the shows. Tune in!

Blogroll Update

A couple of additions to the sidebar:

- Montreal DJ Cheeba Cheeba Kid is a crate digger par excellence and has his own little web warehouse at Soundological Investimagations. Big ups for representing Henry Threadgill and Monty Alexander in the same space.
- New reader and commenter Amanda maintains her own ivory-centric blog at My Piano Friends. It looks to be in the starting stages but there is some promising work over there.

Big shoes to fill

I'll be subbing for my former teacher, Jeff Johnston, at Upstairs November 16, in a group led by drummer Karl Schwonik. Karl's a good friend, and we've played together as sidemen for vocalists May Cheung and Julie-Claire Carter. This is the first opportunity I've had to play his music, and his composing shows a similar musicality to his wonderful playing. Joel Miller is on saxophone, someone whose music I've long admired and advocated, but we don't play together often enough. The always solid Adam Over is on bass. We hit at 8:30.

Sound System, or CKUT needs your help!

Most of you know that I've been an avid volunteer at CKUT 90.3 FM for five years now. I'm part of two of the music collective shows, Jazz Euphorium (Wednesdays from 20h00-22h00) and World Skip the Beat (Mondays from 12h00-14h00). I've also done numerous fill-ins, sat on the Programming Committee for two years, and co-organized a big band (with Sean Winters) for their 20th anniversary. I'll also be hosting The Montreal Sessions every Tuesday in December.

Being involved at CKUT has fostered my love for radio and music journalism, but more importantly having the access to the amazing library, production and control studios, and fellow programmers has made me a better musician. I've grown to love so much music I wouldn't have otherwise discovered; programming radio has made me acutely aware of how to present my own music on record and in concert. CKUT is the only English-language community station on the island of Montreal that serves so many diverse cultures - not only musical but ethno-cultural, GLBT, and many more.

For the next week (Nov 13-23), CKUT is asking for your financial help. The goal is $50,000, which covers the maintenance of the facilities, the upkeep of our stellar library and our newly renovated studios to keep bringing you the tuneage and the non-mainstream news. $50 is the cost of one hour of airtime. I know the economy is tough right now, but please pledge what you can to keep this vital pillar of Montreal culture on air. Check the funding drive page for gift lists, prize draws, and more! I'll be co-hosting both World Skip and Jazz Euphorium this week, so tune in and PLEDGE!

Make this moment sweet again

Last week I had the great honour and privilege of working with vocalist, improviser and teacher Rhiannon. Her group of students, called the Vocal River, were in town for their third and final retreat of the year, giving various performances around the city. On Tuesday, at the Yellow Door, I was more of an observer, watching the various improvisational scenarios Rhiannon set out for her students. Rhiannon and I did a duet, with myself on melodica.

Friday's performance, more of an open rehearsal session at Studio 303, was thrilling. Four instrumentalists - myself (piano, melodica, accordion, percussion), Michael Reinhart (guitar, accordion, percussion), Vovô (percussion) and Sarah Wendt (French horn) - joined the choir, and Sarah, Katie Ewald and Lin Snelling danced on a couple of pieces. This concert was a fantastic learning experience on so many levels. Rhiannon and her students embody a truly "anything-goes" philosophy of improvisation - from the full choir building McFerrin-esque circle songs, to soloists varying from spoken word to various vocal traditions from around the world to incorporating standards on top of improvised backgrounds. As Dave Douglas said, "'Free' means having the freedom to make any musical decision in real time."

Contexts were shattered among the instrumentalists as well: I've only ever played Michael's songs with him, with minimal improvising, and when we do work together I play his accordion. Friday marked the first time we had improvised together, and the first time he had ever really heard me play piano. Not only did I have the opportunity to use different musical vocabularies - from dissonant tone clusters to two-fisted gospel piano to re-interpreting standards - I got to work on a variety of different instruments. It was really a mental and aural workout. I only know Vovô from Estação da Luz, his batucada here in Montreal. As an improviser he is truly responsive, and of course, any time we locked onto a groove it was stunningly tight.

Experience in free improvising lends a certain openness to all the music I play, whether it's through-composed, semi-composed, or completely free. All the singers in the choir were fantastic, and I look forward to hearing their own music. Here's three of them: Alison Wedding; Katia Leonardo; and Patti Shaffner.

Sky of memory and shadow

Just briefly - watching Obama's acceptance speech tonight reminded me of the feeling I had the first time I heard Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom." Both are emotionally stirring in the most powerful way, life-affirming. Hopefully, we truly are on the verge of a new world order. May Obama be able to really usher in the era of change he has campaigned on, that he has come to symbolize, and that a hell of a lot of us have been hoping for.

Calendar addenda

Guitarist and composer Michael Reinhart has invited me once again to join him in some musical adventures. He and his partner, Lin Snelling, have brought up the great improvising vocalist Rhiannon for a week of workshops and performances in Montreal. I had the distinct honour of improvising with Rhiannon and Ruth Zaporah during their last Montreal visit a year ago; it was a thrilling ear- and eye-opening experience. As always whenever Michael asks me to join him, I'll be playing accordion.

Rhiannon & the Vocal River
October 28, 2008 - The Yellow Door Coffeehouse (3625 Aylmer)
7:30 pm - $8/$5 (students)
October 31, 2008 - Studio 303 (372 Ste-Catherine W., 3rd floor)
8 pm - $12
I'll be playing accordion, melodica, and perhaps piano at the Yellow Door, maybe some percussion if the mood strikes.

Michael Reinhart & Friends
November 1, 2008 - The Yellow Door Coffeehouse
8:30 pm - $8
With: Jérémi Roy (bass), David Ryshpan (accordion), and more.

Pushing towards the end of the calendar

Here's a quick rundown of what's on my agenda for the coming months:

Tonight, October 16, I'll be indulging my addiction to musica popular brasileira (MPB) with singer Juana Lepine at Centre St-Ambroise (5080-A St. Ambroise). Yes, the McAuslan brewery is home to a small music room, a cozy space for intimate groups. As they say, "it's like a coffeehouse, with beer!" Opening the evening is beatboxer extraordinaire Jason Levine. $5, starts at 8:30 SHARP! Incidentally, you can check out the new Brazilian trio featuring Nicolas Bédard (bass) and Mark Nelson (drums) here.

I'll be back on the airwaves of CKUT this week, filling in for Jazz Amuck at 9 am October 17, and hosting Jazz Euphorium Wednesday, October 22 at 8 pm. CKUT will be starting a fall Funding Drive shortly, check their site for details.

Starting October 30, a bassless trio of myself, Dave Goulet (guitar) and Maxime Bellavance (drums) will be supplying the groovy tune-age at Casa Luna (2077 University) on Thursdays.

Finally, December 2, 2008 marks the release of the full-length Indigone Trio & Strings album, Cycles, on Ropeadope Digital. We recorded this in March at the beautiful Studio 270 with Hendrick Hassert behind the board. There will be a limited number of hard copies pressed, available at gigs. Many of you know we released a live, self-titled EP on Ropeadope last December. It was surprisingly well-received, so we re-recorded the six tunes from the original EP, plus four additional compositions by myself and Alex Mallett. I'll be celebrating the launch by performing at Upstairs Jazz Club (1254 Mackay) on December 7, 2008, with Indigone pinch-hitter Sebastien Pellerin on bass, and Mark Nelson on drums. We hit at 8:30 SHARP, $10.

Mission statement

POP Montreal is far from my natural habitat, and while I ran into people I knew, it was more often the case that I made new acquaintances. It's been a while since I had to tell people what it is I do, and questions that came up from both the film score and improvising panels sparked some reflection.

Much was made at the improvising panel of genre-specific labels, and dealing with genre-specific traditions. I remember at Banff, Vijay Iyer asked whether most people at his master class would call themselves jazz musicians. Many, including Dave Douglas, adamantly did not raise their hands. Vijay later qualified it as being a musician who has intensively studied and dealt with the jazz lineage, and most raised their hands. I don't really have a problem with the "jazz" label, at this point. Jazz is the music I've spent most of my life studying, both officially and not. It's the root of how I've learned how to play my instrument, and how to think about music. My sense of groove, time, harmony, melody, phrasing, inter-band communication, development, etc. is all influenced by jazz. Maybe "jazz-trained" is a better phrase, the same way many musicians, whether they pursue the concert path or not, are "classically trained." Matana said on the improvising panel that she often tries to push against the jazz tradition; I endeavour to find my own little nook within the tradition.

Yet I understand the desire not to be boxed in by a genre label; not to be confined to only jazz. A fellow panel attendee asked me what music I would like to score for film. My answer was whatever the film required. If it calls for a jazz score, I'll be happy to compose in that vein. If it calls for more electronic elements, or a chamber ensemble, or whatever, I'll be happy to oblige if I have the requisite tools to do so. Obviously, my composition for any instrumentation belies my jazz roots and my other stylistic predilections, but I'm not limited to writing spang-spang-a-lang, nor do I really want to. I find my music, and the music I love most, sits at the apex of multiple styles and influences.

I have a complex relationship with the term "authenticity." In some cases, I demand it of myself and my colleagues. In others, it's the least of my worries. If I'm playing in an R&B band, I'm not going to load up my comping with dissonant extensions and blow bebop all night long. There is, however, an element of bebop and post-bop that's inherent to my improvising language, and so when I step out for a solo, it'll probably come through in some way. When Indigone Trio plays "Erghen Diado," I have absolutely no pretension that we're a Balkan band, and I have no desire to be authentic in that case. The tune is our canvas to paint on, and it just happens to be a folk song. I suppose it's the divide between my music and other people's music. I strive to make my music on my terms - music that is personal, and I don't really care which traditions it draws from and how loyal it may be to them. When I am involved in other people's music, though, I do my best to maintain my own personal character while devoting my creative energy to their ends.

My feelings may, and probably will, change in five or ten years, but this is how I feel now. I'm truly curious to read what other musicians think of their own creative roles and approaches. It always forces me to re-evaluate my own.