Late additions

...to the blogroll, that is. I've belatedly added Peter Breslin's Stochasticactus to the list; like me, he's a musician/radio jockey, and often brings up quite challenging issues in the state of improvised music. Also stirring the pot is The Improvising Guitarist (whom I long thought was the alter ego of Stanley J. Zappa - my apologies to both of them), with a fabulous cache of essays on gender, race, and identity within music.

A non-music blog (blasphemy!) has been added: Freshwater Mermaid, a fellow Montrealer with acerbic wit and great insight into local, national and international issues. If you dig deeper into the blog, you'll find excerpts of a novel-in-progress. It may well be complete by now, I'm not sure.

The mighty Helen Spitzer, who helmed CBC's Brave New Waves for 8 momentous weeks before the show's untimely demise, has left the blogosphere for now. Jesse Jarnow is on vacation. Under the Mediatrics banner, a belated welcome to Hank Shteamer.

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Steve has word that Tonic will shut its doors mid-April. When that headline popped up in my RSS feed, I was stunned. Tonic had become an integral part of my NYC experience, and I will miss it terribly. I'm working on a eulogy for PanPot right now.

***

The final show of Indigone Trio's March residency is tonight at Le Parc des Princes. We've broken in drummer Phil Melanson admirably. 8:30 pm, 2 sets of original compositions by ourselves and other people.

***

The other night, I was working on a new piece for BMI at my local Second Cup, and it was easily the strangest crowd I've ever experienced there: two tourists, above and beyond expecting waitresses at a Second Cup, spouting the most disjointed conservative rhetoric I've heard outside the O'Reilly Factor (accusing the recent Quebec election of not having issues - I suppose health care and education aren't issues enough - as well as accusing Canada of being a lefty-pinko land of lollipops and roses sufficiently out of touch with the reality of the rest of the world as the US sees it)*; two women rather loudly gossiping about the ineptitude of the returning officers and other scrutineers; and one guy who, after intently watching me work, started rambling at me about various quasi-related subjects.

* - the true irony: these guys were sitting right beside me, while the piece I was working on was catalyzed by my friend organizing the benefit concert for Darfur.

Jot notes

- My review of the Boxhead Ensemble's Nocturnes (featuring V5 cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and Atavistic stalwart drummer Frank Rosaly is up at Panpot.
- Tonight marks the last of the dinner/cocktail-hour Indigone Trio sets at Le Parc des Princes (5293 ave du Parc, between Fairmount & St. Viateur). Next Thursday, we start at 8:30.
- Tomorrow, Kids Eat Crayons come out of the sandbox and invade O'Hara's Pub (1197 University). Our drummer/composer, Dennis W. Lee, leads a second life as a ska guitarist in Stepper, who will be joining us.
- Saturday marks another edition of Groove Night, featuring Indigone Trio bassist Alex Mallett making a rare appearance on electric. That's at Bar L'Oblique (1669 St. Hubert).

Les speakers feed et crachent

I went to see Karkwa last night, continuing the tour behind their album Les tremblements s'immobilisent. The last time I saw the band was before Les tremblements came out, so it was interesting to see what two years (give or take) on the road have done.

Karkwa's always been a tight band, and they've only gotten tighter. Guitarist Louis-Jean Cormier is still coming out of a sonic school of guitar playing reminiscent of the Edge or Jonny Greenwood, but his voice - as a singer and a songwriter - has gotten stronger. Their first album, Le pensionnat des établis, owed as much to Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers as to Radiohead. Last night proved they're developing an original sound, and they've moved away from the funk-rock à la québecois (which they did admirably, I must say) and adopted an indie/post-rock vibe similar to their Montreal cohorts Patrick Watson, People for Audio and Pawa Up First (the latter counts Karkwa percussionist Julien Sagot as a member). Keyboardist François Lafontaine was impressive as always, adding to Cormier's textures and occasionally unleashing an actuelle-inspired rip or two.

Most of the music was drawn from Les tremblements, along with some new songs introduced and "Hold-Up" from Le pensionnat. I was impressed by their consistently creative harmonies and their willingness to extend their song forms. Both sets were introduced with soundscape creations (d)evolving into one of their tunes, and they tacked on an intriguing coda to "La marche."The penchant for odd meters has turned into an embrace of 3/4 or 6/8, and the genre-jumping of their first album has matured into a better synthesis of various influences. From the new songs they played last night, I look forward to Karkwa's future.

The color of memory

As have been rightfully linked throughout the jazz blog world, Mwanji's two essays on jazz and race are fantastic and important reading. I want to touch on a tangent of it that comes up in Matana Roberts' blog, especially in the comment from Jaleel Shaw. He writes:

I believe there are many reasons why we don't have more blacks at our shows. One is education. When I look back to my education in the public school, I wasn't taught about my culture at all. When I think about most of my fellow students, most of their parents weren't either. When I was coming up playing the horn, almost all of my music teachers in public schools were discouraging. They tried their best to make me quit and definitely didn't want to see me make it. ... So if most of the kids today aren't taught about their culture, their music, where are they going to go? What are they going to gravitate to?

There's two points in here that need to be addressed: the lack of respect or awareness of cultural history; and the accessibility of the music.

On one of my recent trips to NYC, my hostelmates were a bunch of gangly Swiss teenage (or early-20s) males. They were graffiti artists, with an arsenal of spraypaint bottles and Sharpie markers, sketching on pads at every turn. They were also avid hip-hop listeners, having gone on a crate-digging trip earlier in the week and playing tunes from their iPods when I got to the hostel. I asked them about the popularity of hip-hop culture in Europe, and they said that it was more popular there than in the States. Now, I'm talking about the totality of hip-hop culture here, the four elements that KRS-One and the rest of the old-school refer to: breakdancing, MCing, DJing, and graffiti. (The debatable fifth element would be beatboxing.) The Under Pressure festival here in Montreal every summer is essentially a block party celebrating those four elements, and at the best of times the crowd is half-and-half, but predominantly white. This is not a rhetorical question, this is one I would love an answer to: what has gone on in black communities that has prohibited them from respecting, admiring, and honouring their own cultural history?

MuchMusic (the Canadian relative of MTV) runs a 30-second spot every Black History Month, flashing the faces of pioneering black artists in jazz, soul, hip-hop, and rock. The idea is that without them, there would not have been any of these genres. It closes with a black kid saying "No way," and fades out to "kNOw the history." It's a travesty that anyone would have to be reminded of Prince's or Hendrix's contributions to modern music. At a certain point, it ceases to be strictly Black History and is more generally History, that shouldn't have to be relegated to a certain month. Christian McBride and ?uestlove both worried, in the wake of James Brown's death, that younger generations will remember Mr. Brown through Eddie Murphy's impersonations. James Brown was and is the lifeblood of so much music - funk, soul, and hip-hop to name but three - that it seems like a ludicrous possibility to me, but it may be a reality.

Shaw also brings up your boy, Flavor Flav, indulging in various incarnations of "minstrelsy" reality-TV style, in the 21st century, and Matana argues that he's essentially tarnishing the legacy of Public Enemy. I agree. Chuck D is still active, but on the fringes; Flav is a household vision, Viking helmet, clocks and all. Shaw and Roberts raise the question: can we no longer recognize minstrelsy? Do we no longer care? Why do so many hip-hop videos propagate the clichés of bling and sex, and any MC with real things to say gets lumped in the "conscious" camp? And this is in hip-hop, the lingua franca of modern African-American culture for 20-odd years. It doesn't bode well for jazz.

I remember something Branford Marsalis wrote a while ago, on his website I believe, essentially saying that jazz was something upwardly-mobile black people were supposed to like once they reached a certain age. That very well may be true, and it would also explain the "'black jazz is stuck in the mainstream and/or past' sentiment." There's a certain type of jazz upwardly-mobile 40-something Blacks are supposed to gravitate towards, and young Black avant-garde artists don't fit that bill.

The second issue is one of accessibility, which I've written about before. Never mind the interest or ability (or lack thereof) to teach students the history of African-American music, instruments cost money. Music lessons cost money. Conservatory training costs a lot of money. LaTasha Diggs responds to Matana's post saying that she had to pass on the Alice Coltrane concert because it was too expensive. Yes, artists should be paid, but I'll reiterate my belief that cover charges plus drink minimums add up to a cost that can be prohibitively expensive for the most interested listeners. It's necessary to supplement these concerts with lower-cost community involvement, like going to the high schools or community centres or whatever the case may be. If the listeners won't come to the musicians, the musicians need to go to the listeners. I remember in elementary and high school we would sometimes have visiting performers that would put on shows that dealt with some sort of knowledge or awareness. From what I've read about Matana's Coin Coin project, a modified version of it would be fantastic in schools. Jazz has to get out of its non-social aspect and engage its communities. That's where the AACM has succeeded.

Tomorrow is the question

Much is being made in the blogosphere of the current state of jazz, vis-à-vis education and marketing. I dealt with some of these issues earlier; re-reading it now, some of my statements about my own education are a bit unduly harsh, but the generalities of it are still true. There's a definite "meta-narrative" (to borrow Dan Melnick's term) being propagated among most jazz educators and students that is rarely deviated from.

Whenever debates about the state of jazz, or music in general, arise, I tend to balk at the amount of overly pessimistic rhetoric. It's not the music itself that's the problem: in fact, on a purely artistic and creative level, I think it's a fascinating time to be a musician. Every time I walk into CKUT, there's a steady stream of great music sitting in the New Release bin. Many of my colleagues are creating original music on a very high level. The problem lies in how music is presented, and as far as jazz and classical/"new music" goes, recruiting from outside.

Pat's right in accusing the IAJE of being insular. I think the annual conference would benefit from being run a little bit more like South by Southwest, in terms of being more open to the public. To attend the IAJE conference, one must be a member, or sign up for a membership upon registration. Music and musicians need to connect to the outside world and the community at large, and I think that's where the jazz/classical-industrial complex is faltering. Increasingly relegated to ivory towers and elite concert halls, it loses touch with the layman - and even a lot of students. Cover charges and drink minimums are often cost-prohibitive for a lot of interested listeners. The Village Vanguard has student discount prices, and I think that needs to go across the board.

I think a lot of people find jazz intimidating - not merely musically, but socially. The sense that prior knowledge of the music is a pre-requisite, that you have to know when to applaud, etc. To combat that, jazz needs to be brought to the people if people are not being brought to jazz. Indigone Trio's played gigs recently to audiences that never would have come to hear us before - in empty "rock" bars or at a quarterfinal of an a cappella competition. In each case, we have reached listeners with our music - not because we dumb it down but because we merely made it available to them. If jazz wants to cultivate younger listeners, bands need to get out to the high schools. Exposure is a wonderful thing, with amazing power. IAJE itself has even proven this -- in 2006 there was a percussion ensemble of middle-school kids ripping the crap out of intricate arrangements of "Spain" and "Caravan," and they had fun doing it! I soared with hope for the future generations.

Hope which is increasing chiselled away as arts education funding in Canada and the US is slashed left and right. I was discussing this with an educator friend, currently teaching at a high school in Montreal. I can't count how many studies have been done showing the importance of music in education, how it improves students' capacities in all areas, etc. Not to disparage maths and sciences, but it's not the be-all and end-all of education. There's a definite decline in the appreciation of culture, and maybe it's due to the lack of attention it receives in the media. I'm drawn to Frank Zappa's quote: "Your children have the right to know that something other than pop music exists."

There's also an underestimation of the potential audience, as listeners and as students. There's these "eureka" moments in music - very strong, almost visceral reactions. The opening of A Love Supreme, for instance. I can only hope to give someone that same feeling. And there's something about the "eureka" moments that arise from improvised music - be it jazz, freestyling MCs, or "jambands" - that are unique; the feeling I got from A Love Supreme was different than how I felt listening to Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin for the first time, but they were both very much epiphanal listening experiences. It's amazing what kids will latch onto if they're given the chance. I was 13 when I heard T.S. Monk's Monk on Monk big band - sitting third row, with the saxophone bells in my face, it was easily one of the best Hallowe'ens I've ever had, and kickstarted my serious interest in jazz.

And people need to be shown that jazz is alive and well today. Monk's music was being played, and re-energized, by living musicians - my introduction to Monk was not merely an artifact, and I think maybe my interest would have been less if it had been. As Darcy mentioned in his comments to Doug Ramsey's post, the biggest detriment to the music is protecting its past without presenting its present and future. [enter your own comment about Ken Burns here] This 13-year-old drummer I met at Cleopatra's Needle a few weeks ago is highly engaged with musicians that are working now; he's far more knowledgeable about the modern state of jazz than I was at 13. Let's hope there are more like him lurking out there in the morass of cultural apathy.

Linkage galore

- Via Dan, an incisive and insightful Vijay Iyer essay at All About Jazz. Finally, someone who can thoughtfully talk about the state of jazz (or any music) without resorting to apocalyptic hyperbole. I take some issue with the idea that music-school graduates are inherently more prone to "safe" music, and that if one struggles one is immediately validated as a musician (which Iyer himself equivocates).

- Via Ropeadope, Peter Costello's layman explanation of new tariffs on Internet radio in the States. Sadly, SOCAN wants to institute a similar thing here, called Tariff 22.

It seems that these changes serve to cast a wider net in order to implicate music sites, audio webcast, webcasts of radio station signals, audiovisual webcasts, webcasts of television station signals and game sites. Tariff 22 proposes a fee of the greater of either 7.5% of the Gross Revenues earned by or 7.5% of the Gross Operating Expenses of the site or service, with a minimum monthly fee of $200.00 for stations in our sector. It is also proposed by SOCAN that these fees be retroactive to January 2006. [...]
Tristis [Ward, National Campus and Community Radio Association representative] says that she agrees with SOCAN in the sense that all art has a value. Artists should receive royalties for the public performance of their music. She believes that stations are diligent about paying the fees to SOCAN. The problem occurs when SOCAN moves to ignore the artists’ desire to have their music promoted — something that stations naturally provide by webcasting their regular feed. The reality of the campus and community radio sector is that stations, faced with increased monthly fees, will simply be forced to pull their Internet feed. Some stations have already done so.
“Royalty collectors should recognize this,” says Tristis. “Stations in our sector are not in it for the money, often the people who are playing and promoting the music are volunteers. There just isn’t any fat to trim to pay for this extra fee.”
She also believes if artists knew about the proposed tariff they would not be in support of it.
“The kind of artists that are played on community and campus radio stations often have few other forums to get their music heard. Most of the time, new artists get exposure because of us. The webcasting offers a broader audience for the
artist but does not bring the station more money.”

Americans, write your Congresspeople. There was an e-mail address at CKUT on how Canadian musicians can protest Tariff 22. I'll get it soon and edit it into this post. Campus/community radio, and Internet radio, is the last bastion of creativity on the airwaves and we need to protect the multiplicity of broadcast voices at all costs.

- Speaking of campus/community radio, my latest Jazz Euphorium playlist is up.

- Indigone Trio hits tomorrow evening at Le Parc des Princes (5293 Parc, between Fairmount & St-Viateur). Our repertoire is growing and we're breaking Phil in quite nicely.

- We're also going to be the judging panel music at the ICCA quarterfinals at Redpath Hall on Saturday night. Two out of the three McGill a cappella groups - Soulstice and Tonal Ecstacy - are in the running this year; Effusion is sitting out after making the finals the past two years. It's always a kick to see what the other groups are doing: last year a group from York University did Kurt Elling's "The Uncertainty of the Poet," and as the judges took exceedingly long to deliberate and Kweku and the Movement exhausted our set, a vocal percussion jam ensued.

As a rule, I have tried to keep this blog apolitical. There's many great resources out there, far more knowledgeable and engaged than I am (like Lindsay or Craig). However, via Darcy, I've come across two very important pieces of legal/political news concerning musicians and artists that bear repeating.

Quick one first: An AFM bulletin encouraging musicians who have had run-ins with damaged gear or unruly airport officials while travelling with their instruments to email tperetti@afm.org with details. Doesn't matter if you're a union member or not, the more voices they have to present to US Congress, the better. I hope this extends to other countries, eventually. I feel especially sorry for any double-reed players who have to explain why they need to have gougers and knives and all sorts of sharp equipment on them when we're no longer allowed to fly with toothpaste in a carry-on.

A more intricate, and more disturbing story, courtesy of Carl (Zoilus) Wilson and Naomi Klein: Music being used as torture at Gitmo, and possibly elsewhere. I'll admit that when I first read inklings of this a few months ago, I laughed at the irony of the US government playing Rage Against the Machine, in any context. But Carl's right - now that torturous music is no longer a metaphor, but very real, it's no longer funny.

Unlike some European legal systems, the anglo-saxon tradition doesn't include droit moral, the "moral rights" of a creator over her work, which (among other things ) includes control over any use of the work that offends the artist's sensibilities. And I'm generally glad that it doesn't. Once a work of art is released into the public sphere, I believe, it becomes part of the collective unconscious, of popular/folk culture; compensation and copyright issues are trickier, but on principle images and ideas should be available for resuse, recontextualization, satire and even misappropriation. I don't think that the Catholic Church should control what artists do with icons of the Virgin Mary, or Muslims the image of Muhammad; and so I don't think Bruce Springsteen should have been able to stop Ronald Reagan from inverting the meaning of Born in the USA for propaganda purposes, though I wish people hadn't been careless enough to fall for it.

But musicians and music lovers' deeper moral rights are violated when the story goes beyond a figurative abuse of cultural discourse to the literal abuse of human subjects. [...] Perhaps the music industry could follow their lead, turning their attention from the "monetization" of music to the weaponization of it for a few heartbeats.

Some artists and composers do have somewhat of a droit moral, though, in the ability to refuse licensing, and I do not begrudge them that. In fact, unlike Carl, I think individual artists should be able to prohibit the use of their work in contexts they do not approve. There's a difference between a specific song and a global folkloric/religious icon like the Virgin Mary or Muhammad. The latter are concepts or models that artists work with - a figure in an artist's original creation, as opposed to an outside institution or corporation using an artist's work verbatim and wholesale. In other words, a more apt comparison would be using a reproduction of Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin for... I don't know, a cocktail mix label or something.

Metacritic

Ethan's interview with Stanley Crouch, David R. Adler's review of Crouch's compilation Considering Genius, and various other bits and pieces spurred this line of thought.

Much has been made of the Internet bestowing the privileges of mass media to anyone who has the mere seconds it takes to register an account, especially in the wake of Idolator's rogue Jackin' Pop extravaganza. Much of it has been a pity party from mainstream media, decrying the fact that indeed everyone now has the power to be a critic, or gatekeeper, or kingmaker, or whatever self-inflating pundit term may be coined the future. But when many mainstream critics have ossified in their tastes, is it really such a bad thing to have a burst of new voices?

Reviews should take the music (or film/production/play/etc) on its own merit, and the ideal critic is one who is as transparent and as catholic as possible. Much of music has a goal, whether it be programmatic music or a concept album (or both), and the best reviews should aptly demonstrate whether it succeeds or fails at achieving said goal. Nate Dorward's rules of reviews are ones I attempt to follow. In my small portfolio of published reviews, I think I've only ever panned a couple of artists here, and I view those as neophyte and immature mistakes. (I still stand by some of the opinions though - you can't call twenty minutes of the same damn thing two different tunes, unless they're parts I and II. Sorry.)

But it's scathing diatribes that bring the audiences and sell the magazines, which is why IAJE will intentionally pit Bob Blumenthal against Christian McBride; it's why people still talk about Pitchfork's over-the-top reaction to a mundane album; and it seems to be the only reason Down Beat still has the Hot Box. Anyone who's read DB for any length of time will know that John McDonough usually doesn't want to have anything to do with free improvisation or electronics (heaven forbid it should be free improvisation WITH electronics); and that John Corbett will praise anything with hefty amounts of "crazy experimental freedom." Jim Macnie and Paul de Barros are the more moderate voices in the box. But as a reader, I don't even look at McDonough's and Corbett's reviews for substance anymore: I know their tastes and I can tell just by the artist and/or label whether they'll like the record or not. Arthur Kaptainis of the Montreal Gazette makes it abundantly clear, in nearly every new music review he's forced to pen, that he feels it's a chore to attend concerts made up of music post-Schoenberg. Again, as an educated reader, I know exactly what to expect if it's a new music review with his byline. And I feel sorry for the readers whose only exposure to this music is through superficial tripe.

Writers like Crouch, whose biases precede them, get in their own way and in the way of their subjects. Crouch's reputation for "driving the thresher," and his acute ability to entirely miss the point, overshadows the majority of his contribution to the critical canon. And I welcome the opportunity blogging has given the unexpert critics, in the form of passionate listeners and musicians, to level the playing field, so that if major critic X didn't like this weekend's new music premiere, there's just as much of a chance via one's search engine of choice to find a review that maybe, for once, addresses the music. Blogs (for the most part) don't have to answer to editorial mandates or advertising dollars, and that's truly liberating for honest and respectable criticism.

The not-quite-excellent adventure

Commuting's a bitch. The upshot of delayed flights: complimentary drinks.

After scrambling all weekend to find a flight to get to the BMI reading yesterday, I received a call Monday night that my 6:30 am flight (Trudeau to Toronto's Pearson, connecting flight to LaGuardia) was cancelled, and luckily rescheduled for a 10:30 am flight direct to LaGuardia. So far, so good. Having no checked bags was a welcome bonus - I deplaned and immediately caught a shuttle into Manhattan.

I grabbed some lunch from the deli across the street from Local 802, and frantically set about taping the rest of my parts together. The piece I brought in is easily the longest piece, in terms of paper, I've written - nearly 60 pages of score, and parts ranging from 2-6 pages, depending on intricacy and formatting. No horrendous train wrecks, and I got a good idea of what needs to be fixed or kept in the piece. Mike Holober guest conducted the piece, as Jim came in late, and looked rather worse for wear - I guess he caught something from the flight back to NY from his latest European voyage; he missed the meeting last week as well.

Volker Goetze's piece brought a cameo from Lenny Pickett on Eb clarinet. Pickett played with a lot of slap-tonguing (whether by choice or by instruction, I'm not sure) and it sounded rather like Nintendo music sitting atop this lush orchestration. I had to leave early to catch a shuttle back to LaGuardia, and this is where it all went wrong.

I missed the 4:30 shuttle by 7 minutes (though the other person in line said it never showed up), and for a minute the 5:00 looked like it was going to blow by Grand Central Terminal. Upon arrival, I'm told all flights to Toronto are delayed by a ripple effect caused by an earlier mechanical failure and ensuing ground crew issues, and that the flights direct to Montreal are oversold because they downgraded the aircraft. Long story short, my 7:30 flight to Pearson was pushed back to 8:15, and the 10:30 connection to Trudeau was postponed till 11:20, which was further postponed to accomodate another late flight from Cancun. Didn't get back home until 1 am, all for a three-hour reading session in NYC.

The added benefit of the flights were that none of them cracked the 30,000-foot ceiling, above which my ears get horribly blocked. Given that I've got a final recording session with Kids Eat Crayons tonight and the start of an Indigone Trio residency tomorrow, I'm quite happy.

Linkage (which has already gone across the blogosphere): Ethan Iverson and Stanley Crouch. Darcy and Pat have cogent analysis; my only addition would be the irony of Crouch lambasting Leroi Jones' black-nationalist transformation into Amiri Baraka while he insists upon trotting out racially-fuelled perceptions of the jazz world.

Indigone Trio happenings

In March, Indigone Trio will be playing every Thursday from 6-8 pm at Le Parc des Princes, a new bistro up in the Mile-End neighbourhood (5293 Parc, in the area I once saw La Presse refer to as "le quartier de bagel"). The manager, Fred, is really keen on having this room be equal parts restaurant and venue. The ambience is quite nice, with large windows looking out onto Parc. For us, it's a great benefit to be playing every week, integrating new drummer Phil Melanson into the band.

Our gig last Friday, the first with Phil, showed quite a bit of promise. Though the crowd was small, it was populated by people we'd never played for, and they thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the first time "As of Now" and "First Impressions" have been played by Indigone Trio, though I've performed them in other settings.

Set I:
As of Now (D. Ryshpan)
Pleasure is All Mine (Björk)
Ramblin' (Ornette Coleman)
Love Is the Reason (A. Mallett)
Erghen Diado (Peter Lyondev)

Set II:
First Impressions (D. Ryshpan)
Law Years (Ornette Coleman)
Round and Round (A. Mallett)
Enumeration (D. Ryshpan)
Dupla Traição (Djavan)
One Finger Snap (Herbie Hancock)

No one is life itself

For the Montrealers that read this blog (and those that are coming here via Panpot), I hereby welcome you and remind you that I'm playing tonight (February 23, 2007) with the reworked, revamped Indigone Trio. Tonight we welcome drummer and avid bicyclist Phil Melanson into the trio, with Alex Mallett holding down the bass, as always. We hit at Les Conneries (2037 St. Denis), at 8:30 pm.

NB: Please take careful note of the address - 2037 St. Denis - as that's the only marking on the door. It's the door beside venerable punk bar Café Chaos. I nearly missed it myself on the way to Groove Night. Again, that's 2037 St. Denis.

More Indigone Trio news to follow shortly.

***

Mwanji and Pat have already picked up on this - Dr. Jazz has graciously posted a transcript of Ornette's untelevised acceptance speech. As I read it, I was reminded of Ornette's address at IAJE 2006. Much like his music, it was a powerful speech as he made it, and had some sort of inner logic to it, though when I tried to repeat it to others who weren't there it lost all its meaning and effect.

In pursuit of enlightenment

My apologies for the protracted absence here. I've been preparing for these past five days of auditions, lessons, and travel. Between some serious catch-up time at the piano, heavy-duty revision and extension of a piece, and tearing my hair out with travel plans, blogging's been low on the list of priorities.

Saturday I flew out to Boston, for my second-ever visit. The first was with a band called Atomic Brothers a couple of years back, and none of us really knew the city that well, resulting in us getting irreparably lost around the Common trying to remember where we parked. This visit was more streamlined - staying with a friend in Hyde Park as I auditioned for NEC. I must have gone through Trudeau at an off-peak hour, because there were minimal line-ups for customs and security, and everything moved quite efficiently. The customs agent even threw me for a loop - after I told him I played piano, he asked me, "So where's your piano?" I got flustered and after a minute I offered a sheepish "at home," in response.

Thankfully we didn't suffer any delays of JetBlue proportions, but as my seat on the flight was directly behind the cockpit, I got wind of pieces of disconcerting information before announcements were made to the baker's dozen of passengers. First, we were without a captain, then without a flight plan. Once we received the revised flight plan, the ground crew decided to disappear. In all, we spend an hour and a half on the tarmac and twenty-seven minutes in the air. The upshot of it was the booze was made complimentary. Just enough time to have a Sleeman's to take the edge off.

After a welcome Indian dinner at Rangoli in Allston, I got some rest before the big audition day on Sunday. I was taken aback by the lack of anything (aside from Symphony Hall) within short walking distance of NEC's campus. The rest of the surrounding area is swallowed up by Northeastern. I realized later if I had walked further up Mass Ave I would have hit the Berklee area. But from Huntington to Tremont there isn't really all that much in the way of music stores or breakfast joints. I did have some pretty decent Thai food at Pho & I, across the street from NEC.

Jordan Hall, the building, is essentially a big semi-circle. I didn't get lost, exactly, though I think I may have taken the longest route to get to where I wanted to go. Jordan Hall, the hall, is astounding. It's almost like walking into a cathedral, with its high ceiling and ornate woodwork. I was grateful for the thorough tour and the opportunity to talk to some current students before my audition. I don't really know much about the current state of NEC - what I know of it is from alums like Darcy, Pat and Joe Sullivan (a McGill prof) - so it was nice to get some more up-to-date information. The audition went well - the setup in Keller had my back to the judging panel, so it's not like I had to stare down Danilo Perez for twenty minutes.

On Monday, after Pat had tipped me off to the latest Fung Wah accident and a Greyhound deal, I hopped on the Greyhound to NYC. I dozed off for a significant portion of the ride, making it seem shorter than it was, though we spent a healthy chunk of time crossing Connecticut, including some strange little detour in New Haven. I checked into my hostel of choice, where my roommates were a bunch of Swiss graffiti artists. I was impressed at their knowledge and appreciation for the entirety of hip-hop culture and tradition. I then met up with Pat to go to Cleopatra's Needle. Between it being President's Day and school vacations, the turnout was pretty low. There was a 13-year-old drummer from New Jersey, who knows far more about the current state of jazz than I did at his age, and a 6-year-old pianist who could barely reach the pedals but didn't do a bad job on "Now's The Time." I played a healthy amount of tunes because aside from the host, Roger Leit, who's also a trumpet player, there weren't that many other pianists there. Roger hosted the last time I went to Cleo's as well, in December, and he runs a good session. My opinion of Cleo's has changed since my first, flawed visit in October.

The BMI meeting was led by Mike Holober, whose name is probably most familiar to jazz blog readers through his membership in DJA's Secret Society. He's also a fantastic composer in his own right, and brought some acute insight into the charts presented. There were a few instances in my chart where the effect I wanted on paper probably wasn't going to come off in reality, so we discussed different ways to achieve a similar sound. I'm still really impressed by the variety of styles in the group - from more traditional, Thad Jones-inspired writing to stuff that bears the mark of Reich and Adams. There's some rhythmic stuff going on that I haven't even begun to address in my own work.

I ran from BMI to catch the airport shuttle at Grand Central, and just barely made it. My first visit to LaGuardia was fairly smooth, although the delay of flights to Toronto did fill me with dread. Everything went so well until we hit Trudeau, where the ground crew wasn't ready for us and we had to wait a good twenty minutes for our luggage. In a few hours, I'll be auditioning at McGill, which is a strange feeling. I'm used to their audition process, having played on auditions almost every year of my undergrad, but it's been five years since I was the one auditioning.

More odds and ends

- My review of Steve Lacy's Esteem, Live in Paris 1975 is up at Panpot.
- I wouldn't consider myself part of the Justin Timberlake convert crowd - "SexyBack" still leaves quite a bad aftertaste - but damn if his band isn't tight in the neo-soul fashion. The link is a French television clip of his new single, "What Goes Around Comes Around," played live, with JT on Rhodes. Impressive not only for the playing and the subtle rearrangement, but also for the fact that this sort of playing and groove was televised somewhere.
- Groove Night will probably be recorded. I'm really excited to be playing with Jim and Kevin again, as well as with Yanick and Olivier. Stay tuned for details.

Odds and ends

Just before another excursion to New York, I'm drowning in new music. CKUT was selling off extra copies of discs to raise money at an open house, and at the rate of four CDs for $5 I procured:

- Larry Goldings Trio: Sweet Science
- Steve Swallow/Chris Potter/Adam Nussbaum: Damaged in Transit
- Mario Pavone: Boom
- George Schuller: JigSaw

I haven't listened to the last two yet. It's been hard to pull that Swallow disc out of the player - it's a suite of pieces created as an exercise to write for two voices. It's rare that there are chord changes on the provided lead sheets, and even with Swallow's rather plastic and thin sound, the trio is surprisingly full. For a piano player it's quite the learning experience to listen to pared-down records, and following music in horizontal (linear) terms as opposed to vertical (harmonic/chordal) terms. Addressing Mwanji's recent criticism of Chris Potter, there are a few instances where he adds empty ornaments, but for the most part his virtuosity is focused.
The Goldings disc is impressive - I've dug Larry's playing for a while and I admire how he elegantly sidesteps B-3 clichés while still acknowledging the tradition.

I've also got a stack of CDs I'm reviewing for a relatively new Montreal-based experimental music site, Panpot, including the 3rd and 4th installments of Vandermark 5's Free Jazz Classics series, about which Peter Breslin already blogged. While I'm familiar with Vandermark's playing - and it took me a long while to warm to it - I haven't listened to this record yet; I'm eager to engage Breslin's incisive questions on the music.

***

A couple of new names will appear on the blogroll. Craig "Suave" Sauvé is everyone's favourite raging NDP metalhead bartender. He's also the guitarist in Kids Eat Crayons, and a great mimic of accents. Daniel Melnick is a friend living in Chicago, and an astute commentator on all things musical, in addition to being a killing guitarist as well.

***

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Kids Eat Crayons show at Barfly on Friday. If anyone can verify the rumour that a speaker was sparking at some point during our set, please let me know. The Kids wreak havoc in the studio once again this week, and I continue to marvel at the brilliance of Dennis' compositions and how different this music is from anything I've ever participated in before.

A reminder that Groove Night featuring Yanick Coderre, Olivier René de Cotret, myself, Jim Bennett and Kevin Warren is this Saturday.

World Skip The Beat playlist 1/29/2007

Slavic Soul Party - "Dance the Dust Up" (In Makedonija)
Taraf de Haïdouks - "A La Turk" (Band of Gypsies)
Burhan Oçäl/Pete Namlook - "Part VII" (Sultan Osman)
*Autorickshaw - "Bird on a Wire" (So the Journey Goes)
Caetano Veloso - "Come As You Are" (A Foreign Sound)
Omara Portuondo - "Killing Me Softly" (Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba compilation)
Ry Cooder/Manuel Galbán - "Los Twangueros" (Mambo Sinuendo)
Los Muñequitos de Matanzas - "El Tahonero" (Vacunao)
Gilberto Gil - "Aquele Abraço" (Acoustic)
*Eliana Cuevas - "Perdón" (Ventura)
Aurelio Martinez - "Mala Mujer" (Garifuna Soul)
Felix Baloy - "Ven a bailar cha-cha-chà" (Baila Mi Son)
Ali Farka Touré - "Mali Dje" (Niafunké)
The Soul Brothers - "Isigebengu" (Born to Jive)
*Mr. Something Something - "The Invitation" (S/T)
Oliver Mtukudzi - "Ngoma Nehosho" (Paivepo)
King Sunny Ade - "Jigi Jigi Isapa" (Odú)
Bembeya Jazz - "Lefa" (Bembeya)
*Alpha Yaya Diallo - "Freedom" (The Journey)
Ojos de Brujo - "Tiempo de Soléa" (Bari)
Hossam Ramzy - "Gani Lasmar" (Egyptian Raï)

Notices

It's a busy few weeks here, before embarking on another BMI excursion and Master's auditions. Here's the rundown:

Friday, January 26 I'll be playing once again with singer-songwriter-guitarist Michael Reinhart, this time at Sablo Kafé (50 St. Zotique E., metro Beaubien). Last time I played with him marked my debut on accordion. I'll be opening for Michael with a set of solo keyboard music - a couple of my own compositions reworked for solo playing, and a few covers, many of them new to my repertoire. Michael and I will be joined by two fantastic singers - Robin Gorn and Sarah Wendt. 8 pm start for my solo set, $7.

Friday, February 2 is my first gig with Kids Eat Crayons. Music from the mad mind of drummer/composer Dennis W. Lee, it's unlike any work I've ever played before. I'm really psyched about this band, as it's a consistent challenge to my playing ability - odd meters, demanding parts for all instruments, and the chance to let out all pent-up aggression. We'll be the last part of a triple bill with Frootfly & Super-Automatica (an electronica project between Max Henry and Liam O'Neill). This goes down at Barfly (4062a St. Laurent, near Duluth). $5.

Kids Eat Crayons: Jean-Philippe Major - voice; Steve Reid - alto sax; Ben Henriques - tenor & soprano sax; Craig Sauvé - guitar; DRR - keyboards; Scott Kingsley - bass; Dennis W. Lee - drums. (We're also hitting the studio January 31 and February 7. Stay tuned.)

I used to play in a band called Kokoro, which has been defunct since 2005. I've since worked with Kevin Warren and Jim Bennett in separate scenarios, but Saturday, February 10 marks the first time the three of us have played together since the demise of that group (and since Jim's return to Montreal from Vancouver). We'll be joined by guitarist Olivier René de Cotret and saxophonist Yannick Coderre at Bar Les Conneries (2037 St. Denis, above Ontario) for a night of jamming. I've missed playing with those guys.

And finally, Indigone Trio is relaunching for 2007 at les Conneries on Friday, February 23, and we welcome drummer Phil Melanson into the fold. Liam has decided to pursue other projects and we wish him all the best.

Additionally, I'll be hosting World Skip the Beat this coming Monday (Jan 29, noon EST) and Jazz Euphorium this coming Wednesday (Jan 31, 8 pm EST) on CKUT.

Changing landscapes

Montreal seems to be going through a period of cultural upheaval. In the wake of the closing and re-opening of Cinéma du Parc (which may yet be transformed into Cinéma de Robert-Bourassa), word comes that the Spectrum will be no more. This venerable space is slated to be replaced by a Best Buy.

I'll go one better than Jamie O'Meara: Spectrum was one of the best venues in Montreal, bar none. The acoustics were always good - maybe not fantastic, but never mediocre, and any problems usually lay with the soundman - the ambience was beautiful, with surprisingly decent sightlines from anywhere in the room. Its ability to metamorphosize from charming cabaret to sweaty funkbucket was truly appreciated.

I've seen some wonderful shows at Spectrum, many affiliated with Jazz Fest but not all. Highlights that flashed through my memory as I read the announcement of its imminent closure:
- An off-season Brad Mehldau Trio appearance, touring the Anything Goes repertoire before it was released, was the first time Mehldau's music clicked with me. His solo piano encore, in tribute to the recently deceased Elliott Smith, rendered Spectrum completely silent.
- Seeing Joss Stone just as her wave of popularity was starting to pick up speed. We waited longer than usual after the opener for her to come on, but it was well worth it. Showtime was during a crucial Habs/Bruins playoff game; when Stone came out in Habs gear and announced we had won, the place erupted. It gave the scene a jolt of energy she couldn't have delivered on her own at the time.
- 2005's Metheny marathon concert with Scott Colley, Antonio Sanchez, David Sanchez, Enrico Rava, and Me'shell Ndegeocello's Spirit Music band, hanging out up in the balcony of Spectrum with members of the press.

Spectrum serves/d as the indoor heart of Jazz Fest, with many of the outdoor stages mere steps away and having the most indoor programming outside of the Place des Arts complex. As O'Meara notes, the Spectrum was supposed to have merged with the Parc des Festivals for a larger Complexe Spectrum. It's yet another blunder in the Charest Liberal books that the funding for such a project was denied. Luckily, the demolition is only slated for August, post Jazz Fest, so the havoc it's sure to wreak on programming and scheduling will be postponed until 2008. O'Meara writes:

Montreal has a long history of being a poor custodian of its arts and culture heritage, and the imminent destruction of one of the city's most prized performance venues is just another in a growing list of assaults on the arts community in the last week alone.

And as a Montreal-based artist, that's truly disconcerting to me. On the ground level, there's so many fantastic people working at and with their art here, and its got a cultural vibrancy which I haven't experienced anywhere else. I hate to see it sabotaged by lack of space or understanding.

***

CBC Radio 2 makes good on its restructuring. [via CleverLazy] I had heard the first rumours of this circulating, and now reading the details, I'm torn about it. I lament the loss of Brave New Waves, as a recent convert to the show, though it could (and should) continue as a podcast. (Hey Helen, any notion of that floating about?) I do applaud the notion of Katie Malloch having a daily slot, though I don't know what that will do to the features JazzBeat used to run. The increase of talk and lack of classical does bother me, but this restructuring doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Wait and hear, I suppose.

I must confess to not having listened to as much CBC Radio as I should have, being a good Canuck and all. I'm just not near a radio much these days, and when I am it's usually tuned to CKUT.

***

Last night, I attended the launch for Literacy Through Hip-Hop's Montreal chapter. The project will take place in Little Burgundy, a down-trodden neighbourhood in the city, and will engage kids in the social aspects of hip-hop and get them to record their own music. As I mentioned about Under Pressure in the summer, one of the most interesting aspects about hip-hop, to me, is the way it can involve community. Hip-hop now, especially in inner cities, is one of the first ways kids get exposed to music and the creative manipulation of language. As music programs get cut from school budgets, other groups need to pick up the slack. Kudos to everyone involved in LTHH.

What you gon' play now?

There's a couple of very touching essays remembering the departed up now around the web.

Firstly, Christian McBride went on a burst of blogging at the beginning of the new year. I'd like to draw attention to his ultimate blog, not intended to be a memorial but functioning as one for the late Godfather of Soul. Read some of the subsequent entries, as well. McBride's experiences with Soul Brother No. 1 give Mr. Brown a human element that not many people saw.

Secondly, as has been linked a lot today, trumpeter Randy Sandke remembers his buddy Michael Brecker over at Rifftides.

And thirdly, Destination Out has a massive Alice Coltrane tribute. Jay and Drew, I salute thee.

Salon answers

On the Pulse blog, Joe Phillips has put up some substantive debate for composers, performers, and the like. I'm going to repost excerpts here for some context, but for the full talking points, check the link.

I. ...work/composition is not complete until it has been observed or heard [and subsequently] evaluated by an audience. ... a good work of art is one that (as you experience it) “makes you want to jump up and get out of there” and go and create something yourself. How do you view this statement (especially in relationship toward how your own compositions are received by the public)?

The best concerts I've seen usually make me want to hit the practice room, seriously write my butt off, or investigate their artistic tradition. Sometimes it has less to do with wanting to copy the musicians/composers in question and more about being inspired and rejuvenated. There must be an analog to this sentiment among non-musicians/non-artists, but I can't figure out what it would be - maybe "I wish I could do that," or regretting having quit piano lessons in early adolescence.

I agree that composition - and any performing art - is incomplete unless it has been disseminated in some way, which is why I always felt that my high school Shakespeare readings should have been determined by what was being staged that year and not by a predetermined curriculum. The audience doesn't necessarily hold the final judgement on a work, but the act of having a piece performed, even if it's just for a jury of my peers, adds a dimension to it. Composition can be such a hermetic practice that the ability to have my colleagues critique it in a reading session takes me out of my own headspace and allows me to re-evaluate my work in a more objective setting.

II. ...with the rise of modernism (in art) in the early 20th century, there came a disconnect with audiences—an “antagonism” between the artistic creator and the consumer of the art. ... “This is my essential criticism of modernism, whether perpetrated by (Charlie) Parker, (Erza) Pound, or (Pablo) Picasso: it helps us neither to enjoy nor to endure.”

Do you agree or disagree with Bayles’ and/or Larkin’s statements/premises? How do you as a composer/performer, balance artistic and commercial viability in your own work? In the presentation (i.e. performances) of your works? What other composers/performers do you feel balance artistic and commercial viability well? Is this even necessary?

I have little patience for pedantic or academic work. If I have to read the program notes for a piece to make any sort of sense, the composer should merely become a poet or author. Spare me the tedium. And as many jazz musicians have spouted over the years, the stage is not the practice room. Tell a story, etc. To effect the jumping-up-and-getting-out reaction that Laurie Anderson mentions above, the piece/improvisation/art has to stem from an honest and sincere place.

I firmly believe that it's obvious whether a musician is honest or whether they're bullshitting. Conviction is an easy thing to hear. If I tried to play a Djavan tune verbatim, it would come off quite crass, honestly, both to me and to the audience. But any cover I play, I endeavour to approach it from a place of true admiration and appreciation, and to make it my own in some meaningful way. There's a lot of songs I love and love to play in private, but that I would rarely, if ever, program on one of my own gigs, because I don't feel I have anything of myself with which to imbue it.

That said, there's more factors at play in the 20th century reception of art aside from the rise of modernism. The rise of alternative forms of entertainment, such as radio, cinema and television, created this idea of competition for attention. Half the threads on NewMusicBox and the like seem to be about how to get listeners out to concerts, and to entice them away from their Wiis (Wiiae?) and TiVos and various other entertainment devices. Additionally, the iPod and internet is the pinnacle of music dissemination, with the ability to get nearly any music at any time and listen to it anywhere. Four hundred years ago, music could only travel by way of printed scores and performance. Home entertainment was in the form of children learning instruments, home concerts and salons.

I've said it before: it's amazing what mere exposure will do to generate an audience. I don't want to get on the political soapbox about mainstream media insulting the intelligence of its viewers and listeners, but I think we really do underestimate what people will gravitate toward if they're even given the opportunity to hear it.

As a composer and/or performer how do you generate audiences for your performances? How does audience reaction to a piece affect your future writing? your programming? Do you think about the audience when writing?

I don't think about the audience when I'm writing. Composition is a very selfish task: I'm writing for me. I write what I want to hear, sometimes even as a form of personal catharsis. When I wrote "Driscollage" as a tribute to Chris Driscoll, I did it as a coping method. I couldn't get the melody out of my head after I heard the news. The potential reception of it never entered my mind. I do, however, think about the audience in terms of programming, but again, it's based on how I, as a listener, would want to hear a set of music. As for generating audiences, I haven't ever modified my music to gain more listeners, and I hope I never have to. If my music has changed, it's been for personal reasons and growth, not to kowtow to commerciality.

Can you recommend any composer, group, or recording that balances the artistic with the popular (or at least commercial successful)?

Radiohead. Paul Simon. Ethel. Maria Schneider. Tom Waits. The current crop of [shudder] crossover projects (Kronos playing Sigur Ros, Alarm Will Sound playing Aphex Twin, So Percussion double bills with Matmos) seem to be coming from a genuine appreciation for the music as opposed to a record producer's grand marketing idea.

I'd like to bring up David Lewis' review of Golijov's Ainadamar on AllMusic. He writes:

In Ainadamar, Golijov plays it safe, ... almost sounding like a zarzuela or, at worst, like Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita with better music. ... The serious subject of Ainadamar does not defeat the fact that its music sounds commercial, as well crafted as it is. ... [T]he lack of risk-taking in Ainadamar is tantamount to Golijov moving into another camp of composers -- some might say on his way up in the world, but others may decide that it's "out."

If all operas were as direct and accessible as Ainadamar, one wouldn't need to pull teeth to get audience members. Lewis seems to consider "melodic" as a synonym for "commercial," and I can't fathom why any composer or musician should become an apologist for melody. And what of the idea of balancing the weighty subject with lighter music? Not all opera has to be buried under Wagnerian gravitas. The biggest detriment facing "classical" and "jazz" music is that its purists risk putting it not merely in a museum, but in a bubble. The best art is not insular, but connected to the entirety of its traditions and social contexts - both of its time and timeless.

World Skip The Beat playlist 1/15/2007

Trilok Gurtu - "Big Brother" (African Fantasy)
Rez Abbasi - "Kismet" (Snake Charmer)
Richard Bona - "Konda Djanea" (Scenes From My Life)
Maleshevski Melos - "Nesatova Sa-sa" (Belly Dance)
Cosmic Voices of Bulgaria - "Barem se ergen nahodih" (Mechmitio)
Esma Redzepova - "Chaje Shukarije" (Chaje Shukarije)
Trio Mocoto - "Nagô" (Black Rio compilation)
Moreno Veloso +2 - "Arrivederci" (Music Typewriter)
Bebel Gilberto - "August Day Song" (Tanto Tempo)
Forro in the Dark - "Forrowest" (Bonfires of São João)
Osvaldo Golijov/Atlanta SO/Upshaw - "Balada (Primera Imagen)" (Ainadamar)
Waldemar Bastos - "Kuribôta" (Pretaluz)
Papa Wemba - "Bakwetu" (Molokai)
Salif Keita - "Tekere" (Folon...The Past)
Rokia Traoré - "Wanita" (Wanita)
Kasai Allstars f/ Tandjolo - "Koyile/Nyeka Nyeka" (Congotronics 2)
Beny Moré - "Maracaibo Oriental" (Ritmo)
Patato - "Descarga en Faux" (The Legend of Cuban Percussion)
Irakere - "Bacalao Con Pan" (Bacalao Con Pan)
Compay Segundo - "Chan Chan" (Calle Salud)
Fela Ransome-Kuti & Africa 70 - "Fogo Fogo" (Afro-Baby compilation)