Trio Bruxo +2 post-mortem

Thanks to the select crowd of friends that hauled out to Il Motore on Sunday night. Il Motore is a beautiful new space, a stone's throw from Jean-Talon Market. The building used to be, as Casa booker Steve G. told me, "one of those sketchy video-lottery bars that you wonder how they can still be in business." Our new friends are now great allies and I hope to work with them again soon.

As a last minute addition, Moonstarr spun bossa and MPB beats between the sets, and graciously recorded the show, which turned out pretty well. Look for some of it to wind up on the Trio Bruxo space. For those of you who couldn't make it, and for those that did and wondered what tunes we were playing, here's the set list.

Set 1:
Sururu de Capote (Djavan) [trio only]
Canário do reino (Carvalho/Zapata)
Flor de lis (Djavan)
Lead Me Home (Jean Rohe)
Joana francesa (Chico Buarque)
Casa forte (Edu Lobo)
Piano na mangueira (Tom Jobim/Chico Buarque)
Fugiu com a novela (Vanessa da Mata)
Eta baião (Jackson do Pandeiro)

Set 2:
Brigas Nunca Mais (Tom Jobim)
13 de Maio (Caetano Veloso)
Give It Up (Jean Rohe)
Hombre Triste (Myk Freedman)
Quem te viu, quem te vê (Chico Buarque)
Eu só quero um xodó (Dominguinhos)
Asa branca (Luiz Gonzaga/Humberto Teixeira)

Start Your Engines

The Casa del Popolo family of venues are among my favourites in the city. From the small, intimate Casa to the larger Spanish social hall of La Sala Rossa, and even the short-lived, high school cafeteria setting of El Salon, these rooms book fantastic musicians, support independent and local artists, and have good sound. The latest addition to the group is Il Motore, on Jean-Talon and Waverly. I have the honour and fortune of playing there in three different groups over the next couple of months.

This Sunday, March 22, Trio Bruxo hits Il Motore with some new (to us) repertoire and some very special guests. Trio Bruxo is a newer project of mine, in the vein of the great Brazilian piano trios of the '60s and '70s. I'm joined by Nicolas Bédard on electric bass and Mark Nelson on drums. There may even be a guest DJ in the house. Doors open at 8.

On Thursday, April 2, I'll be playing alongside my good friend Becky Noble. Becky and I went to McGill together and were both out at the Banff Centre in 2005. She's since taken a bit of a hiatus from music and lives back on the West Coast, which is a shame because she's a fantastic composer and saxophonist. A one-night-only sextet has formed to play a mix of Becky's tunes and select covers.
The band is: Becky Noble - alto sax/compositions; Chet Doxas - tenor sax; DRR - keys; Tristan Paxton - guitar; Conrad Good - bass; Adam Miller - drums.

And finally, Sunday May 3 marks the return of Indigone Trio to the stage. Phil, Seb and I are busy with other things but it's always a pleasure to play my music with them. I'm hoping to have some new music written for this show. We'll be joined by some Ropeadope crew for this special showcase event.

Addendum

You know, as great as last night's show was, this still makes me jealous: the next installment of the VTech Timeless series at the Luckman Theater in LA will feature Arthur Veroçai and a 30-piece orchestra, Madlib on the decks, and Airto Moreira and 2/3 of Azymuth.

Damn. If you are anywhere in reasonable driving distance from LA, GO!

Voices and Rhythms of Brazil - Metropolis, 03/10/2009

I'm always amazed at how familial the music scene is here. Especially at world music shows, it often seems like one big family reunion - this was the case at the Boban Markovic concert last summer, and even more so last night at Metropolis. It appeared that the entire lusophone community of Montreal (along with some like-minded pretenders like me) was out in force. A four-hour tribute to bossa, samba, MPB, samba-rock and samba-reggae ensued in the company of locals (ringleader Monica Freire, keyboardist John Sadowy, the inimitable Vovô, and co-musical directors bassist Dan Gigon and saxophonist Jean-Pierre Zanella) and guests from Brazil and Paris, the night featured vocalists Freire, Rodrigo Maranhão, Mart'nália, Celso Fonseca and Margareth Menezes. Starting with the batucada of Estacão da Luz in the middle of the club, the first half featured each singer performing two or three songs, the last of which was generally a cover (Maranhão doing Caetano Veloso's "Você não entende nada," Mart'nália with her re-harmonized and re-grooved version of "Don't Worry, Be Happy," and Fonseca doing Marcos Valle's "Summer Samba"). Someone performed "Chiclete com banana" somewhere in the first set, I don't remember who!

What was truly inspiring, and a welcome reminder, were the versions of ubiquitous bossas that have made their way into the jazz canon - "Summer Samba," "Samba de uma nota só," "Águas de Março," "Água de beber." As a jazz musician, I've heard (and played) some terribly watered-down versions that bear no resemblance to the way the tunes are supposed to be done. Normally I can't stand "Águas de Março" but Freire and Fonseca did it well - and it's such a wordy tune that two native Brazilans needed a cheat sheet on a music stand!

The second set, after a batucada and capoeira interlude, started with Maranhão's version of "Agua de beber," and soon the spirit shifted from tribute concert to all-out festa. Freire got it going with Gilberto Gil's "Aquele abraço." Margareth Menezes, looking like a Bahian Tina Turner, led a sing-along of Jorge Ben's "País tropical" and Chico Cesar's "Mama Africa." The finale featured all five singing Jorge Ben's "Ive Brussel." The night was filmed by Spectra-Amerimage for broadcast - there were more than a few times where I nearly got beaned by a camera arm, and the stage setup had a very 1960s Ed Sullivan feel to it.

Heavy Metal Thunder

What happens when a bunch of jazz geeks with a love for rock collide with the director of a Digital Composition Studio, and Bruckner? Find out tomorrow evening in Pollack Hall (555 Sherbrooke W) as members of Kids Eat Crayons perform during MusiMars 2009's Heavy Metal Project, premiering Sean Ferguson's shoot•dash•it. Other pieces on the program include David Adamcyk's remix of Pierre Boulez for Fender Rhodes and narration, Elliot Britton's piece for keyboards, electric cello and V-Drums, and Scelsi's Uaxuctum.

Kids Eat Crayons: Jean-Philippe Major - vocals; David Ryshpan - keyboards; Scott Kingsley - bass; D.W. Lee - V-Drums; with Jimmie Leblanc - guitar; Sean Ferguson - digital processing.

SFJazz Collective - Metropolis, 02/27/2009

The SFJazz Collective is a rarity in many senses: an all-star group that rises above its concept to create and perform music that stands on its own; a leaderless (or multi-led) group of fantastic soloists that coheres into a group sound; a band paying homage to an iconic figure (in this case, McCoy Tyner) that retains their own identity. Tyner's presence, like Monk, looms so largely over his music - it demands a certain amount of his personalized vocabulary, without merely parrotting the trademark Tyner-isms. Pianist Renee Rosnes winked at the classic McCoy language and added her own personal take on the characteristic open fifths, quartal voicings and blistering pentatonic runs.

The concert began with Rosnes' arrangement of Tyner's "Fly Like the Wind." Opening with the lowest A on the piano, impressionistic flurries and a repeated phrase that got passed around the horns before leading into Rosnes' prelude and eventually the head, the arrangement signaled the type of reverent re-imagining of Tyner's music that would follow through the evening. Joe Lovano took the first solo, launching immediately into a double-time feel. At the arrangement's climax it collapsed back into the opening echo phrase, and ended on a resonant C major chord.

Trombonist Robin Eubanks' medley of Tyner's "Indo Serenade" and "Parody" followed. Drummer Eric Harland nailed the vaguely Latin, straight-eighth grooves framing these takes on Tyner's Milestone records from the 1970s. Eubanks parlayed "Indo-Serenade" into odd meters with metric trickery, while never losing the groove or drawing attention to the rhythmic intricacies. The call and response writing reminded me a bit of Guillermo Klein's work. Altoist Miguel Zenon and Eubanks took marvelous solos, with Harland performing a killing interlude into the 6/8 ending of "Parody."

Lovano's "Jazz Free" was a pun and comment on free jazz and truly exhibited the sensitive, empathetic listening going on in this group. The underlying elasticity of time, even when it wasn't stated outright, was reminiscent of Ornette Coleman, with a bass/drum interlude hearkening back to the intro of "Lonely Woman." The collective improvising never got cluttered, coalescing into a series of descending fifths while a soloist continued.

One of the highlights of the set was Dave Douglas' original "Sycamore," with a series of gorgeously simple melodies that effortlessly dovetailed into one another. I don't really have any more notes on this tune, because I was sitting there stunned and moved by the beauty of it. It was very much in the vein of his quintet book, but utilized the added colours of the SFJazz septet effectively. Douglas' playing was revelatory throughout the set - though I've heard him play in multi-horn groups (his Sextet records from the 1990s and early '00s for instance), I've never heard him lead a section's phrasing with such authority and empathy.

Zenon's arrangement of "Four by Five" opened with Harland's broken hip-hop feel and a cyclic repetition of a phrase before launching into a burning Dave Douglas solo in 4/4 swing. Bassist Matt Penman's arrangement of "Three Flowers" was highly inventive, with bass and piano playing the melody, trombone carrying the bassline, and the other three horns alternating between an accompaniment figure and collective blowing. It was subtle but completely effective at changing up the texture of the set. Harland's tune "E-Collective" ended the set with all four horns chanting the tala used throughout the piece, setting the groove that would continue - a nod to Harland's Indian rhythmic explorations alongside Charles Lloyd and Zakir Hussein.

Lovano's arrangement of "Aisha" served as the encore, with Douglas in cup mute. A simple, gracious nod of honour to McCoy and a fantastic parting gift to the audience.

Rocking la maison!

Cheers to Andrew Waller at CJSW-FM (Calgary)'s Breaking the Tethers for playing our music last night. Also, hats off to Ron Steeds at CKCU-FM's Now's the Time for his longstanding support of Indigone, and his inclusion in his "String Driven Things" episode a while back; to the Douze Pouces gang for this crazy review; and to John Murph at WPFW-FM (Washington, DC), for including us in a hope-filled set a few weeks ago.

Indigone Trio & Strings' Cycles should now be at the libraries of most campus/community radio stations across Canada, and at a select few in the Northeast US. Keep an ear out - if you haven't heard us yet, you should soon. For any readers outside of Canada and the northeast US, let me know what stations you listen to!

Fieldtrip + 2 - Maison du Jazz, 02/16/2009

The Fieldtrip boys were back in town on Monday, with their guests Kelly Jefferson on tenor and soprano saxophones, and Jim Head on guitar. Bringing together different generations of McGill alumni, the group played new music by co-composers Pat Reid and Colin Power. I only caught the second set, but every time I see these guys, they've come more into their own as a band. Pat and Colin both have branched out in their writing, with more through-composed tunes, avoiding the head-solo-head format and taking their time with melodic material. I've had the immense pleasure of playing with Pat, Colin and drummer Mark Nelson on many occasions (Mark even subbed in the Indigone CD release), and it's quite remarkable how much those three have achieved a band sound, and how they retain it while still growing as musicians and as a band.

Kelly and Jim found their place in the band sound quite well; while they did have their fair share of "featured soloist" spotlight, neither of them seemed out of place in the sound. Kelly's one of the musicians I grew up around in Toronto, hanging out at The Rex as a kid; his sound has always been big and vocal. He paired well with Colin's alto on the front line. Jim was finishing up his Master's while I was in undergrad, and his melodic concept was always exceedingly inventive. It was great to hear him crunch it up on one of Pat's new tunes, "A Wolf in a Sweater" (dedicated to a certain public figure). They're recording a new album in Toronto this week and then they hit The Rex on the weekend - if you're in Toronto and reading this, go.

Moondata LOVEProject - O Patro Vys, 02/14/2009

Two happenings that profoundly solidified my love for Montreal while I was in university were the Moondata LABProjects, a monthly event at O Patro Vys, and the weekly Kalmunity sessions at Sablo Café. Both unite musicians in improvisational glory, with brief discussions of direction mere hours beforehand. Kalmunity is still going strong every Tuesday, but Moondata had taken a nearly two-year absence while founders Matt Lederman and Vid Cousins went on tour with many of Canada's indie darlings, and co-founder Rhyna Thompson continued her management duties.

Moondata was always intriguing to me because the musicians that appeared onstage often came from wildly disparate scenes. It was not uncommon to see Chet Doxas playing tenor alongside Kid Koala, or to have crooner John Labelle front a band of indie upstarts. And of course, with any evening of mostly improvised music, some of them were hit and miss - generally, they were hits.

Love has always brought the best out of the Moondata collective - while I missed the last Valentine's soirée with Labelle and company, I did see the one the year before, featuring Patrick Watson and Elizabeth Powell weaving love songs over a band of (then)-couples. No surprise then that the long-awaited "reunion" would fall on Valentine's Day. This time around it was less a collision of divergent forces than a group of friends (on stage and in the audience) coming together again for a shared experience. The band featured Matt & Vid on guitars and fx, joined by McGill alumni Sarah Pagé (harp), Andy King (trumpet), and former Indigone drummer Liam O'Neill, as well as Mishka Stein of the Patrick Watson band on bass, Andrew Barr on drums and percussion, and guest vocalist Lhasa. Much of the first set was grounded in atmospheric post-rock, with Barr on steel drum and waterphone, and the whole band starting one improvisation with various whirling air tubes (I can't remember the name of that instrument). King's harmon muted trumpet blended almost too well with Lhasa's formidable kazoo playing. The final tune of the first set featured a monster groove and collective handclaps.

The second set continued along its path with what Lederman called the "avant-garde" portion of the evening "because love can be scary," with Pagé assuming the waterphone this time while heavily effected guitars and trumpet swirled. There were many more double-headed grooves with Liam and Andrew locking in really well. The double drum set-up has been a staple of Moondata, and it's always been a revelation to see how the drummers, ranging from Bell Orchestre's Stefan Schneider to Kalmunity's Jahsun, have hooked up. Sending the night off with a "dance tune," the group proceeded to wink at, salute and deconstruct four-on-the-floor house, culminating in a wild jumble of sound. A far more engaging soundtrack to Valentine's Day than the norm.

Matt and Vid are moving more into the audio and production side of the world, but perhaps someone can assume the mantle of Moondata from them. I and many other listeners realized how much we missed them. More on the show from Sarah Brideau.

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"