FIJM Day 4: Marco Benevento

Sometimes two factions of audience members collide: patrons of the Festival who buy ticket packages, and fans of the artist performing. I remember Charlie Haden's concert a couple of years ago, supporting the folk/bluegrass album Ramblin' Boy, and the legions of people leaving during the concert because they didn't do their research. Marco Benevento's show was such an event.

Walking into Chapelle historique de Bon Pasteur, the home of the new Solo Piano series and a beautiful Fazioli piano, I saw elegant elderly patrons of the festival sitting in the foyer. I was genuinely curious as to whether or not they knew what they were getting into. With a row of guitar pedals and a MIDI controller atop the grand, Benevento wasted no time announcing that this would not be your usual "solo piano" concert. Performing his original trio repertoire in the company of Nintendo-sounding drum loops and processing the Fazioli through delay and tremolo effects, the row of 70-somethings in front of me seemed thoroughly baffled and proceeded to talk through most of the concert. Benevento has a penchant for simple, almost child-like melodies, and was very much musically aligned with the orchestral indie rock scene of this city (see: Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre). The first part of the concert was comprised of mostly original compositions, including "Greenpoint" which featured an interpolation of Nirvana's "Come as You Are."

As much as I loved the electronics, samples, and beats, the concert really took off as Marco started to abandon the effects and dig into the piano. He has a way of selling melody, as evidenced in his covers of My Morning Jacket's "Golden" (played over a drum loop that sounded pilfered from Paul Simon's "Late in the Evening") and homeboy Leonard Cohen's "Seemed So Long Ago, Nancy." The final three songs of the concert - an F-major soundscape piece in 5/4, the "Real Morning Party" delivered as a James Booker-style New Orleans piano raveup, and his arrangement of Monk's "Bye-Ya" in 7, in an appropriate and tasteful display of piano chops - were easily the strong point of the set.

Oddly enough, the older audience members were buying Marco's new album, Between the Needles & Nightfall, in droves after the concert. Maybe, as Josh Jackson hypothesized, it was for their grandkids. But that would have been an interesting crowd to survey for Meet the Jazz Audience.

FIJM Day 3: Chano Dominguez

Pianist Chano Dominguez returned this year to the Jazz Fest, after last year's guest appearance with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. This time around he was leading his own group, presenting a two-part show called Flamenco View, with music drawn from two upcoming albums.

The first half of the show featured Chano, drummer/cajon player Guillermo Mcgill, vocalist Israel Fernandez Munoz, and dancer Joaquin Grilo who also played cajon. They performed Chano's adaptations of music from Catalan classical composers Enrique Granados, Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albeniz and Federico Mompou. It was evident that space was opened up for improvisation within the pieces but not being familiar with the original works I couldn't say where. Dominguez has found a way to truly incorporate the phrasing and feel of flamenco guitar to the piano - the rolling flourishes, repeated notes, and a real hook-up with the palmas and the cajon. Jazz has been hybridized with his harmonic and melodic sense, some well-incorporated bluesy touches, as well as Dominguez's penchant for quotations à la Dexter Gordon. "Lush Life" and "St. Thomas" popped up in the first half. Fernandez did not sing on every piece, but deployed these heart-wrenching vocal ornamentations at exactly the right time. Grilo played a lot of cajon and palmas but when he danced he was a welcome addition. His opening choreography reminded me a lot of modern circus, and some of his footwork and posture to my eyes was more akin to James Brown than flamenco dance. He and Dominguez shared a great chemistry onstage.


The second half of the concert was a tribute to Kind of Blue, its repertoire re-imagined by Dominguez to varying degrees of success. The group was completed by bassist Mario Rossy, whose bottom end filled out the sonic spectrum and who also proved to be a fantastic soloist in his intro to "So What." "Flamenco Sketches" began this half, appropriately enough, and it went to a much higher-energy place than the song's roots in Bill Evans' "Peace Piece" would suggest, ending essentially as a bluesy descarga in G. Fernandez also improvised admirably over the changes. "Freddie the Freeloader" was recast over an Afro-Cuban 6/8 that did not feel as inspired or as cohesive. When the band switched to a buleria 6/8 feel with two cajons under Rossi's solo, the groove suddenly gelled and felt much better. The highlight was "Blue in Green," with Rafael Alberti's "Poema 51" set to its melody, opening in a powerfully moving duo between Dominguez and Fernandez. "So What" was the most radical transformation, transposed to F, reharmonized, and preceded by a brilliant Rossy solo. Dominguez invited Grilo to dance, trading with Mcgill. The encore was "All Blues," which in an ironic twist was played in a funky 4. A bit of an anticlimactic ending, with Dominguez playing Michael Jackson's "Black or White" for a chorus and really not catching the inspirational spark of the first half.

Dominguez, in his best moments, exhibits a true understanding of both the jazz and flamenco traditions. When they're not forced together by external concept but dovetail with each other through musicality, it's a vivid and thoroughly gorgeous experience.

FIJM 2010: Day 2

Jean Derome, founding figure of Montreal's musique actuelle scene, took the stage of L'Astral. Playing music from his last album To Continue with his regular group Les Dangereux Zhoms, comprised of longtime cohorts Tom Walsh on trombone, Guillaume Dostaler on piano, Pierre Cartier on electric bass and Pierre Tanguay on drums.


Derome, in deadpan delivery, described the tunes as a suite dedicated to the mundane incidents of life on the road, with titles like "Nez qui coule" and "Cogné de genou."


Dostaler is a very deliberate player in every comping phrase and every line. It took a while before Tanguay unleashed his irreverence in the solo of "Prières." Cartier sang "La grenouille et le boeuf" admirably in a trembling baritone and his electric bass allowed for a sustained, almost post-rock undertone to "Nez qui coule." Walsh often relied on glissandi and extreme high register, often complemented by a plunger. Derome, on alto and soprano saxophones and flute, played with a fairly clean tone, marked by intentional spurts of overblowing and other extended techniques.

Compositionally, the pieces featured some intriguing structures - the Berg-like stacked tone row of "La grenouille," the intervallic unisons of "Nez qui coule." The blend between Walsh's trombone and Derome's alto was especially notable. The centrepiece of the set was "Prières" (based on Protestant hymns), with the horns in harmonized chorale, the cued repeated figures for Tanguay's solo, and splitting the band into two time feels. Throughout the show, it was all very interesting but the spark was lacking - perhaps that was part of the tribute to the mundane as well.

The Kalmunity Après Jazz party was off the hook. It started off slow and took a while before people showed up, but around the stroke of midnight people started flooding in. Half of San Francisco's Jazz Mafia crew came in, and various drummers, singers and horn players came in to join us. Jazz Mafia seems to be Kalmunity's West Coast twin - they also hold down a weekly Tuesday gig, and are a sizable collective that has led to other smaller ensembles. Drummers E.J. Strickland and Obed Calvaire were just hanging out.

FIJM 2010: Day 1

Hail, hail, the gang's all here! Most of the first day was a big hang in the press room catching up with folks I see rarely, like WWPV-FM's David Beckett and the hilarious Mitch Myers. Sushi dinner with Hour's Mike Chamberlain and the aforementioned Beckett ran long so I was absent for Vijay Iyer's solo show at Chapelle historique de Bon-Pasteur. My sources at Nextbop tell me it was... well... sick. With "Fleurette Africaine" and "Imagine" in the mix, I would imagine so. I caught half of Burkina Electric's set on the Tropiques stage. The concept is promising: afro-pop from Burkina Faso, rooted in folkloric legends and songs, on top of deep house kick and snare. It didn't always gel: the glitch processing overwhelmed the vocals and threatened to derail one tune, and it seemed the guitarist and live drummer were not always locked in with the loops and samples. The lead female vocalist has a guttural, powerful voice and charismatic presence, and the two male backup singer/dancers were no slouches either. When the group was together it was a fascinating and danceable hybrid, but it just wasn't consistent enough.

It took me five years to catch up to Vijay Iyer. In listening to his music previously, I appreciated his craft but I could never really follow the thread of what was happening. Last night's trio show at Gésu changed all that. Immensely captivating and transfixing, the two-hour show (including two encores) flew by. Much is often made of Vijay's intricate rhythmic language, but last night the math was present without being at the forefront of the music. Marcus Gilmore has a way of referencing a swinging ride pattern overtop of these rhythmic cycles. He has matured into a very fluid drummer, still armed with the laser precision of his playing on Re-Imagining. Vijay described Stephan Crump as "my secret weapon," and it was an apt description - from round, earthy pizzicato to various bowed explorations of the bass, he added a bit of a smooth finish to the trio. Vijay plays with an angularity steeped in the jazz tradition without ever resorting to stock blues phrases. Not enough mention is made of his touch at the piano and his dynamic range, coaxing intimate pianissimo from the instrument and gearing up to a full thundering roar. The hallmarks of Vijay's style were still there - the use of the low register of the piano, the wide-ranging chords, the constantly unravelling chromatic lines - but there was also a certain looseness, freedom and levity to the evening that I did not expect.

Much of the setlist was drawn from Historicity, and many of the tunes flowed into each other seamlessly. The opening hush of "Helix" led into the fractured swing of "Historicity." Iyer's recent arrangement of "Human Nature" (long live the King) moved from an insistent accompaniment to Gilmore's post-Dilla hip-hop shuffle. Julius Hemphill's "Dogon A.D.", with its almost march-like bassline, morphed into the high-octane "Cardio." The second half of the set was marked by the covers from Historicity - Crump's highly rooted walking anchoring the beginning of Bernstein's "Somewhere," delivered with a stunning sense of beauty. Andrew Hill's "Smoke Stack" bore witness to the constant truth and inspiration of the blues, with a magnificent Marcus Gilmore solo. The kaleidoscopic view of "Mystic Brew" grooved incredibly hard. To a well-deserved and loud standing ovation, the trio launched into "Galang" to kick off their first encore, followed by a hushed G minor near-lullaby, Vijay's runs reminiscent of vocal ornamentation. Gésu's lights switching to a deep red and then fading, it would have been the perfect, intimate coda to the evening, but the full house demanded more. For the second and final encore, they performed their abstraction of Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother," Gilmore locking into his mallet-groove in 7, bringing it down in volume but not intensity by playing it with his hands under Crump's solo. A high watermark of the 2010 festival in its first day.

The madness begins for 2010

On site at the Montreal Jazz Festival. I will blog and tweet when I can, as not having a laptop nor a smartphone makes it hard to communicate in real time (though I must say I'm loving my Mac Mini).

I've been collaborating with Claude Thibault of SortiesJazzNights for some of his video interviews. My meeting with Omar Sosa is up, and I just interviewed Vijay Iyer earlier today. I'm looking forward to his shows tonight. Watch this space for reviews.

Jordan/Parker/Drake, La Sala Rossa, 06/10/2010

My first real exposure to William Parker's music came through preparing a radio feature on the Suoni per il popolo festival years ago. Parker has been a recurring figure throughout Suoni's ten-year history, appearing with many groups and even conducting a master class a couple of years ago. It was only fitting that he, long-time rhythmic partner Hamid Drake and legendary Louisiana tenor Kidd Jordan would return to Suoni for this milestone year. In the wake of Fred Anderson's illness and Bill Dixon's passing, it seems all the more important to have finally witnessed Kidd Jordan.

Both sets were continuous, with fragments of various tunes creeping in and out of the improvisations. In the first set, Parker and Drake were very clearly driving the bus, with Jordan riding over them. Opening with unison punches on a major 9th that launched into a fast swing, Jordan exhibited his full-bodied sound across the entire range of his horn. Ideas from all three performers were dovetailing with each other, Drake fluidly moving from groove to groove - hints of backbeat led to a Latin-ish groove duet between him and Parker. An eerie combination of Parker's bowed bass with Jordan's plaintive altissimo register dissolved into a 6/8 feel. After quoting Coltrane's "Pursuance," Jordan got so overheated he exclaimed "Hallelujah!" and left Parker and Drake alone while he cooled himself off with his towel. The set ended with an interpolation of "Nature Boy."

The second set was more of an egalitarian triologue, Jordan digging into the rhythm section and solo spots opened up for each member. The powerful hook-up between Parker and Drake was still present in abundance. Coltrane quotes - this time "Cousin Mary" - were prevalent from Jordan. Drake became a one-man batucada for a minute while Jordan and Parker played a descending D minor scale. "Wade in the Water" appeared over Drake's patented rubbery reggae feel. The ending was awkwardly humourous, continuing past the point of its intended conclusion into a series of extended attempts to end it. The strange ending did nothing to detract from the preceding two hours of inspirational music. It was clear from both body language and musical interaction how much respect the three musicians had for each other, and how much fun they were having.

Música universal

I just found this on Hermeto Pascoal's site - his principles of Universal Music. In the wake of Jazz Nerds International and all the fervour over at NextBop, I think it's highly refreshing and useful to return to some of these basic concepts (especially principles 1 through 4). I have taken the liberty of Google-Translating the text (as much of it as I can read; the link goes to a draft written in Hermeto's wife's hand).

In my experience of nearly 7 years of making Universal Music, and in 6 years of living with its creator, my beautiful love and master Hermeto Pascoal, I learn and realize more and more that:

- Harmony is the Mother of Music, Rhythm is the Father, and Melody or Theme is the child;

- Universal Music is mixed without prejudice, but with good taste;

- Good Taste is not learned at school;

- All is Sound;

- To be a Universal Musician is to love, create, imagine and be inspired by the sounds of Nature;

- Nature is all that it exists. It is all worlds, and beyond;

- The Universal Musician does not compare, does not generalize, only seeks to find himself;

- Everyone has much to contribute to music;

- The only label we accept for the music that we make is Universal Music;

- Universal Music is the brotherhood and the love among people;

- The essence is already in everyone, naturally;

- To be a Universal Musician is to be open to natural influences, without premeditation;

- A Universal Musician is anyone that feels Universal Music;

- Practice is the master;

- You need to use the theory in favour of the music;

- Universal Music is food for the soul;

- In Universal Music I found myself.

2010 Montreal Jazz Fest picks

As always with the jazz festival, there are a gross amount of conflicting shows. Lots of big outdoor events, and this year there is as much jazz outside as inside, alongside all the electronics, international grooves and hip-hop. Below are my picks of the festival, divided into indoor and outdoor shows. There is no possible way to see everything. It should also be noted that pianist Dan Thouin is hosting the official festival jam sessions at l'Astral this year in the company of bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer John Fraboni. Each night, they'll be joined by special guests including Frank Lozano, Joel Miller, Benoit Charest and Erik Hove.

Due to space, I'm letting my recommendations go without comment. Bios are available at http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/

EDIT: Always go with your first instinct. Commentary has been added.

Indoor:

June 25 - Vijay Iyer two ways - solo at Chapelle historique de Bon Pasteur, 7 pm; trio at Gesu, 10:30 pm [Vijay's Historicity was deservedly the talk of best-of-2009 lists, and having seen glimpses of his solo piano work at Banff I'm very curious to hear him solo in the great space of Bon Pasteur]
- Yosvany Terry Quartet at L'Astral, 9:30 [I'm a sucker for the fusion of Latin rhythms with sophisticated jazz composition and Terry does it at a very high level]
- Paolo Fresu & Omar Sosa, Gesu, 6 pm (part of Fresu's Invitation series) [Interested to hear this pairing of Fresu's trumpet, which I must admit I'm not so familiar with, with the pan-Afro-Caribbean pianism of Sosa]

June 26 - Jean Derome & les Dangereux Zhoms, L'Astral, 6 pm [local musique actuelle supergroup led by one of the founders of the scene]
- David Sanchez Group, Theatre Jean-Duceppe, 9:30 (with Omar Sosa opening) [see my love for forward-thinking Latin-influenced jazz]

June 27 - Chano Dominguez Flamenco View (also June 28), Theatre du Nouveau Monde, 8 pm [Dominguez's hybrid of flamenco with jazz intrigues me; I'm not familiar with it and I think it may be best witnessed live]

June 28 - Marco Benevento solo, Chapelle historique de Bon Pasteur, 7 pm [big fan of Marco's work with the Duo and his own work as a leader; interested in seeing how he ties in his use of pedals and electric instruments into a solo show]
- Chet Doxas, L'Astral, 6 pm [a stalwart local tenor player and composer, whose music is equally indebted to Lovano, Giuffre and Frisell]

June 30 - Bobby McFerrin Vocabularies (with choir from College Laval), 6 pm, Theatre Maisonneuve [What is there to say about Bobby McFerrin? High level vocalism, and I'm interested to see how he presents the cut-and-pasted choirs from the new album with a live collegiate choir]
- Dave Douglas & Keystone, Gesu, 10:30 pm [I'm an overall fan of Dave's work, especially the programmatic nature of Keystone, scores to the movies of Fatty Arbuckle]
- Jose James & Jef Neve duo, Savoy du Metropolis, 7 pm [James is in the midst of defining what it means to be a 21st century male jazz singer, and his rapport with Neve is a must-see]
- Joel Miller featuring Geoff Keezer (also July 1), Upstairs, 7 & 9 pm [Joel is a great friend and a local inspiration, and Geoffrey Keezer is a highly impressive and inventive pianist]

July 1 - John Zorn's Masada Marathon, Theatre Maisonneuve, 6 & 9 pm [looks like it will be a mix of the electric and acoustic configurations of Masada with a whole whack of the best improvisers around]
- Charles Papasoff, L'Astral, 6 pm [another local saxophonist/composer whose music I always find intriguing; I have not yet seen him live]

July 2 - Gretchen Parlato Band (also July 3), Savoy du Metropolis, 7 pm [I can't get enough of Gretchen's two records, a phenomenal singer with a great ear for reworking repertoire]
- Jack DeJohnette Group, Theatre Jean-Duceppe, 8 pm [a supergroup led by possibly my favourite living drummer - Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto, Dave Fiuczynski on guitar, George Colligan on piano and Jerome Harris on bass. To me it looks a bit like an odd grouping on paper but I'm fascinated to hear it]
- Robert Glasper w/ Terence Blanchard, Gesu, 6 pm [Glasper came up in Blanchard's ranks and I love both of their playing]
- Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures, Gesu, 10:30 pm [Rudolph is a percussive multi-instrumentalist with influences from all over the globe]

July 3 - Robert Glasper w/ Bilal, Gesu, 6 pm [boundary-pushing jazz-influenced R&B, or is that R&B-influenced jazz? Who knows? It will be fantastic]
- Andreya Triana, Bonobo & Mr. Scruff, Metropolis, 8:30 pm [a Ninja Tune triple bill - Andreya is a luscious voice to be heard and Bonobo & Scruff will keep the party rocking]

July 4 - Allen Toussaint solo, Gesu, 6 pm [for anybody who cares about the history of New Orleans music and New Orleans piano playing in particular, this will be a master class]
- Bugge Wesseltoft solo, Chapelle historique de Bon Pasteur, 7 pm [Norwegian "nu-jazz" phenom whom I've only heard in group projects, very curious about his solo concept]

July 5 - Allen Toussaint Bright Mississippi, Theatre Jean-Duceppe, 9:30 pm [the touring version of his acclaimed last record, with another interesting "on paper" grouping: Nicholas Payton, Don Byron and Marc Ribot]
- Christian Scott Quintet, Gesu, 10:30 pm [see www.nextbop.com]
- Gale/Rodrigues Group, Upstairs, 7 pm & 9 pm [local B3 advocate Vanessa Rodrigues and her group with Toronto tenor Chris Gale; I'm a sucker for the mighty B]

Outdoor:

June 26 - Remi-Jean Leblanc, TD Jazz stage, 6 pm [the bassist to watch in town, on upright and electric, is also a fantastic composer]
- October Trio, CBC/Rad-Can stage, 8 & 10 pm [Vancouver/Toronto group - saxophonist Evan Arntzen also plays with Amanda Tosoff, and was in Banff with me this past year; great young players to discover]

June 27 - Parc-X Trio, CBC/Rad-Can stage, 8 & 10 pm [my boys! Back in the Grand Prix competition after a stellar performance last year garnered them an honourable mention]
- Elizabeth Shepherd Trio, Rio Tinto Alcan stage, 8 & 10 pm [really fascinating pianist/singer/songwriter that gets odd meters to groove and sway; sophisticated, intelligent pop music]

June 28 - Isaac Neto (also June 29 & 30), Balmoral Bistro, 9 pm [my good friend and colleague, a brilliant Brazilian guitarist and singer]
- Narcicyst, Bell stage, 10 pm [member of hip-hop collectives Euphrates and Nomadic Massive, an insightful, incisive MC]

June 29 - Cameron Wallis, CBC/Rad-Can Stage, 8 & 10 pm [another local saxophonist/composer, man about town, musical director for many great singers and a compositional voice to follow]

June 30 - Slavic Soul Party, TD Stage, 9:30 & 11 pm [holding down the weekly residency at Barbes in Brooklyn with their Balkan brass madness]
- Le Golden, Bell stage, 10 pm [formerly known as Jedi Electro, the francophone session wizards unite for improvised electronic goodness]
- LA-33 (also July 1), Bell stage, 8 pm [who doesn't love a mambo version of the Pink Panther theme? but are they a one-trick pony? Curious to find out more]

July 1 - Rich Brown & rinsethealgorithm, TD Stage, 6 pm [Toronto electric bass stalwart with his band influenced by the London "broken-beat" scene, a group of old friends from T.O.]
- Jose James Blackmagic Band, TD Stage, 9:30 & 11 pm [see my comment about James above; this is the band performing his more R&B/electronic leaning work]
- Rafael Zaldivar Trio, Festival stage, 7 pm [Cuban pianist extraordinaire featuring my colleagues Nic Bedard and Kevin Warren]

July 2 - Chicago Goes West, TD Stage, 6 pm [drummer Karl Schwonik, Nic Bedard once again, and Chicago trumpeter James Davis; great straight-ahead trio with inventive arrangements]

July 3 - Amanda Tosoff, TD Stage, 6 pm [Amanda's group was out at Banff, she writes some beautiful music and the band concept grew by leaps and bounds out there]

July 4 - Michelle Gregoire, CBC/Rad-Can stage, 8 & 10 pm [Winnipeg-based jazz advocate whom I'm eager to discover]
- L'Orchestre Septentrional d'Haiti (also July 5), Bell stage, 8 pm [I honestly don't know anything about them but in Montreal it seems I'm surrounded by Haitian music and this is a great opportunity to get it from the source]

July 5 - Emir Kusturica's No Smoking Orchestra, TD stage, 9:30 pm [I know Kusturica mostly as a director who furthered the reputation of Balkan trumpet virtuoso Boban Markovic; this will be a lot of fun]
- NOMO, Bell stage, 10 pm [Detroit-based Afrobeat]
- Terry Clarke/Don Thompson/Phil Dwyer, CBC/Rad-Can stage, 8 pm [three Canadian jazz masters]

July 6 - Closing Mardi Gras with Allen Toussaint, Trombone Shorty and the Soul Rebels Brass Band, TD stage, 8:30 pm [do I really need to explain this one? Again, if you care about New Orleans music at all, this cannot be missed]
- Late night closing party with Soul Rebels Brass Band, L'Astral, midnight

Dancing in your head

Some videos from Gary Schwartz's LettingO performance at Théâtre La Chappelle in January have gone up on YouTube. I'm thrilled to be part of that project, playing with fantastic musicians and getting to write for some non-traditional instrumentation. Thanks to Fred Salter for helping us to sound good, and to the videographer (whose name I unfortunately don't know).

Gary Schwartz - guitar; Ron Dilauro - trumpet; Erik Hove - alto saxophone; Alex Côté - tenor & soprano saxophones; Frank Lozano - tenor saxophone & bass clarinet; Josh Zubot - violin; Joe Grass - pedal steel; David Ryshpan - keyboards; Nicolas Caloia - bass; Claude Lavergne & Thom Gossage - drums & percussion.

Front lines

The flame of the jazz wars has been rekindled, both from an economic and aesthetic point of view.

In the Terry Teachout corner, we have Nextbop contributor Jared Bailey and his essay about the trials and tribulations of being a young jazz musician. In the glass-half-full corner, we have NPR's Patrick Jarenwattananon positing how we can fund the Everyday $200 Gig. These essays are not entirely in opposition to each other in the sense that they tackle a few different issues, but to me they represent two ways of thinking about the state of the music (or anything, really): Bailey addresses the problem, while Jarenwattananon attempts to come up with solutions. Frankly, I'd rather hang with guys like PJ. I'm not so interested in bemoaning the current conditions of being a musician (or any kind of artist) in this climate; yes it's tough, yes it's gruelling, but I'm not sure it's any easier or harder than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago. I'm sure each generation has its own challenges to overcome. I'm much more concerned with finding ways to operate in the world as it is - finding alternative venues, different sources of income, different ways of presenting my music.

Those who have spoken to me this week have heard me joke that I might go on hiatus for the entire hockey season, because there really is no way to compete with the Habs for attention and dollars in this city, especially during their current playoff run. But having a pity party about people not coming out to gigs is not fruitful - figuring out ways to get people to the next gig is. It seems absolutely vital for artists and presenters to work together collectively, whether it be the novel programming Search and Restore is pursuing in NYC, or even something just as simple as floating an e-mail out before booking a gig to see if you're directly competing with your own scene. Like-minded artists need to band together to further our cause; we need to look out for each other.

Onto the aesthetic end of things - namely, Jason Marsalis' "nobody swings anymore" rant currently making the rounds of the Jazz Internet. Josh Rager's XYJazz is hosting a good chunk of the debate. Saxophonist Becky Noble sums up my feelings pretty well with her comment:

What bothers me about the so called "jazz wars" (popping up online all over the places these days!) is the idea that there are two camps; the purists and modernists. I think the reality is that most people actually fall somewhere in between on the spectrum. To be quite honest, I just don't buy the idea that a significant percentage (at least significant enough to be ranting about) of young musicians are shunning the history, abandoning melody, refusing the learn the standards, playing 30 minute solos void of meaning. Please, tell me where these people are???!!! Because in my experience studying and playing, I don't think I've met one.

In my opinion some of the more successful "jazz" musicians today have been able to meld the art form's history with modern influences, to create their own unique voice. I mean, that's what Bird did. Miles. Coltrane. Bill Evans. All of them. Let me cite five contemporary examples, off the top of my head: Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dave Douglas, Brian Blade, Seamus Blake. All four are "hip". You can clearly hear the entire history of their respective instruments when they play. They can swing like crazy, they aren't afraid to play a blues or in 4/4, and they also play chromatically and often in odd meters. They play standards and they also compose beautiful music. The don't sound like anyone else, and they just happen to be some of my favourite musicians.

I've made my stand very clear, both here and elsewhere: like Becky, I think it is absolutely necessary to be able to deal with everything, from swinging standards to the Ornette and post-Ornette language, odd meter complexity and free improvising, and whatever non-jazz influences anyone cares to bring into their music. Many of the students and recent graduates I meet and work with are cut from this cloth: we look up to people like Mehldau, Blade, David Binney and Maria Schneider - all composers who tie in many disparate influences into their work but also have a firm command of the "tradition." We're as likely to be listening to J Dilla and Milton Nascimento as Cannonball, Andrew Hill or Duke. Influences from outside the jazz sphere have been part of the traditional jazz repertoire for decades, from bossa nova to gospel to Indian music.

I agree that there is a lot of "insider jazz," to use a term from Kurt Rosenwinkel, that is more concerned with its own hipness than with any sense of emotional connection. However, that doesn't mean that every multi-metric, harmonically knotty, straight eighth tune is devoid of emotional significance. I can be left cold by tunes overstuffed with Giant Steps changes, or by rhythmic mind-melters that have no relationship to the tune being played; in other contexts those same elements of craft can astound, impress, and deeply move me if played with conviction and understanding. It's about cultivating a relationship to what you are playing, and again, a broad knowledge and respect for music is key.

May flowers

Seeing as I'm a Montrealer, two things seem mandatory to start this blog post:

1) Holy hell, yesterday's snowstorm was freaky, and today it's still too cold for it to all have melted away. [Insert generic complaint about the weather]

2) Go Habs Go!

Now that that's out of the way...

Next Thursday, May 6, Trio Bruxo will be partnering up with Global NTT for their Over-Exposed series at Jupiter Room (3874 St. Laurent). It will be an all-Brazilian night, with Syli D'Or nominee and good friend Isaac Neto playing an opening set, Bruxo continuing, and then a few songs with all of us together. WeFunk's Professor Groove will be spinning selections between and after sets. Mike and Peter of Global NTT have been strong supporters of mine for years, and have been helpful to Trio Bruxo since its inception. We're happy to be part of their new showcase night.

Isaac Neto - guitar/voice; Trio Bruxo: David Ryshpan - keyboards; Nicolas Bédard - bass; Mark Nelson - drums/percussion.

Friday, May 7 marks the return of Michael Reinhart to Centre Ste-Ambroise (5080-A Ste. Ambroise). It's always a treat to play with Michael, and now that he lives mostly in Edmonton it's a less frequent occurrence. It's also the only group in which I play accordion - Michael's accordion! In an accordion extravaganza, opening the night will be Ottawa (also via Edmonton)'s Marie-Josée Houle.

Michael Reinhart - guitar/voice; David Ryshpan - piano/accordion; Jérémi Roy - bass.

Friday, May 28 is the reprise of Ardesco's Motown and More! show at the KoSA Centre (5325 Crowley, metro Vendome). I unfortunately had to miss the first one because I was in Calgary, but I'm honoured that they've asked me to be the musical director for this edition. I have been friends with the vocalists in Ardesco for many years, going back to when we were all affiliated with McGill's Effusion A Cappella.

Ardesco: Amelia McMahon, Melina Bikhazi, Elizabeth Burnell, Andrew Mangal, Othniel Petit-Frère - voice; David Ryshpan - keyboards; Dave Goulet - guitar; Shaun Ryan - bass; Mark Nelson - drums.

World Skip the Beat Playlist - April 19, 2010

King Sunny Ade - "Kiti Kiti" (Odú)

Steve Reid - "Don't Look Back" (Daxaar)

Jali Bakary Konteh - "Combination" (Konteh Kunda)

Bassekou Kouyate f/ Toumani Diabaté - "Timeni" (I Speak Fula)

Lionel Loueke - "Ami O" (Mwaliko)

Yinguica - "Mine a uni tendere" (Marrabenta)

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars - "Gbrr Mani" (Rise and Shine)

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - "Sé wé non nan" (The Vodoun Effect)

Bob Ohiri and his Uhuru Sounds - "Ariwo Yaa" (Nigeria Afrobeat Special)

Fidel Sax Bateke & The Voices of Darkness - "Motako" (Nigeria Special 2)

*Souljazz Orchestra - "Agbara" (Rising Sun)

Puerto Plata - "Guantanamera" (Casita de campo)

Maestros del Joropo Oriental - "Guacharaca" (¡Y Que Vive Venezuela!)

Eugenia León - "La Tirana" (Rough Guide: Mexico)

Torreblanca - "Nunca acabo lo que empieza" (Defensa)

Tumulto - "Tú, yo y nuestra amor" (Love Peace & Poetry)

Pedro Aznar - "María Landó" (A Roar of Southern Clouds)

Rubén Blades - "First Circle" (Mundo)

Papi Brandao y su conjunto Aires Tableños - "La Murga de Panama" (Panama! 2)

Yerba Buena - "La candela" (Rough Guide: Latino Nuevo)

Forro in the Dark - "Lilou" (Light a Candle)

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition - "Vandanaa Trayee" (Apti)

Ring the alarm

Montreal has seen a wave of gentrification in the past couple of years in the traditionally low-rent, artist-friendly neighbourhoods of the Plateau and Mile-End. This influx of new affluence has led to the closures, either temporary or permanent, of such lynchpin venues as Main Hall (still closed, though its sister venue Green Room has re-opened), Casa del Popolo (sans music for many months, including during last year's edition of their June festival, Suoni per il popolo), and Zoobizarre. These closures stem from noise complaints filed by neighbours, which lead to investigations into the liquor licenses of said establishments, most of which did not have the proper permit to have live music in an establishment serving alcohol. I don't know what the exact language of the by-law is, sorry.

Recently, it has taken on a whole other level of stupidity, moving its sights towards venues right in the heart of downtown Montreal. First, L'Escalier (which existed as Cafe L'Utopik, and before that Cafe Ludik, a hub for Francophone progressives, alternative jazzers and singer-songwriters, and some pretty decent veggie food) was busted for not having a proper license. Now, via Karnival don and recent RBMA alum Ghislain Poirier, comes a brilliant open letter to our mayor concerning an incident at the Société d'Arts et Technologies (SAT). The letter is in French (EDIT: English translation here); I will briefly summarize. (Incidentally, the SAT was supposed to be a major partner in the Biennale Montreal 2009 until Stephen Harper's first round of arts funding cuts decimated its operating budget. Sigh.)

During the anniversary mini-festival of electro promoters I Love Neon on March 25, someone filed a noise complaint against the SAT, located on Saint-Laurent and Rene-Levesque: the gateway into Chinatown, a stone's throw from the eastern edge of the Jazz Fest site, and smack in the middle of what the city is building up as "le Quartier des spectacles." When the cops showed up, the SAT complied with the request to turn down, but I Love Neon has moved its events elsewhere. As much as I advocate protecting one's hearing and sensible volume levels, the electro and dubstep that I Love Neon were likely rocking that night is meant to be played loud (I wasn't there)!

The SAT is not really a residential neighbourhood; bordered by other huge clubs such as Metropolis and Club Soda, as well as the legendary strip bar Cleopatra's across the street, it's not like there's a rave going down in the middle of a placid suburb. I'm sorry, but if you want peace and quiet, live in the West Island. If you file a noise complaint against a club at the intersection of two of the most important streets in the city, you should have a psych evaluation. What's next - someone who buys one of the condos going up around the renovated Place des Arts filing a noise complaint against an outdoor show at Jazz Fest or Francofolies (edit: which at least director Pierre Fortin agrees is a bit much)? Someone calling the cops on Divers/Cité or Nuits D'Afrique? And at what point will this administration ever listen to the residents of the city it's supposedly governing - how many failed projects must Mayor Tremblay launch without public consultation?

One of my most vivid memories of New York City was walking to the subway with Darcy James Argue and David Adler after the 2007 Vision Festival. We passed the freshly boarded-up ruins of Tonic, and stood for a moment lamenting its loss. (Hat tip to Steve Smith for re-tweeting this article about the inflation on the Tonic block.) I knew in that moment if clubs like CBGB's and Tonic were being demolished in New York, it would only be a matter of time before such things happened in Montreal. And sure enough, shortly thereafter we had the aforementioned clubs silenced, not to mention the sucker-punch of losing the Spectrum.

It is vital that we protect all elements of culture, not only that which condo developers and public servants deem suitable and palatable. Especially in a city that prides itself on being a thriving artistic metropolis, in a city where arts and culture account for much of its tourism revenue. For anyone that gives a damn about any festival, venue, promoter, or musician in Montreal, it is imperative that we make our voices heard. In the next municipal election, this should become a talking point.

Delivery is passionate

Montreal pianist (and one of my mentors) Josh Rager has a guest blog at Jenn Hardy's Pork Pie Jazz, responding to the recent hivemind about the cultural relevance and significance of jazz. While I agree with Ronan Guilfoyle's sentiment that jazz shouldn't be trying to play in pop's ballpark, and I concur with some of Josh's sentiments as well, there's a tangent to this that I've been thinking about quite a lot lately.

I've been talking to other colleagues lately about the idea of really owning one's music, or owning a song. The idea is hard to qualify, necessarily: it's one of those "I know it when I hear it" sorts of things. It's the sense of conviction and belief in the art one is creating, that comes across on record or from the stage. To my ears, it often comes across as the sound of exploration, a personal musical quest.

To be fair, I don't claim to own everything that I play. But I do endeavour to try. I can't lay claims to authenticity, really - Indigone covers everything from Bjork to Ornette Coleman, Bulgarian Women's Radio Choir tunes to Stevie Wonder. Hell, I lead a Brazilian group and I'm not Brazilian in the least. As a composer, improviser, and performer, every song has its own world that it inhabits and all that I try to do is live in that world for the time that I need to.

To me, the idea of cultural significance and relevance is just a signifier for "honesty." When a soloist plays a lick and it obviously sounds like they're deploying a lick, it rings false. Hearing the stitching within a solo has become a big pet peeve of mine. I think we, as critical listeners and musicians, can tell when a pop tune is in a performer's repertoire because they truly identify with it or because it's a ploy to appear hip. Or if someone uses a non-swing beat.

The progression of "fusion" music has become truly seamless, and that music - I'm thinking of Rudresh Mahanthappa's Kinsmen, Miguel Zenon's Esta Plena, the Gilfema +2 record, Maria Schneider's use of Afro-Peruvian rhythms - is some of the most thrilling and engaging, to my ears. Zenon's record, and the music of Guillermo Klein, is to me what "Latin jazz" always should have been - modern jazz coming from a set of Latin influences without necessarily having to exhibit all the trappings of its Latin heritage. All these artists are "culturally relevant" - they are embracing their life experiences and communicating them through music. That's all any of us can ever hope to achieve. Making "Body and Soul" culturally relevant doesn't necessarily mean turning it into an R&B slow jam - it means truly understanding what that lyric, that melody, is about and evoking that emotion however one can. What seems to deter a lot of non-aficionado listeners is that mediocre jazz - irrelevant jazz, if you will - reduces music to chord changes and scales. It can become a display of craft and science, rather than an expression of art.

Meu Brasil brasileiro

Trio Bruxo grew out of a love for Brazilian music, a passion I've been nurturing since 2005 (and which I've written about previously in this space). Modelled after the great Brazilian piano trios of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Zimbo Trio, Tamba Trio, Milton Banana Trio and Azymuth, it's been the vehicle of my exploration of what is loosely lumped under the term música popular brasileira (MPB), as well as lesser-known tunes from the samba and bossa nova songbook, Hermeto Pascoal's music, and forró. Befriending younger Brazilian musicians and Brazilian music fans in Montreal, as well as scouring the old intertubes, I got turned onto the music coming out of Brazil now - from the electro-samba of Domenico + Kassin and Céu to the hip-hop and R&B influenced Curumin and Ed Motta, to the brilliant amount of rock music coming out of Recife and other northeastern regions.

I was deeply inspired by the mix of electronics with traditional rhythms and the harmonic language I love from jazz and R&B. Working with producer heliponto at the 2007 RBMA, we created a track, "Algodão doce," that appeared on her album Eletronia. It was my attempt at a Milton Nascimento out-take, underpinned by heliponto's house beats and fly-by samples. At the time, we talked about pursuing that direction further - after all, traditional samba and house are both "four-on-the-floor." The idea of having a batucada of drum machines seemed intriguing, too.

After getting immersed in the Brazilian scene here in Montreal, specifically at Bobards' Brazilian Sundays, Rômmel Ribeiro and I started talking about all the fantastic music coming out of Brazil that nobody really knows about in Canada. We also talked about the spirit of collaboration on those legendary records of the 1970s - Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, Elis Regina and Zimbo Trio, Caetano and Banda Black Rio.

Thanks to l'Office Québec-Amériques pour la jeunesse, all these projects will be realized. As part of their Portfolio programme, Trio Bruxo will be travelling to São Paulo in September 2010. We will be finishing up an EP with heliponto for release on her label Tupy Brasil, as well as working with Liliane Braga and the Centro Cultural Rio Verde in Vila Madalena, among other partners, to create an artists' network between Montreal and São Paulo. The idea is to create a base of contacts, from musicians to venues, managers to festivals, to share with like-minded musicians in both cities to create year-round opportunities for performance.

Our first fundraiser will be this Sunday, March 28, 2010 at Bobards (4328 St-Laurent). All proceeds will be put towards our travel costs to make this trip happen. It also marks our debut in the Brazilian Sundays series. This is a real honour for me, as much of what I know about Brazilian music I have learned through the friendships made at Bobards. With your attendance and support, we hope to become part of the regular rotation of bands at the Brazilian Sundays (which have been running for over a decade now).

We sincerely hope to see you there. Trio Bruxo is: yours truly - keyboards/melodica/vocals; Nicolas Bédard - electric bass; Mark Nelson - drums/percussion.

Did you say I've got a lot to learn

In pedagogical news...

- My mentor, Jeff Johnston, who has been mentioned numerous times in this blog, is now writing himself over at J-Tonal. So far, some great insight on avoiding being overwhelmed, and approaches to solo piano. I feel like I'm studying again.

- I have never made any bones about the fact that Trio Bruxo is modelled after Zimbo Trio. How come no one told me they've run their own conservatory since 1973?

Mississippi (Montreal) Moonchile - Feb 27/2010

For the actual Nuit Blanche, I participated in Matana Roberts' latest workshopping of Coin Coin at the loft space L'Envers. I had reviewed Chapter 1: Gens du couleur libre, and Chapter 2: Mississippi Moonchile, for the now-defunct site Panpot when Matana had presented them during past editions of Suoni per il Popolo. Matana had e-mailed me while I was in Banff, asking me if I'd be into performing Chapter 2 during Montreal's Nuit Blanche. I immediately said yes. I had seen glimpses of the score for Chapter 1, and was highly intrigued by the process and structure of these pieces. Also, the opportunity to play alongside Montreal improvisers that I highly admire but rarely, if ever, work with, was one to seize. The band consisted of Matana - alto sax; Philippe Lauzier - bass clarinet; Sam Shalabi - guitar; Nicolas Caloia - bass; Isaiah Ceccarelli - drums; Molly Sweeney & Diego Poblete - voices; and myself on piano. A truly Montreal mix of musicians and people across various backgrounds coming together to create.

The most immediately engaging aspect of Coin Coin is its intensely personal nature, and how that may manifest itself musically. Mississippi Moonchile is based around an interview Matana did with her grandmother about her great-grandfather Rev. John Roberts, a sharecropper and travelling preacher from Mississippi. In the interview, Matana's grandmother referenced many traditional African-American spirituals that held great important in her life, as well as many important years. She steadfastly refused to talk about the bad times of growing up in Mississippi - as Matana recites through the piece, "There's some things I just can't tell you about, honey."

The macro structure of Mississippi Moonchile is very clear: written tunes and recitations are bridged by interludes of improvising, both entirely free (to get out of the tunes) and guided by graphic notation (when cued by Matana). The cues for the graphic sections are intervals corresponding to those milestone years. Within the graphic notation, there are often three or four things going on at once: a graphic gesture, an assigned fragment of a spiritual that provides the melodic content for the graphic gesture, and a dynamic marking. Sometimes there are additional specified pitches, voicings or tonal centres. The second type of graphic notation in the piece is a schematic that comes towards the end - a series of words in squares, joined by lines. It's essentially a "choose-your-own-adventure" approach to improvising, going through the schematic at one's own pace and in one's own direction. For all these reasons, my approach to improvising through this piece was less based on listening to everyone else and more on focusing on the directions given by Matana, both in the score and through conducting. So while I wasn't really aware of what everyone was doing individually, I will say that collectively there were some brilliant moments; that the entire piece had this level of intensity and drive; and that Matana sounded as strong, if not stronger, than I have heard her before.

The sound of the piece - with 6 instrumentalists and 2 vocalists transforming fragments of songs deeply entrenched in the African-American experience - is like that of a flashback sequence in a movie, with various memories colliding together in succession. Matana also brings in Fannie Lou Hamer's speech from the 1964 DNC towards the end of the piece (this time accompanied by a passing train from the nearby rail yard), an old traditional blues, and probably some other stuff that I missed. But because all that is happening is rooted in the blues and in spirituals, it's somewhat easier to follow the thread of the piece throughout the hour. I remember, as a listener a couple of years back, being able to catch snippets of the spirituals coming in and out.

In rehearsal, Matana said something that struck a chord in me: "This piece has a lot of bluesy sounds that normally I shy away from, because I feel like somehow they're expected of me." That prompts a lot of thoughts for me - as a white, Canadian, school-educated musician, I don't really feel like there are any musical or artistic expectations of me. I can't imagine what the burden of those kinds of presumptions feel like when one is trying to create (the same way many European musicians are automatically assumed to not swing or have a distant relationship with the blues). It also reminds me how powerful sound can be, and that many sounds are fraught with associations and links that we may not even be cognizant of.

Montreal High Lights (En Lumiere) - Feb 19/2010

The Montreal High Lights festival (Montréal en Lumière en français) is always capped off by Nuit Blanche, an all-night arts marathon that takes over the city. My own personal, literal Nuit Blanche was a week earlier.

My evening started with the launch of Christine Jensen's Jazz Orchestra album, Treelines, at Salle Gésu. Christine had given me an advance copy of the album while we were in Banff, but I had not had the chance to listen to it before the concert. All the better, as Gésu is easily one of my favourite rooms in the city, especially when its sound board is being manned by engineer extraordinaire Paul Johnston (who also recorded Treelines). He let the band master their own sound on stage, boosting solo microphones and guest soloist Ingrid Jensen's effects as necessary.

Christine's large ensemble music is a very natural outgrowth of her small band music. With brand-new compositions fresh in my ear from Banff, the relationship was very clear. Her large ensemble writing is at its best in burnished, harmonically rich chorales that unfold and embrace the listener, as in "Red Cedar," "Vernal Suite" and the 9/8 of "Western Yew." The introduction to Joel Miller's "Dropoff" (a tune Joel and I played together at our Mandigone concert in early January) cast the tune in a new light, elaborate without weighing down the source material. She also winked at Joel's own writing methods, with a double-time soli replete with "Moose the Mooche" fragments - compare with the soli from "Anonymity" from Joel's record Tantramar that leads into a quote from "Four," or the "Gingerbread Boy" references on "Rashers" from Mandala. Standout solos came courtesy of Ingrid, of course, deploying delay effects, using the harmon mute much like a synthesizer filter, and even an octave pedal at one point; and almost the entire saxophone section - Donny Kennedy on the opening "Arbutus" swinging hard and clean, and fellow altoist Erik Hove unleashing his contrasting flurries of creativity on "Red Cedar," and tenors Joel Miller and Chet Doxas conversing over "Dancing Sunlight." In a big band, it makes a true difference having a rhythm section that has a strong simpatico as a self-contained unit, and the quartet of Kenny Bibace, Steve Amirault, Fraser Hollins and Martin Auguste have played enough with each other and with Christine to propel the rest of the band as one powerful engine.

From Gésu, I split to go be a judge for Red Bull's Thre3style DJ competition. A nation-wide caravan led by MC Curtis Santiago and featuring DJ Scratch Bastid, the concept is to pit 8 DJs up against each other, give them 15 minutes in which they have to mix among at least 3 different genres, and see what they can do. The top 3 DJs win prizes and the winner goes to compete in the national finals (against winners from all the other cities) in Toronto during Canadian Music Week. It's an international thing, but I don't remember where the international finals are. My fellow judges included Alain Mongeau from MUTEK, current RBMA participant Ango, Parvez from Montreal State of Mind, Morgan "Beatseeker" Steiker, and DJs Hatchmatik and Scratch Bastid.

My experience as a DJ is more from a radio end than from an actual mixing/scratching/performance end, but I've become friends with great DJs in town. Seeing 8 vastly different DJs go on one after another was quite eye-opening for me, and it became apparent throughout the night who had skills and who did not, who could read the crowd and who did not. I kept relating it in my mind to a jazz jam session. Competitors were strongly advised not to repeat tracks (although a few did, especially by the end of the night), the same way at a jam session you're not supposed to call a tune that's already been played. Some competitors made some really intriguing transitions between styles - some just jump-cut from one tune to the next, and some fluidly got from one place to the other in some surprising ways. The winner of the Montreal battle, A-Rock, unanimously won over us judges (at least, all the guys I talked to). 2nd and 3rd places wound up in ties between a bunch of fantastic DJs that Montreal partygoers should be proud to call our own.

Back home again...

Following the Banff Centre residency I embarked upon a mini-tour of Toronto. Most of the gigs were with guitarist Stephen Johnston, bassist Pat Reid and drummer Joel Haynes. I had never played with Joel before, and haven't played with Pat since he moved to Toronto in the fall. Steve's tunes are challenging - a mix of Jeff Beck's seminal fusion records, Blow by Blow and Wired, with the harmonic complexity of bebop and Coltrane. Joel's a really hard-swinging drummer that also dug into the grooves of Steve's tunes, with Pat with him all the way.

We played Chalker's Pub on Monday. Patrick Boyle and Jon McCaslin sang the praises of this club in Banff - good stage sound, a surprisingly decent Yamaha upright piano (especially considering the stage is in front of a window and beside the kitchen), and an ambience that can cater to dressing up or down. It is in one of the stranger locations - in a strip mall in the Toronto suburb of North York, on top of a pharmacy and a doctor's office.

Tranzac on Thursday was a bit rougher of a go - I love the vibe of the room but I found it really hard to hear my keyboards. That room is designed for acoustic music - the bluegrass regulars before us sounded fantastic and played the hell out of their tunes and murder ballads.

The Rex on Friday afternoon had a surprisingly good turnout, given that the Olympic opening ceremonies were mere hours after us and it was a pre-long weekend Friday afternoon at 4 pm. It's always surreal for me to return to The Rex. In terms of musical development, I literally grew up there, hanging out at the Tuesday night jam sessions and playing Saturday solo piano matinees when I was 14 years old. I miss the cloud of smoke that hung over the stage. Seeing the bartender that used to serve me iced tea in pint glasses and ordering a bottle of Steam Whistle is all a bit weird for me, still.

On our off nights, I took a couple of detours. Tuesday night I landed at old friend Derek Downham's Junction Jam session and pounded out some Stones, Beatles, Buck Owens, and Hendrix. Wednesday, Brownman and I joined forces once again at Trane Studio, to lead a quartet with a rhythm section of bassist Marc Rogers and drummer Jeff Halischuk. The night was evenly split across tunes from Indigone, Trio Bruxo, Cruzao and Brown's Electryc Trio. Marc and Brown were mentors to me in my Rex days, but this was the first time I had ever played with Marc and it was a true pleasure. Jeff is a relatively new drummer to the Toronto scene but he absolutely nailed every groove thrown at him by my tunes and by Brown's - from the Cuban-funk of Cruzao to the Brazilian samba covers, hip-hop to modern jazz straight-eighths. It was a truly fun evening of music.

Thanks to everyone who came out to any and all of the shows. Steve Johnston and I hit again at Upstairs on Feb. 17, 18, 24, & 25; we're at the Brook Street Hotel in Kanata, ON on the 20th and at Arousse in Ste-Therese, QC on the 23. We'll be joined by Aryeh Kobrinsky on bass, and Evens Baptiste on drums and percussion.

In the mornings out there

Sorry for the very long cyber-absence. I was hoping to blog from The Banff Centre but connectivity and scheduling made that nearly impossible.

The TD Jazz & Creative Music residency is very, very different from the Jazz & Creative Music Workshop run by Dave Douglas. With only a dozen or so residents (and a few other jazz musicians in winter residency at the Banff Centre, such as Joel Miller, Christine Jensen, Ellen Rowe and David Occhipinti), it's a much more self-directed session. The faculty are more open and available to one-on-one lessons, and there really is a chance to play with everyone. I appreciated the fact that, due to occurring during the Winter music residency, there were non-jazz musicians on campus as well - sitar master Kartik Sheshadri was on faculty for a week giving insightful lectures into Hindustani music; many phenomenally talented classical musicians were around, including the Elandra String Quartet from Melbourne; and PEI friend John Connolly was out finishing work on a "folk opera" based on the life of Terry Fox.

In the first week, the faculty consisted of saxophonist/pianist/percussionist/composer Peter Apfelbaum (with whom I had a good hang talking about Braxton, Threadgill, Andrew Hill and melodicas) and percussionist/composer Dafnis Prieto, along with Kartik and his student Pial Hossain on tabla. Dafnis and Kartik were greatly inspired by each other and it was a pleasure to be a fly on the wall for their exchanges. Peter corralled all the residents into a Banff edition of his Hieroglyphics ensemble - three drummers (Morgan Childs & Jon McCaslin on kits, Mark Nelson on percussion), three bassists (Chris Jennings on left-handed upright, Sean Cronin on right-handed upright and Alex Lefaivre on electric), three keyboardists (Gab Vinuela-Pelletier on piano, Amanda Tosoff on Rhodes, and yours truly on melodica), Kevin Hanlon on guitar, and a horn section of Patrick Boyle (trumpet), Curtis Macdonald (alto), Evan Arntzen (tenor/soprano/clarinet), Greg Sinibaldi (tenor) and Peter himself. A surprisingly well-programmed set of music emerged for that large ensemble - my arrangement of Ornette's "School Work" done for Gary Schwartz's LettingO; Peter's tunes "Night of the Sparklerenes" and "Hanging Gardens"; and Jon McCaslin's arrangement of Don Cherry's "Mopti."

Dafnis is definitely more into talking about the expressive side of music. I got more out of listening to him play, and by playing with him, than in more formal lecture or master class settings. He has a cryptic, almost Wayne Shorter-like mysticism about him when he talks about music. Some great quotes came out of that week:

"Metronomes are like aspirin. You take one if you need it." -- Dafnis

[after Morgan Childs played a very Philly Joe/Max Roach intro] "Man, that makes me want a martini and some smack." -- Peter

"[Threadgill] was the music I heard in my dreams, then woke up and forgot." -- Dafnis

The second week brought Uri Caine and Phil Dwyer, both incredibly multifaceted musicians and composers. Both have written music for strings, and so one morning workshop was dedicated to running through "Bella" and "Heraclito" with the Elandra String Quartet, a Q&A about string techniques, and Uri and Phil playing some of their music (written for the Arditti Quartet and the Gryphon Trio, respectively). I had the opportunity to have a great lesson - more of a hang, really - with Uri, and we talked about all the classical fundamentals I felt like I had ignored, time management between composing, playing and electronics, and the realities of life as a musician. I had no idea of the depth of Phil's compositional skill and his piece written for the Gryphon Trio was a great revelation to me.

I cannot sufficiently express how important the Banff Centre is for me. My first workshop there in 2005 changed my life creatively, and the lessons I learned at that time have stayed with me since. Much of the music on Cycles is indebted to that first workshop at the Banff Centre, and to have the opportunity to present some of that music in Banff, with the participation of bassist Chris Jennings and the Elandra Quartet, was an incredibly emotionally fulfilling experience. There's an immense amount of focus and energy that comes from having a private practice hut in the middle of the woods, under the majestic mountains, with no obligations but to practice, play, create and share. I spent a fair amount of time shedding Bach and Samuel Barber and got a good start on some other original music, and I hope to be able to capture some of that drive and continue that work back home.