January 2009 Newsletter

Somewhere There wishes you a happy new year, one filled with optimism and excellent music. We closed out the first full calendar year with a relatively light program – I took essentially two weeks off during the holidays – but still managed to squeeze in 22 shows last month. Highlights include the arrival of the Leftover Daylight Series (Fridays), bumping up activity to six nights a week; the excellent (if lightly attended) Interface Series with fabulous Montréal turntablist, Martin Tétreault; and a successful Christmas Fundraiser, with edible and monetary proceeds going to the food bank. It was also terrific to host the CCMC reunion residency, and to get to know some of the long-ago membership with whom I wasn’t acquainted like John Kamevaar, Jack Vorvis, and Al Mattes. Somewhere There wishes Al a speedy recovery from long-awaited hip surgery that kept him from the last Sunday in the residency series, and a quick return to music-making.

Looking forward to January happenings, two exciting new residencies are afoot: Odradek (Wednesdays) and the return of Christine Duncan’s Element Choir (Sundays 6pm). Odradek is typically a trio of Michelangelo Iaffaldano, Andy Yue, and Jim Bailey but, for the residency, they’ve augmented the band in some cases with special guests and some delightful and delightfully oddball concepts – see below for details. The Element Choir held one of the very first residencies at Somewhere There and, week by week, filled the place with inclusive and glad-hearted music-making by a variable cast who may not have otherwise been drawn to the studio. I am keen to have them back, to hear how they have changed musically during the last year, and to watch them gear up for new performing and recording projects that may be in the works. Pianist and guitarist Simeon Abbott continues his Thursday-night residency with (at the time of writing) mystery programming. The guest curator for the Leftover Daylight Series (booking one set every Friday) is the rangy and affable guitarist and composer, Holger Schoorl, hot on the heels of his Wednesday-night residency in November and December.

Also, please note that I’m forced to raise the base entry cost to $8 in a hell-bent effort to actually cover my rent. It’s unfortunate that I have to do so, but rest assured that nobody at Somewhere There has ever or ever will turn away listeners who cannot afford the cover. You are welcome!

Click here to see the full calendar.

News / Leftover Moves

Thanks to those of you who are based in Toronto (for the most part) and who check in readily to see if I’ve made any new postings – and sorry if my failure to post lately has prompted any mild disappointment! It’s pretty clear that I can’t sustain any kind of usefully consistent show reviews as I tried to do about a year ago. So, on some sound advice that’s come out of consultation with some key friends of Somewhere There, I want to establish a different structure.

I plan to write a couple of paragraphs every month as a kind of preview for the month to come. With live music at ST now six nights a week, there will certainly be lots to announce. As always the residency structure will be maintained, with three residencies going on at any one time (Wednesdays 8pm, Thursdays 8pm, Sundays 6pm), and I’ll surely mention whomever will be in residence. This text will be printed not only here, but also on hard-copy newsletters that will be available at ST and will include a calendar such that folks can stick it on fridges – a magnet giveaway should be in the works!

Finally, welcome to the Leftover Daylight Series, which, after five years at the Arraymusic Studio, is moving to ST this Friday, 12 December, 8pm. See the as-always-intriguing programming here, then come out if you’re able for three sets of very fine Toronto creative music.

Crickets

Despite the surfeit of excellent music and landmarks like the first anniversary and show #200, September attendance at ST was significantly lower than average; last month's numbers were roughly 60% of the total average since opening and, strikingly, only half of what August's numbers were.

Can anybody say why this is the case? I detected a bias against booking in August that is based on a (false?) assumption that "everybody's away." More influential and indicative of the numbers, I'd guess, is an overwhelming "Holy Moly! It's September!" sentiment -- back to school, work, nice apples, whatnot -- that kept folks away.

October is a nice time to hear live music, though, don't you think?

Speaking of which, Laurel MacDonald's VIDEOVOCE residency began last (dark and stormy) night to a meagre crowd. It's quite different from pretty much anything else that has been booked here. The eight-speaker surround sound work is lovely, and includes segments from A Time to Hear for Here, John Oswald's Royal Ontario Museum sound installation that he executed with Laurel and Phil Strong. Luckily, Laurel and Phil will be presenting the same program throughout the residency, Thursdays in October and November.

More Ink, More Air

See a really nice and quite in-depth interview with me about ST by Maestro Riccardo Marsella in this month's WholeNote Magazine. I was gobsmacked to see Rich's projection in the introductory paragraph that, if ST lasts fifty years and keeps presenting music at the current rate, it will reach 10,000 shows! Fifty years, huh? We'll have to wait and see about that.

Since the magazine failed to do it, I'd like to credit Jim Paterson, who took the photo of the intense-looking trombonist in question that was published with the interview (and here too). It's a slice of cosmic synchronicity that there's a photo of the Sun Ra Arkestra on the opposite page in the WholeNote; if you look at the distorted reflections on the bell of my horn, then maybe you can make out the form of Marshall Allen, with whom (along with John Oswald and Doug Tielli) I was playing at Guelph in 2005 when Jim took the shot. Marshall, of course, will be in town with the Arkestra for the X-Avant Festival at the end of October. As far as I know, the trombonist on the Wholenote cover is not me.

I also got word from a CBC producer that Andrew O'Connor's feature on William Parker and Jeff Schlanger has been aired (though nowhere near when they'd told Andrew that it would get played). Furthermore, it's likely to get re-broadcast on Fresh Air this weekend (Radio One 99.1 6-9am Saturday and Sunday), a delightfully strange context for William's words and music. Andrew put it best in an e-mail message to me: "I'm tickled pink by the thought of people taking their kids to swimming lessons this weekend and listening to William talk about 'the sound of continuous blue skies and continuous clouds.'" Onward public broadcasters! Continuously onward!

William Parker & musicWitness on Air

It's a great week at ST. After celebrating one year and two hundred show in style last night, I got word from Andrew O'Connor that his feature on William Parker and the musicWitness exhibition in the ST gallery space will be aired this week. He has no control of when, exactly, but predicts that it will be on Metro Morning (Radio One 99.1 6am-8:30am) or Here & Now (Radio One 99.1 4pm-6pm) either tomorrow or Wednesday (16 or 17 September, 2008).

Thanks again to Jean Martin for recording William's solo sets, slices of which will be included in the feature.

Milestones

This Sunday, 14 September, marks both the first birthday of and the two-hundredth show at ST -- it's been a relentlessly extraordinary year, as regular readers and attendees will know. There will be two events that night -- at 6pm and 8pm; see below -- so please come for one or both if you're within earshot. Come also for cake and dancing.

Sunday 14 September, 6pm matinée, $6

The Rent plays the music of Steve Lacy:

Kyle Brenders (soprano saxophone)
Susanna Hood (voice)
Scott Thomson (trombone)
Wes Neal (double bass)
Brandon Valdivia (drums)

They play Steve Lacy songs with texts by Robert Creeley, Blaise Cendrars, Galway Kinnell, Lew Welch, Ryokan, Lao-Tzu, etc.


Sunday 14 September, 8pm, $6

The NOW Series:

8pm: Tiina Kiik, accordion; Jaron Freeman-Fox, violin.

Accordionist Tiina Kiik is equally at home in classical, folk and improvised music. She has worked with the Polka Dogs, Arcana Ensemble, David Mott, Lori Freedman and John Oswald among others.

Jaron Freeman-Fox is a contemporary violinist from the depths of western B.C. recently returned from long-term study of Carnatic music in South India. Jaron has studied and improvised in many styles of eastern and western folk, jazz and new music, and has collaborated with several respected artists such as T.V. Gopalakrishnan, Tanya Tagaq and Anupam Shakobar.

9pm: Dreamstate (Scott M2 + Jamie Todd, assorted electronics) with special guest Maurizio Guarini, analog synth.

Electronic artists dreamSTATE (Scott M2 + Jamie Todd) are best known for their ambient installations, live soundscape performances and curating THE AMBiENT PiNG performance series since 2000.
http://www.dreamSTATE.to

Tonight they are joined by ace prog rock/fusion keyboard player Maurizio Guarini, of Goblin fame.
http://www.myspace.com/maurizioguarini2

Turkey, for real

This week, stalwart ST friend and confidante, Alan Stanbridge (pictured), is in Istanbul for the Fifth International Conference on Cultural Policy Research at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, Turkey. There, he will be delivering a paper called "Somewhere There: Contemporary Music, Performance Space, and Cultural Policy." I'm chuffed and honoured.

Here's the abstract for his provocative investigation:

"The world’s major cities have always prided themselves on the reputation and quality of their high-profile performing arts venues, although these large-scale venues have a somewhat less successful record in the presentation of smaller-scale contemporary work, whether composed new music or jazz and improvised music, which have frequently had to make their homes in non-specialized – and often inadequate – venues, such as churches, rehearsal spaces, bars, and cafes. In a recent initiative, the musician and composer Scott Thomson has opened a new small-scale performance space, called Somewhere There, in the Parkdale area of Toronto, a city well-served by large-scale venues, but with few suitable facilities for the presentation of smaller-scale contemporary music performances. In this paper, I explore the strengths and weaknesses of urban initiatives such as Thomson’s, highlighting the manner in which much contemporary music tends to fall between the cracks of established arts funding patterns and cultural/creative industries policies."

I'm going to prod Alan when he returns in the hopes of posting a link to his paper, which will touch a sympathetic nerve not only for ST musicians and regulars, but also for anyone who is skeptical about Richard Florida-style arts policy rhetoric and its influence on Toronto's arts infrastructure priorities.

Galleries and the Music in 'em

It's amazing to think that it's already been three weeks since MUSIC(in)GALLERIES 2008, and since the launch of the musicWitness art exhibition in the new ST foyer art gallery with two massive solo sets by William Parker, Saturday 26 July. It was a joyful (if stressful) day for me and, as always, I didn't get to hear as many groups as I'd like to have during M(i)G. Particularly special of what I did hear were the banjo/bass duets of Tim Posgate and Victor Bateman in the wide-open Camera bar, the solo harpsichord recital of -- I'm guessing -- Wm. Byrd music by John Farah, and, especially, the drums and trumpet duet of Jean Martin and Jim Lewis. The photo and drawing included here are by the musicWitness, Jeff Schlanger, himself a spirited trumpeter to boot. He agreed with me that something very special was afoot when Jean and Jim filled XPACE with lovely, measured, and deeply sympathetic playing.

The (obligatory?) midafternoon showers made way for a brilliant late-afternoon and early evening, and it was under those conditions that folks headed from the Gladstone -- which Christine Duncan's Element Choir had animated joyfully to round out M(i)G -- or wherever, over to ST for the William Parker solo sets. The material of the two formidable, seventy-plus-minute sets remains a bit of a blur after my crazy expenditure of energy during the afternoon and, like many in attendance, I was further saddled by the increasingly overwhelming warmth of the space -- we turned off the air conditioners to keep noise levels down while Jean Martin did double-duty and recorded the proceedings for possible release.

What I do remember is dominated, however, by an overwhelming feeling of William's presence in the room as he played. Whether or not you 'enjoy' the sounds he was making, the massiveness of the generosity and spirit that he was pouring into the room was undeniable and, for me, undeniably powerful. This experience was amplified and focused by the small room and the quiet acoustic; I could feel the walls throbbing with growing intensity as he dug deeper and deeper into his bass. During each set, William played a version of "Cathedral of Light," an application of his synaesthetic theory of arco bass-playing and, at discrete points during each one, I could hear voices (laughter, especially) from some unlocatable, mystical source. When I reported this to Jeff Schlanger, a veteran colleague of William's, he nodded sagely, assuring me wordlessly that this is neither uncommon nor something to fear. Bright moments.

Jeff was in town with his wife, the wonderful artist, Anne Humanfeld, for nearly a week, framing and installing the work that is now on display indefinitely in the new ST foyer art gallery space. What a treat it was to spend some real time with these two! Both quickly picked up on what I'm trying to do at ST, and were supportive and quite impressed by MUSIC(in)GALLERIES. Naturally, Jeff installed himself to paint William as he played, and the result is a profound diptych (see above) that he took back with him to New York to document and preserve. He left ten original paintings (most of which are of Toronto musicians as they played with William at his 2007 Interface Series) plus four giclée prints, and eleven of these pieces now grace and energize not only the foyer but also, by extension, the entire ST space. Please come to see them! The space looks and feels amazing!

Thank you Jeff and thank you William for such brilliant gifts of soul and spirit.

MUSIC (in) GALLERIES Program Announced / William Parker & musicWitness

First, apologies to those who had quickly become regular readers here. I've taken a hiatus of several months for no good reason other than 'life.' I hope now to get back to regular posting, though I don't expect to be writing about nearly as much as I'd first intended when I started this weblog -- the exigencies of running Somewhere There, keeping in playing shape, having some semblance of a life, and keeping sane make certain compromises necessary.

Now, I'm thrilled to announce the third annual MUSIC (in) GALLERIES, Saturday 26 July, along with a related event, the opening of the "musicWitness" art exhibition by Jeff Schlanger that night, with solo sets by our friend, legendary bassist William Parker. See here...

Somewhere There Presents:
MUSIC(in)GALLERIES – Saturday 26 July, 1-5pm
Live Creative Music in Twenty Queen Street West Art Galleries

For the third year in a row, MUSIC(in)GALLERIES will transform the Queen Street West art gallery district into a walking tour of Toronto’s vibrant scene of creative improvised music. At no cost to the public, small groups of musicians will enliven the distinct acoustic spaces of twenty gallery spaces between Trinity Bellwoods Park and Gladstone Avenue with short sets of live music during one afternoon in July; the first group will start at 1pm in the easternmost gallery, with subsequent sets starting at ten-minute intervals, moving westward. The event route ends at the Gladstone Melody Bar where, following the final set by Christine Duncan’s inimitable Element Choir, the 55 MUSIC(in)GALLERIES musicians as well as audience members are welcome for a late-afternoon event afterparty.

Then, that evening…

Opening of “musicWitness” Art Exhibition at Somewhere There
Featuring two sets by William Parker, solo double bass,
and live painting by Jeff Schlanger (8 & 10pm)

The Somewhere There Performance Studio (340 Dufferin Street, one block south of Queen Street), in an effort to extend the spirit of MUSIC(in)GALLERIES, will host an opening reception for a new exhibition by New York-based artist Jeff Schlanger (aka the musicWitness) in the Somewhere There foyer. The exhibition will feature Schlanger’s paintings of Toronto musicians in collaboration with legendary New York double bass virtuoso, William Parker that Schlanger painted in performance during AIMToronto’s January 2007 Interface Series with Parker. As a very special guest, William Parker will be on hand to play two sets of solo double bass (separate seatings at 8pm and 10pm) to mark the occasion, and Jeff Schlanger will paint him in while he performs.

Event Details:

MUSIC(in)GALLERIES 2008

Free to the public – each set will be approximately twenty-five minutes

1:00 Lausberg Contemporary, 880 Queen Street West
Michael Keith (guitar) & Aaron Lumley (bass)

1:10 Angell Gallery, 890 Queen Street West
Tania Gill & Justin Haynes (melodicas)

1:20 *new* gallery, 906 Queen Street West
Sarah Peebles (solo sho)

1:30 Edward Day Gallery, 952 Queen Street West
Feuermusik: Jeremy Strachan (reeds) & Gus Weinkauf (buckets)

1:40 MOCCA, 954 Queen Street West
Nicole Rampersaud (trumpet) & Evan Shaw (alto saxophone)

1:50 Clint Roenisch Gallery, 944 Queen Street West
Eric Chenaux (guitar) & Rob Clutton (bass)

2:00 Paul Petro Special Projects Space, 962 Queen Street West
Andy Yue (solo synthesizer)

2:10 Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts, 984 Queen Street West
Geordie Haley (guitar) Robin Buckley (drums) Andrew Wedman (keys)

2:20 Ontario Crafts Council, 990 Queen Street West
John Kameel Farah (solo harpsichord)

2:30 Stephen Bulger Gallery/Camera, 1026 Queen Street West
Tim Posgate (banjo) & Victor Bateman (bass)

2:50 Xpace, 58 Ossington Avenue
Jean Martin (drums) & Jim Lewis (trumpet)

3:00 Gallery TPW, 56 Ossington Avenue
Jonnie Bakan’s wind choir with Robin Jessome, Steve Ward (trombones), & Paul Newman, Chris Willes (saxophones)

3:10 Lennox Contemporary, 12 Ossington Avenue
Holger Schoorl (guitar) & Pete Johnston (bass)

3:20 InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, 9 Ossington Avenue
Mike Hansen (turntables) & Tomasz Krakowiak (percussion)

3:30 Lens Factory, 1040 Queen Street West
Jonathan Adjemian (solo synthesizer)

3:40 David Kaye Gallery, 1092 Queen Street West (entrance from Dovercourt)
Nilan Perera (guitar) & Octopus: Germaine Liu & Mark Zurawinski (eight-limbed percussion)

3:50 Engine Gallery, 1112 Queen Street West
Gregory Oh (solo harpisichord)

4:00 Loop Gallery, 1174 Queen Street West
Rod Campbell (trumpet) & Jim Bailey (curio)

4:10 Akau Inc., 1186 Queen Street West (entrance from Northcote)
Nick Storring (cello) & Kristen Theriault (harp)

4:20 Gladstone Art Bar, 1214 Queen Street West
Paul Dutton (solo oralizations)

4:30 Gladstone Melody Bar
Christine Duncan’s Element Choir

MUSIC(in)GALLERIES is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and by the Toronto Arts Council.

Saturday, 26 July, 8pm and 10pm
Opening of “musicWitness” Art Exhibition
Featuring William Parker, solo bass, and live painting by Jeff Schlanger
Separate seatings at 8pm and 10pm, $15
Limited seating; advance purchase recommended
Tickets available through Somewhere There (sowehear@gmail.com / 647 669 0404) or at Soundscapes (572 College Street)

Somewhere There
340 Dufferin Street
One block south of Queen Street
Entrance from Melbourne Ave.
www.somewherethere.org

About William Parker: www.williamparker.net
About Jeff Schlanger / musicWitness: www.musicwitness.com

Press information and interviews about MUSIC(in)GALLERIES, “musicWitness” Exhibition, and William Parker performances, contact:

Scott Thomson / Somewhere There
sowehear@gmail.com or 647 669 0404

Two More Glances

There are two more shows in the fray that really deserve special mention and that I’ve been neglecting. To follow, I’ll endeavour to stay more current and to write about concerts more immediately in their wake.

Saturday, 22 March

I’ve now written several times, separately, about guitarist Eric Chenaux and bassist Rob Clutton, who played two sets of improvisation last Saturday night. The duo, in this context, was the residue of Rob’s original plan to play with Teena Palmer and Brandon Valdivia with Eric opening, a plan that got scuppered by scheduling vagaries. Such circumstances, in addition to the consummate affability of both guys, fostered a laid-back, almost ‘down home’ environment that was most welcoming for the dozen or so lucky ones on hand. The music was absolutely tremendous, showing simultaneous playfulness and total absorption by both players. Eric showed relative restraint in the use of his signature ‘wah’ sound and, to my ears, was honing in on rhythmic detail more than he usually does throughout the first set; it was surely a generative area, given Rob’s tremendous rhythmic acumen. The second set had Rob stepping out more, with more declarative melodic ideas. In turn, Eric sought timbral extremes as a kind of accompaniment, and focused at length on sustained episodes of quasi-hardanger-fiddle bowing and harmonic swells. Overall, there was a breathtaking stillness to their music that was amplified by the accommodating ST acoustics, yet it was never overly precious, always amiably experimental. An ideal night of chamber music, all in all.

Since Eric (and some of the audience members) had to run off to the Tranzac to play the music of Josh Thorpe, it wound up being an early night at ST. Good thing, too, since I had to run off early Sunday to Montréal for the Casa del Popolo version of the Barnyard Records launch that happened at ST in February. What a treat it was to play with Lori Freedman, Jean Martin, Bernard Falaise, Christine Duncan, Evan Shaw, and Colin Fisher!

Thursday, 27 March

Speaking of Mr. Jean Martin (about whom I’ve also written a fair bit), I was pretty excited to host his Trio with guitarist Justin Haynes and trumpeter Kevin Turcotte this past Thursday. Their Get Together Weather CD is something of a classic of new Toronto creative music, but I hadn’t heard the group live since they opened for the ICP Orchestra at the Guelph Jazz Festival in 2000. Jean set up this gig in advance of the Trio’s appearance at a festival in northern Québec sometime soon, and the idea was to dig into what is, apparently, a pretty massive book of tunes that they have accumulated. Instead, greeted by a meagre audience of two (Nicole Rampersaud and David Sait, who have great taste) they opted to improvise one absolutely extraordinary set of music and pack it in. Jean and Justin kept shifting the terrain with detail-rich strata of tune-like ideas, grooves, and textures, which Kevin animated in an understated way with his impeccable trumpet sound and ever-intelligent musical ideas. The set ended with an elegant climax that left the us three in the audience rather gleefully stunned.

I’m generally unfazed by small audiences at ST or anywhere for creative improvised music, and recognize how some nights are simply going to be duds, ‘business’-wise. However, Thursday night was the first time I was genuinely annoyed by the lack of attendance. I can hear in my head the chiding that I wanted to broadcast: “People! That was the shit, and you missed it!” But I’m over it now. I will, however, keep reminding readers that Toronto has some of the finest and most creative improvising musicians anywhere, and that, if I may say so, you’ll be lucky to hear them in the intimate confines of ST. Otherwise, if you wait too long, you may be relegated to buying costly tickets to hear them from poorly mixed festival stages, which are, often and unfortunately, the natural habitat for our best and brightest musical performers.

Glances in the Rear-View Mirror

In an effort to keep tabs on a bunch of interesting stuff that’s happened at ST during the past few weeks, I’m offering up a few snapshots. I wrote these two last week but haven’t got around to editing and posting them before now:

Wednesday, 12 March

Arthur Bull, formerly of Toronto during the Music Gallery’s heyday, has long since set up shop in Digby Neck, NS. Luckily, he contacted me shortly after I’d opened ST while planning a Toronto trip and, since the program was still skeletal then, I was able to offer him a gig without any hassle. What luck! This guy is a real improviser’s improviser, and deals with the situation with a minimum of surface gloss and maximum ideas-per-minute. Since his original, exceptional trio with Nick Fraser and David Prentice in September, Arthur has been back twice, and this time with the ever-provocative pair of Nick and guitarist and ST regular, Eric Chenaux. Their music unfolded at a beautifully measured pace and, while each player was clearly taking the others' cues throughout, one could parse each player’s discrete musical ideas as they were introduced, developed, and wrapped up. Still, the lushness of Eric’s guitar and Nick’s exquisite snare attack assured that this was more than a musical chess match. To follow, March/April residents, Ronda Rindone’s Quorum, had a busy set featuring two-bassists (Aaron Lumley and Rob Clutton) that was lively enough, but no match for the subtlety brought to bear by Arthur, Eric, and Nick.

Thursday, 13 March

It was terrific to host two old friends from Montréal, gambist Pierre-Yves Martel (picture) and trumpeter Gordon Allen, who were joined by bassist Rob Clutton for a delicate and extremely thoughtful trio improvisation. It was lovely to hear Pierre-Yves and Rob hook up in actual or fanciful counterpoint, with plenty of little rhythmic and harmonic interplay, while Gordon (as he so often does) cleaved beautifully to his own breathy, almost ethereal furrow. The silences that permeated the set’s texture were an excellent contrast to the opening set, an in-concert development of their Piano Music collaboration by alto saxophonist Evan Shaw and drummer Jean Martin. Jean and Evan played extroverted duet music that kept an ongoing and productive connection with jazz tradition, without ever referring to it overtly. Jean’s capacity for simultaneous subtlety and ebullience, so often a key factor in any ensemble in which he plays, was certainly in evidence, but was muted a bit by his fumbling with an MP3 player to trigger saxophone-choir samples that is a hallmark of the duo’s recorded work. Unfortunately, each such moment brought the energy level of the music down considerably. Still, it was as-ever wonderful to hear these two deep thinker/feelers dig into long, jagged, superbly rhythmic streams of music for good chunks of their generally excellent set.

Hardscrabble Songs - Part Two

I’d like to have written a follow-up to my previous post sooner, while the music remains fresh in mind, but mundane-but-necessary administrative writing has pre-empted it all week. I’m now faced with a backlog of shows about which I could write, so I’ll skip a stone across the proceedings and peck out some of the intriguing and enjoyable things to have passed. Especially memorable, though not always for the best reasons, was the third day of the Malcolm Goldstein Interface, last Sunday afternoon. Following the stormy Saturday night that preceded it, there was a healthy, post-cabin fever audience who seemed pleased to be out of the house on that sunny afternoon, and it was nice to see some old friends in attendance.

Malcolm began his spellbinding set of solo violin music with “Walls,” which incorporated a fantasy on a Balkan folk song as well as a deeply moving, self-accompanied recitation of a striking first-person narrative about the loss of a friend named Kazim (I don’t recall whose text it’s from). To follow, the depression-themed “Hardscrabble Songs” equally employed a mix of virtuosic violin scraping and vocal declamation of interleaved bits of poetic and evocative text (which brought some of Brion Gysin’s recorded works to mind). Certainly lighter in tenor than either “Walls” or the drawn out, extraordinarily delicate piece with which Malcolm closed the set, the “Hardscrabble Songs" were toughly wrought nonetheless, and the tight interplay between text, vocal timbre, and violin tone and timbre made it one of the finest multilateral solo performances I’ve heard.

Next on the program and, in advance of the event, something of a crown jewel in the lineup, was the AIMToronto Orchestra to perform two of Malcolm’s pieces, “Qerneraq: Our Breath as Bones” and “Two Silences.” The former featured vocalist Sienna Dahlen as a last-minute dep for Christine Duncan, who was working with Juliet Palmer in advance of the premiere of Stitch. From my vantage point, Sienna did an excellent job with the mostly graphic score that incorporated near-illegible shards of text from an Inuit poem. The problem, instead, was in the ensemble; in a word, given Malcolm’s aesthetic and philosophical priorities, the improvising (which was left quite open within certain parameters) was dominated too heavily by gestures.

By gestures, I mean sounds invested with a kind of subjective intent that is really the primary domain of players in the conventional field of improvised music (if that’s not a ridiculous contradiction) like the majority of Orchestra members. Instead, the music demands the execution of sounds that are as divested of ego as possible, so that the collection of timbres (“soundings,” as Malcolm likes to call them) is as mobile, open, and fluid a field as possible – enabling maximum surprise, for everyone involved. It’s a tall order for a fifteen-member group in one three-hour rehearsal and, unfortunately, it didn’t seem to come off this time around.

“Two Silences,” a fifteen-minute piece defined by three long ‘static’ (ever-changing) sound masses and the two brief spaces between them, suffered for more mundane reasons; on this one, the Orchestra simply played too loudly (myself included!) for the subtleties of the soundfields to emerge. And, like with many pieces of this sort, the fine line between fascination/beguilement and tedium was all-too-quickly crossed. Despite these limitations, the confrontation with Malcolm Goldstein’s music, not only by the AIMToronto Orchestra, but also by musicians all weekend long, introduced a philosophy of improvised music-making that is a far cry from that of typical Interface guests. Such exchange and development (as well as the fine sense of camaraderie that also defined the weekend) is really the hallmark of the Interface Series, and makes it the exciting and essential ongoing institution that it has become.

I had hoped to get to reports on visits by some other special out-of-town guests: Nova Scotian guitarist Arthur Bull (who played beautifully with Nick Fraser and Eric Chenaux on Wednesday) and Montéal trumpeter Gordon Allen and gambist Pierre-Yves Martel (who played beautifully with Rob Clutton on Thursday). Time, for now, is not allowing it. Bear with me as I attempt to corral into words the bumper crop of remarkable music that’s been filling my little studio.

Hardscrabble Songs – Part One

AIMToronto’s Interface with Montreal violinist Malcolm Goldstein this past weekend was significantly different than any of the previous Interfaces. For one, every note was played at Somewhere There, and it’s increasingly gratifying to be moving away from the odd acoustics and questionable comforts of the Arraymusic Studio, and to invite (force?) audience members to get closer to the action as they do at ST. For Malcolm’s music, in which the lightest bow-brush can carry utmost resonance, such dynamics here are absolutely ideal, as I hear them. An even bigger difference for the event, however, is the way Malcolm’s compositions took centre stage, with four of the six sets of music throughout the weekend featuring his composed works. Ad hoc collective playing, which usually represents the brunt of Interface activities, is not very interesting to Malcolm under such circumstances, though he genially took up the challenge twice during the weekend. Instead, the event was dominated by his very particular composerly aesthetic, one in which subtle, surprising sounds live as good and long a life as they possibly can, and in which instrumental technique and chops are reconsidered, reformatted, and redirected toward collective and, ideally, egoless ends.

Three Toronto ensembles took up the challenge of his conceptual/graphic/directed improvisation pieces, which take bows in the direction of his New York School forbears (Christian Wolff and Earl Brown in particular, at a guess). Each ensemble spent a three-hour rehearsal working with Malcolm in advance of the evening shows, and the task was clearly to find out the aesthetic and philosophical closures on which he’d quietly insist amid all of the objective openness furnished by the scores. Intriguingly, it was the eight-piece band-for-a-day, Ensemble for Now, assembled by Joe Sorbara, that had the clearest view on Saturday night. “Yosha’s Morning Song” was an ostensible feature for Susanna Hood, whose vocal part Malcolm cribbed from his boy’s babysong, and who cooed and whinnied brilliantly and with stunning concentration amid the tiny events and interjections from the rest of the group, which surrounded the audience from the circumference of the room. Language was the theme for the program, as it moved from its evolution to its devolution in the second piece, “Regarding the Tower of Babel,” as close as the music ever got to theatre all weekend. Here, ensemble members unraveled the meaning of a Babel parable by Kafka with the recitation of dictionary definitions that swirled and doubled back on each other, echoed by the lumpen pulses and parlando effects on the players’ instruments, until the piece left a still confusion – perfectly eerie on so stormy and foreboding a night – as its only residue.

Confusion was also on order to an extent on Friday night, when the found-sound improvisation trio Odradek (Michelangelo Iaffaldano, Andy Yue, Jim Bailey) interpreted two of Malcolm’s pieces: “The Seasons: Vermont (Summer)” and “Frog Pond at Dusk.” The former features a recording of sounds from around Malcolm’s farm in Vermont that merge with the operations by the ensemble. Michelangelo, as always, was right in the middle of the music-making, and the sound he extracted from his miscellany maintained a productive tension between synthesis and contrast with both the recorded sounds and those of his partners (including Malcolm, who sat in on the piece). Jim, on the other hand, seemed at a bit of a loss at times and, when he defaulted a few times to fairly bland mimesis, much of that tension was unfortunately lost. “Frog Pond” was particularly striking due to the way the score seemed to bewilder the group. These pieces are so open that it’s difficult to discern successful from unsuccessful interpretation, but there was an undeniable (if intangible) switch that took place – beautiful if disconcerting – as a clear view of the piece’s roadmap was replaced by anxious, furtive glances, tentative sounds, and general uncertainty. I loved it! Jim, Miche, and Andy, while committed music-makers, never seem to take anything overly seriously, and I thought I distinctly perceived a revelry in their own discomfort that is all too rare in this insecure world – musical or otherwise.

Expect a follow-up on the other sets, including Malcolm’s improvisations with Nilan Perera on Friday, and with Rob Piilonen and Chris Willes on Saturday, as well as his solo violin set and the AIMToronto Orchestra set on Sunday, in the next few days.

Get Well, Octopus / Orange Moon Songs

Sadly, my favourite eight-limbed percussionist, Germaine Liu plus Mark Zurawinski, came down with a big flu on Tuesday and couldn’t take part in the program with Michael Keith, David Sait, and me that I’d listed as Plumber Octopus Cracker Shoe. In a pinch, ST regular John Oswald joined me in the first set, making the evening JOUST Cracker & Shoe. It was a real treat to hear David and Michael, whom I hadn’t heard, I believe, since they played at Lennox Contemporary Gallery as part of the inaugural MUSIC(in)GALLERIES in July 2006.

Michael was in particularly fine form, extracting some extremely delicate things out of his guitar, loops, delay, and other effects. At the best moments, he created a marvelous, shifting-landscape context for David’s always tastefully timed unamplified guzheng gestures. The only problematic instances, to my ears, were Michael’s two extremely brief outbursts of heavily distorted shredding. While certainly not overly loud, his distorted guitar tone dominated the soundfield in a way that painted David’s guzheng – not really the most dynamic of instruments – into an acoustic corner. Interestingly, however, these episodes were both followed by moments of great clarity, and Michael – certainly a savvy, experienced improviser – could well have planned such effective contrast as part of his intuitive strategies.

Disappointingly, last night’s Element Choir concert was muted not only by Christine Duncan’s absence (she is working in BC this week) but also by low attendance by choir members. Only seven were on hand and, without a clear leader in the bunch, the show was extremely tentative to start. It’s clear that some in the group really don’t grasp that these residency sessions are performances not workshops (despite the small audiences) and without Christine’s hand on the tiller last night, it was extremely rare that any collective focus was fostered. As always, there were some positively brilliant moments – who knew that a scream by Parmela Attariwala could actually curdle blood? – but the night was dominated by overlong and pretty self-indulgent bits of theatrical silliness. Some blamed (credited?) the strange forces emanating from the full moon and orange-mooned eclipse for the uncharacteristic state of affairs. I do not wish to sound dismissive of forces that I can’t possibly understand but, since nobody suggested that inattention and a lack of good musical decision-making are more likely culprits, I will do so now.

I’ll be crisscrossing Germany with Maestro Ricardo Marsella for the next few weeks, so this weblog will be on hiatus until I return. Thus, it’s ST’s Non-Reading Week. School’s Out. Have fun in Fort Lauderdale, kids.

Thanks to Ken Aldcroft, John Oswald, Pete Johnston, and Nick Fraser, who will be presiding over events here in my absence.

Critical Limits

For a few reasons, it’s a challenge to write about this weekend’s events at ST which, in quite different ways, expose my limitations as a critic. The first was Saturday’s series of solos and a duet by dancer Aimée Dawn Robinson and drummer Nick Fraser. No doubt, I lack the critical vocabulary to describe Aimée’s hugely compelling performance. This has to do with more than my cursory immersion in the world of contemporary dance. For one, I think Aimée’s command of space and form has little to do with (and could well be an active rejection of) the mastery of impressive techniques (which are super fodder for critical laundry lists). Instead, there was an intangibly complete and focused sense of time that she breathed into the room. Little, seemingly uncomplicated movements – a turn, a swung arm, a straightened neck – were markers of an ongoing time-feel – oblique but undeniable – that carried me confidently through occasional moments of confusion and non-understanding.

Nick – to state the obvious to those who have heard him – also played a bit with our experience of time. Both his solo and his duet with Aimée had him parsing his vocabulary on the drumkit (specifically the deep, fat sound of ST’s house drumkit, “Big Red”) down to discrete elements, then combining and contrasting them with near-clinical precision. Taking advantage of the optimal acoustics and attentive audience, Nick kept the dynamic level very low, and that allowed him to uncover blends of texture and timbre (particularly with mallets during his solo) that multiplied his ostensibly small music exponentially.

Though there was an overt austerity to the show, it certainly wasn’t without its playful moments. I may be grasping at straws here but, during their duet, Aimée alighted on a hunched-back, swung-arm motif that looked uncannily like a child’s pantomime of an elephant. Both her movements and the evocation pointed to the wonderfully lumpen swing that Nick had on offer. It soon gave way, however, to a more straightforward groove (to which he had been alluding all along, I think). Aimée, kneeling directly before him by then, maintained a push-pull tension with the groove with a series of tiny, tangentially related movements that alternatively questioned and responded to it – never obvious, and more fun for it.

On Sunday, I welcomed the revival of the NOW Series, which has beenon hiatus since its was shut down this summer by the fickle management at the NOW Lounge. Paul Newman curated the evening and played an impromptu trio with bass guitarist Michael Morse and his drummer-son Timothy prior to the Remnants Trio of Joe Sorbara, Ken Aldcroft, and Evan Shaw. Unfortunately, Tim laboured with some wrist pain, which kept him at a bit of a distance from the core of the music-making, while Paul and Michael followed each other’s primarily intervallic offerings through a set of rather discursive improvisations. It’s doubtless that both are deeply thoughtful players, but the uniform dynamics throughout the set had me increasingly craving a more energetic outpouring.

Not surprisingly, some energy was on tap when Remnants took their turn. This is the group that it’s most challenging to write about, given my deep familiarity with all three players with whom I have played for years with Ken Aldcroft’s Convergence Ensemble. Apart from a brief, rather unprepossessing sketch by Sorbara, this set was all improvised, and it afforded me yet another opportunity to hear the gradual evolution (or consolidation) of each player’s approach to improvisation.

John Oswald once described how Dutch virtuoso cellist Ernst Reijseger would prepare solo concerts of ‘improvisation.’ Reijseger, having identified the 117 (to pick a number) ‘things’ that he could do with a cello (isolated techniques and sound activities in nameable categories), would simply string a series of these things into a more-or-less composed roadmap for performance. Whether this is how he actually works (worked) or not, I hear in this description an analogy to how Joe Sorbara was playing Big Red on Sunday.

Though I’m sure that Joe doesn’t map out what he will play and relies, instead, on intuition to decide how he’ll approach any particular situation (as would Reijseger, I’m sure, in group performance), there was a clear, composerly ‘thingness’ to his improvisation on Sunday. I was tracking transitions between discreet (and occasionally overlapping) segments where a certain technique was a relatively static focal point for the moment. This sense is amplified by Joe’s huge toolkit through which he extends the kit’s timbral possibilities, and a particular material item (a bow, a mallet, a silly-sounding toy, a school bell) will frame his music’s possibilities until another transition takes place.

By contrast, guitarist Ken Aldcroft moves headlong through a more gradual, evolving exploration of material that, on Sunday, revolved around the distended and personalized vocabulary that Ken has derived primarily from jazz harmony. The word ‘revolved’ is appropriate, since his largely middle-register chording brought to mind Mark Miller’s comment about the “circular logic” of Ken’s playing. Though maybe more movement to the extremes of register might leaven his playing a bit, there was an impressively focused internal consistency throughout.

Alto saxophonist Evan Shaw, to my ears the most mobile improviser of the three, played rather parsimoniously, deferring for lengthy stretches to the others. However, the highlights of the night, without question, took place when Evan stepped out front and momentarily took over the music. At points, he played things I’d never heard from him before – for example, a tremendous volley of vocally overblown alto reminiscent the aforementioned Mr. Oswald. Just as exciting, though, was the seamless, deft switch back to Dolphy-ish intervalism that resides at the core of Evan’s aesthetic, a transition that was exemplary of what a supple, inventive player he is.

Folk Forms (or Folks Form)

Try to say that one ten times, quickly.

Due to some scheduling vagaries, I’ve had a string of Thursdays become available, and I was very happy to offer last night to violinist & violist David Prentice and bassist Aaron Lumley for a Valentine’s joust. This pair was here about a month ago (just before the inception of this site) and I was quite taken by the rapport between them and, once again, how totally brilliant David is. Last night, they picked up right where they left off, twisting knotty, this-follows-that improvisations into what may as well be folk songs. David has the rare ability among improvisers to play idiomatically ‘free’ but to develop his ideas tunefully and melodically (broadly speaking), as if a narrative logic overrides the temptation to shorten ideas within the gestural logic of the moment. It’s a capacity that he shares with the ‘likes’ of Leroy Jenkins, Paul Rutherford, and Mario Schiano, each a hero of mine for similar reasons.

Aaron is clearly the junior partner in this duo but, while he tends on occasion to default to ideas with short shelf lives, he demonstrated again how high he’s climbed on a steep learning curve. It’s obvious that Aaron relishes the big, Mingus-y sound he’s getting out of his gut strings, and he really digs into his instrument in an occasionally self-absorbed search and discovery of fantastic sounds, but last night he proved how fine and supportive an accompanist he can be in this kind of context. It’s a context, perhaps ironically, where a successful ‘accompanist’ generates roughly half of the material.

For the second set, David and Aaron invited audients John Oswald and myself (a group known in the annals as JOUST) to join them for a good-natured spar. No folk songs were in the offing here, since both John and I were feeling perhaps too fanciful to let things reside anywhere too simply. Instead, the quartet lived in a web of darting lines and little blats that resulted in a joyful disorientation. Great fun. For arcane reasons that tickle my most nerd-like sensibilities, I propose that the four-piece – if and (hopefully) when we play together again – be called PLUTO. We’ll travel the spaceways.

Barnburner

Big thanks to all who came out last night to the Barnyard Records Three-CD Launch for as fine a party as ST has seen. Such a beautiful thing. Lots of great friends came out, including some whom I hadn’t seen in months, and the room housed a genuine air of celebration (amid the waft of some amazing cheeses Jean Martin [pictured] and I picked out for our guests). Christine Duncan was a splendid maitre-d’ and made everyone feel totally welcome – she’s surely got the job from now on if she wants it! The music-making, while very fine (especially Evan Shaw and Jean’s really brief tête-à-tête), clearly deferred to the party, and the hang went well into the night. It was especially wonderful to welcome Lori Freedman, whom I’ve barely seen and with whom I hadn’t played since we recorded Plumb in April. She sounds utterly fantastic. Our duet was a little underheated for which I feel a bit responsible – it’s tough to change gears from host to performer and I didn’t quite make the switch capably last night – but I’m licking my chops for my next shots at playing with her: the Montréal Barnyard Records Launch Party at Casa Del Popolo on 23 March and the Sound Symposium, St. John’s Newfoundland, 3-13 July.

Thanks always to Jean Martin, the Barnyard Visionary and truly one of the most affable, creative gentlemen you could possibly meet.

Singing in the Snow

It’s a brilliant testimony to the loyalty she’s winning that thirteen members of Christine Duncan’s Element Choir braved last night’s thunder-snowstorm for their regular Wednesday night slot at ST. As usual, and very much in contrast with what was going on outside, they made the room feel very warm indeed. That seemed to be enough of achievement for some of the choristers, however, who seemed content to chat and giggle while Christine’s razor-sharp cues whizzed past them. As a result, it took a long time for the group to achieve the precious sense of collective focus – fostered by Christine’s innate conviction to musicality – that can make these shows truly extraordinary.

Highlights, instead, came increasingly from individual contributors which, upon reflection, is not really surprising. Throughout the residency, I’ve heard both trained singers and amateurs (in the wonderful, French sense) hone their improvising chops through the crucible of performance. What’s more, I understand that Christine is now leading technique workshops for choir members on weekends, so the learning curve for many of these performers is excitingly steep.

Favourite moments included Aki Takahashi’s whispering, muttering, sibilant solo that she delivered theatrically, rocking on her knees as if in intense prayer. Christine then cued newcomer Jessica Stuart to mimic her, and Juliet Palmer to accompany them both, and the tiny results were breathtakingly emotional. Colin Anthony’s best moments all sounded beautifully like an old codger complaining underwater (I propose a new cue for the Choir in honour of Colin: “Old man and the sea”). Thom Gill, who also took the conducting reigns at one point, led an excellent trio with Juliet and Erika Werry with a solo that oscillated between the nasal extremes of humming and the bronchial extremes of inhalation. Finally, another newcomer to ST, Lawrence Cotton, introduced an over-the-top yokel bellylaugh motif in his rich bass that, enacting the contagion of laughter, Christine soon had a good chunk of the choir (and this listener, inadvertently and uncontrollably) reproducing.

In other news this ratty new year, it goes without saying that I'm looking forward to the Barnyard Records Triple CD Launch and Party on Saturday night featuring music by Jean Martin, Evan Shaw, Colin Fisher, Lori Freedman, and me. We'll do what we can to emphasize the 'party' part of the event. Rats in the Barnyard.

Railroader Reviews

I’m writing from the train that’s taking me to Montreal for a week of work on Joane Hétu’s Récits de Neige project, the third in her Musique D’Hiver triptych, to be performed this coming weekend at Théâtre La Chapelle. Thus, this is my first full week away from ST since it opened, and I’m sad to be missing this week’s program: Christine Duncan’s Element Choir on Wednesday; the return of Kyle Brenders’s seven-piece Ensemble on Thursday (to close out his residency); and HuffLigNon, a chamber jazz project by New York-based Canadian saxophonist, Peter Van Huffel, on Saturday. I’m also very grateful to Joe Sorbara, who is presiding in my stead.

This past week has again featured some very fine music, starting with the Element Choir, with Idiolalla (Christine, DB Boyko, Jean Martin) in support, on Wednesday. The trio played just one piece, sandwiched between choral sets, and it was striking how it galvanized the choir following their rather tentative opener. The sheer physicality of DB’s and Christine’s delivery seemed to grant the choristers permission to pursue the same, much to the benefit of the last set, and the contrast between them – Christine mostly digging down and DB sailing overtop – reinforced how utterly dynamic this pair is. They shared conduction duties and their dance-like flurry of signals surely caused some confusion within the ranks, though it left the singers intriguingly to their own intuitive devices, and resulted in some marvelously unpredictable responses through the improvising.

(A heads-up: My favourite Bramptonian, Maestro Ricardo Marsella, has enlisted me to curate the “Rotundus Maximus” series at the Brampton Indie Arts Festival, and I’ve given all of Wednesday 13 February to Christine and the Choir. My shortlist of things for which it’s worth braving 400-series highways includes hearing this squad in the Rose Theatre Rotunda.)

Thursday, Kyle Brenders brought in his trio with bassist Rob Clutton and drummer Brandon Valdivia, a group that, to my ears, paints the clearest picture of Kyle’s vision as a composer and bandleader. Their first set was dominated by a version the modular, episodic “Flow Line Follow Line Flow,” a signature piece that has had performed by Kyle’s septet and the AIMToronto Orchestra as well. The crispness of response by Rob and Brandon beautifully animated what can be a fairly static, unexpressive piece. The trio’s second set was comprised of shorter, diverse, perhaps more idiomatic pieces of which “Black Bile,” a quirky blues fantasy with a nifty palindromic form, was most memorable.

Rob was back again, much to my delight, on Saturday night with his Cluttertones, one of the first groups to have played at ST back in September. To my mind, the band fits the spirit and scope of the place perfectly, and everyone in the band – Rob, Tim Posgate on banjo and guitar, Lina Allemano on trumpet, Ryan Driver on synth, melodica, and voice – clearly revels in the chance to play here. Rob’s writing is deeply wrought and so very personal, and pieces like “Lion and Ant,” featuring Ryan’s fragile vocal delivery, left at least a few of us in tears. Gracefully, Rob followed up with the delightful “Porch,” a whimsical, almost faux-naïf diatonic swing tune that seems tailor-made for Tim’s banjo, with Ryan’s demented melodica comping as a brilliant foil. Lina’s burnished-toned trumpet solo went from singing to sputtering and back again, but it’s her reiteration of Rob’s wonderful melody on the out-head that I haven’t been able to stop humming.

Real Free Jazz & Fake New Age

Unlike some recent ST residencies of note, the Element Choir and Nilan Perera’s holyblueghost, Kyle Brenders’s residency hasn’t consistently featured one group and, instead, seems designed primarily with variety in mind. Likely, the no-mean-feat task of getting his players to commit for a string of Thursdays has factored into this decision. However, like his teacher and one of music’s great polymaths, Anthony Braxton, Kyle does well by emphasizing his range of strengths, skills, and musical vision. So, it was no surprise to move from the disciplined, rather earnest silences of his Ensemble one week – see here for my report – to the over-the-top excesses of his Double Trio this past Thursday.

For the first set, Kyle formed subgroup duets according to instrumentation: Bassists Michael Owen Liston and Aaron Lumley, drummers Brandon Valdivia and (Vancouverite guest) Dan Gaucher, and he and tenorist Colin Fisher. Though altogether more demonstrative than anything that happened a week earlier, these had the somewhat polite feel of a warm-up, and it wasn’t until the subsequent small group when Fisher, Lumley, and (in particular) Brandon Valdivia started generating some real heat.

The second set was a full double-trio blowout, and less interesting for it, since the expanded group found most common ground in fairly idiomatic free jazz conventions; several times, before and after long, loud solos, they defaulted to the static timbral soup that William Parker, at his U of T workshop a year ago, mockingly called “the avant-garde drone.” Regardless, there was still much to enjoy, especially Kyle’s alto playing that, at times, evoked Joe McPhee’s soulful Ayler-on-alto bray that featured so prominently during Joe’s September 2006 Interface Series. The contrast between drummers was equally stimulating, with the amazingly fleet Valdivia zipping around and animating Gaucher’s more deliberate, rock-ish gestures. And, in case there is any doubt, it all got pretty damn loud.

Saturday night, as promised, featured the Fake New Age Music Band, and I was pleasantly surprised to have Josh Thorpe, Jason Benoit, and Allison Cameron open for them. I hadn’t heard this trio play before and, despite the constantly brilliant sounds that Allison was getting out of her cheapo electronic keyboard and pedals, it took awhile to overcome my initially skeptical response to the set. They seemed to adhere to an approach that prizes a rather self-conscious brand of noodling, perhaps as a way to side-step straightforwardly ‘responsive’ responses, and the results seemed all too haphazard at first. By the second piece, though, I’d discovered a fairly exquisite coherence in it all, and all of the disparate internal details came duly to collective life. Josh’s guitar playing is beautifully subdued, though my highlight came when he stepped out with an episode of controlled feedback with which Allison, then on her amazing electric toy saxophone, entered into a momentarily mind-bending dialogue.

The New Agers, however, seemed to have a hard time finding any such dialogue (if that was indeed a goal – the project seems perverse enough that I’d be foolish to assume so) and mostly the trio's music skirted around on the surface of things for their shortish set. Ryan Driver was amazing on thumb reeds – which he played exclusively – as he responded occasionally but generally contrasted with the ‘sounds of nature’ furnished by Andrew Wedman on records, CDs and sundry electronics. A brief episode of thumb-reed birdsong mimicry was totally breathtaking. Michael Keith picked his spots on his acoustic guitar but occasionally seemed at a loss in the face of Ryan’s inscrutability as an improviser. The set ended oddly and abruptly, leaving a further disjointed edge to the music; this could well have been intentional, though they may have simply been good-naturedly throwing in the towel for this one.

Turn It Up

The music at ST has been growing steadily louder all week, and I’d be getting worried if a group called Fake New Age Music Band, slated for Saturday night, didn’t promise a timely ebb.  It started Tuesday night when flutist Rob Piilonen and saxophonist Colin Fisher, two members of the curatorial team at Leftover Daylight, launched a CD of their Whisper project – quiet music by guys who rarely play quiet music.

I’ve listened to (and played with) Rob and Colin a ton, so it was interesting to hear them improvise within the confines of a concept defined primarily by quiet dynamics. I was struck by how, for the few pieces they played together to start the evening, they used essentially the same kind and intensity of gesture as always, just with the volume turned down. Rob punctuated repetitive, quasi-harmonic motives with tiny blasts of untempered sound, while Colin clucked and wuffled tiny shards of musical potential in a continuous, energetic stream. It was clear how utterly consistent these two are, taking cues from each other in turn, finding useful solutions to workaday musical problems. Guests Joe Sorbara, Aaron Lumley, Nilan Perera and I joined Whisper for a cheerful round robin of music that, if not always quiet, was certainly more methodical than typical ad hoc playing.

The first set on Wednesday night – part of Christine Duncan’s Element Choir residency – was comparably methodical, but was brought brilliantly to life by the sheer spirit of those involved. Vocalists Duncan and Sienna Dahlen (who also did some looping and processing of her voice) were joined by bassist Scott Peterson and local wizard of miscellany, Michelangelo Iaffaldano. I’d guess that this is a new working ensemble, gauging from the success of the music and the enthusiasm in the aftermath from the group members. The unquestionable highlight was Christine’s ripping, wordless blues-belter solo midway that (despite her head-cold) energized what had been, to that point, a lovely but rather staid opening to the set. Regardless, the internal dialogues in particular between Scott’s bass and Michelangelo’s… uh… stuff kept plenty of momentum throughout.   Truly top-tier improvisation.

I am enjoying Christine’s choir residency tremendously, since it embodies all of the things I’d imagined the residencies could do. Despite lots of turnover in personnel week to week, there’s a core of singers with whom, through the consistency of regular performance, Christine is forging a very warm and responsive rapport. The music is markedly better each week, to my ears, as Christine refines her skills as a conductor and leader – ‘encourager’ would be an apt handle.

The mix of Christine’s university-level students and enthusiastic amateurs (in the literal, French sense) in the group is a functional one that blends chops and spirit nicely, and allows for healthy and enjoyable blend of whimsy and earnestness. Everyone’s clearly having a splendid time, but nobody doubts that music-making is the real task at hand, which Christine makes absolutely clear by her presence alone. I’m amazed that more haven’t come out to hear this remarkable group so far. To evoke the best of jazz brochure rhetoric, this group is simply not to be missed.

Expect a follow-up from Kyle Brenders’s lively (and extremely loud, upping-the-ante) Double Trio set last night (Thursday) in the next little while.

CIA Festival, another listen (then and now)

On Saturday night, tenor saxophonist and Creative Improviser's Assembly (CIA) Festival organizer Glen Hall played for the first time at ST, and led a nine-piece assembly called Big Sound that included Ken Aldcroft, Evan Shaw, Bruce Cassidy, Michael Morse, Joe Sorbara, David Story, Ronda Rindone and myself.  Rarely did the music reach its prescribed bigness since at least half of the players laid out extensively.  Each tried with increasingly difficulty to find a productive space to play amid, in particular, Cassidy's ebullient (and overamplified) EVI an Story's more conventionally jazz-based (and overamplified) electric piano.

The set succumbed to the classic pitfalls of large improvising groups by reflecting simultaneous collective overactivity and individual tentativeness, which is too bad, given the wealth of creativity promised by the group on paper.  Rindone's memorable response at an apparent moment of frustration was to take her bass clarinet away from the rest of the ensemble to play momentarily (and electrically!) against a side wall -- by herself, for herself -- in perhaps the most coherent musical statement to be found within the Big Sound.

Appropriately, the second set featured some delightful capital-S Smallness from cello duo, The Knot (Nick Storring and Tilman Lewis).  From my seat by the doorway (which regular attendees will know has no stage sightlines whatever), it was impossible to isolate who was making which extraordinary sound, but the sum was music full of both general momentum and momentary detail.  They let the set breathe a bit with relatively unadorned pulse-based episodes, but the real drama had them (I suspect) grinding away, mining a quartz vein of tiny sounds both harsh and sweet out of their instruments.  It was a lovely and satisfying way to end four CIA days.

I'm left, though, with some doubts about how valuable the CIA is, either as a response to or an extension of the IAJE conference.  It was clear that the 2002 version was pretty crucial not only as a opportunity for IAJE conferrers to hear some local, unconventional, non-institutional creative music, but also since it gave Toronto creative musicians a sorely needed context in which to play.  For this, Glen Hall should be lauded for his vision and energy.

But things have changed.  No doubt, the spark of energy furnished by Hall in the early oughts has been a catalyst for steadily burgeoning creative music energies in Toronto that are manifested in, for example, AIMToronto, Leftover Daylight, Somewhere There, and regular creative music at the Tranzac Club.  The beautiful outcome is that there's interesting music being presented virtually every day in Toronto (as Soundlist archives attest).

I'm generally unworried about the issue of splitting audiences when two or more shows of improvised or otherwise unconventional music are happening on the same night.  The fact that I can't hear everything going on in this city is surely a testimony to the health of the music scene.  (How boring it would be to hear and know everything!)  Nevertheless, when it comes to strategically providing options for IAJE conference attendees as CIA does in large part, perhaps energy would be more effectively marshaled by pointing them to ongoing, regular programming that is the foundation for the Toronto creative music scene.

For example, the CIA programming conflicted with Wednesday's performance at ST by Christine Duncan's tremendous Element Choir and with Friday's Leftover Daylight Series, featuring an intriguing-sounding Stockhausen tribute/séance/interpretation by a group led by Rob Piilonen (not Nilan Perera... sorry Rob for the mis-credit).  I don't think I'd do away with the CIA Festival concept but, perhaps, this strategic, IAJE-related, slightly glossy brand name could simply migrate and affix itself to things that are already going on in Toronto to feature the important work going on week-in and week-out.  Due to the relative silence this year around CIA (see my last post), this point is mostly moot, since few if any IAJE conferrers actually knew about, let alone attended, the Festival.  Suffice it to say, we'll all play it by ear next time.

No matter these issues, I extend warm thanks to Glen Hall for all of the work he put into the event and for his ongoing contributions to Toronto music.

An Aural View From Within

This site is a New Year's resolution that had been falling by the wayside (with the other products of good intentions on my 2008 list) until Carl Wilson's latest post on Zoilus provoked it to life.  He paraphrased Darcy James Argue's assertion at their IAJE conference panel on jazz blogs that every local scene would benefit if at least one active blogger would track, critique, and respond to the work of its constituent members.  Though I'm relatively ignorant of the blog universe, I've seen the impact Carl's posts alone have had on the reception of creative improvised music in Toronto.  I also recognize that Carl's range of professional interests limits how much he attends and writes about Toronto jazz and improvised music, so clearly others ought to fill in the gap.  This is my contribution to this end.

Since I opened Somewhere There in September, the space has hosted over fifty concerts and hundreds of musicians, and I've heard almost all of it first-hand.  Few others in Toronto hear as much live creative improvised music as I do, and perhaps this affords me some insight that others will find valuable.  To be clear, my goal here is to respond to the music that is played at Somewhere There, though I may mention other AIMToronto events that take place elsewhere and offer some general reflections about creative music in Toronto.  Thus, it's not a jazz blog.  It's not an improvised music blog.  It's not even an AIMToronto blog, though the association's identity inevitably bleeds into and overlaps with programming at Somewhere There.  I'm not really able to speak authoritatively about (or speak for!) the entire scene of creative improvised music in Toronto; I'd just like to reflect on and respond to what goes on in my space.

It's a timely intervention, as I see it, since not a word (as far as I know) has been written about any of those fifty-plus concerts after they've happened.  I've had some nice recognition in print (including a nice feature in the Star and kudos in Eye Weekly's 2007 year-end review) but, oddly, none of the print journalists who have been supportive (as far as I know) have attended a show here!  So, like the space itself, this site is an attempt at a positive response to a general set of circumstances in which the music that I love is marginalized.

Speaking of marginal music and print journalism, Carl's Zoilus entry also reminded me of his Globe & Mail article prior to the last Toronto IAJE in 2002.  He previewed the off-festival (counter-festival?) that saxophonist Glen Hall put together called Creative Improviser's Assembly at the defunct Oasis Club on College Street.  The uncommonly packed houses throughout the festival -- an outcome no doubt of the G&M preview -- showed how hungry at least some of the stereotypically conservative and staid attendees of IAJE conferences are for unconventional sounds.

Apparently, the organizers took notice too, since they approached Glen and requested that he program another CIA festival this time around, and he proceeded to book two nights in the front room at the Tranzac (including Friday with Argue's Secret Society in the main hall) and two nights at Somewhere There.  Sadly, neither any press response nor even inclusion in the IAJE program were in the offing, so most conference attendees had no idea CIA was happening.  As a case in point, at a Jazz Journalist's Association reception that he'd arranged on Friday, James Hale cornered me, keen to finally find out "where the interesting music is."

Unfortunately for James, he'd already missed some really interesting music at ST the night before by the Kyle Brenders Ensemble, a seven-piece unit through which Kyle is exploring his current compositional fascinations:  duration, juxtaposition of extreme timbres, and improvisational interplay that resists clichéd call-and-response gestures.  With my frame of reference, the music sounds like a productive extension of certain AACM priorities, though I'm sure other music with which I'm less familiar (Morton Feldman?) is equally on Kyle's radar.  The group's sound seems to hinge on the combination of Jonathan Adjemian's synthesizer, Eric Chenaux's wah'ed guitar, and Kyle's rather fragile but nuanced soprano playing.  Throughout two pieces in the first half and one overlong piece in the second, this trio was the fulcrum of music that (despite perhaps inevitable longeurs) was rarely less than wholly engrossing.

The CIA Festival wrapped up Saturday night at Somewhere There, and I'll endeavour to comment on those proceedings in the next few days.