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.
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