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.

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.