Journalists On The Bandstand

In Ottawa, November will be a significant month for two of the city's best-known musicians—both of whom also happen to be well-known journalists.

On November 12 at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage, the Tim Murray Quintet—featuring trumpeter Charley Gordon, longtime newspaper columnist and editor—will be holding its 50th anniversary concert.

Pianist Murray, Gordon, trombonist Jerry Heath, bassist Sol Gunner and drummer John Sullivan started playing together in Kingston in 1960, at a house four of them shared while attending Queen's University. They also shared an interest in the hard bop popularized by Art Blakey and Horace Silver, and in the West Coast sound of Gerry Mulligan and others.

The band dispersed in the early '60s, but reunited—minus Sullivan—for several gigs in the '80s and '90s. In 2000, veteran drummer Scott Warren joined the ensemble. The NAC anniversary show will be partly a band retrospective, but several new original compositions will also be included.

On November 27 at Cafe Paradiso, pianist, newspaper editor and blogger Peter Hum will officially launch his long-awaited debut CD, A Boy's Journey.

An astute jazz critic (he and I shared reviewing duties at The Ottawa Citizen for a decade) Hum has long had his performing career on a slow boil while he raised a family and developed his journalism career. Backed by a superb band—saxophonists Nathan Cepelinski and Kenji Omae, bassist Alec Walkington and drummer Ted Warren—he recorded an album of highly lyrical original compositions after playing them in public a couple of years ago. Those who witnessed that show have been anticipating the eventual CD.

Omae, who lives in South Korea, won't be at the launch, but he'll be replaced by another of Hum's longtime collaborators, guitarist Mike Rud.

Wow Factor

It's getting to be that time of year again, and I've been weighing the options for the annual top 10 CD list. Some of the usual suspects—Vijay Iyer, Mary Halvorson, Jason Moran—are back in serious contention again this year.

I'm not sure it will have the staying power to crack the top 10, but one recording that has impressed me lately is Alexander McCabe's Quiz, which I recently spent a lot of time with for an upcoming DownBeat review. What I do know at this point is that if I was nominating a single track of the year McCabe's version of "Good Morning Heartache" would be at the top of the list. Wow! A stunning performance, very much in the vein of mid-period Coltrane without being slavish to Trane's sound (for one thing, McCabe plays alto, not tenor).

McCabe might not be a name you know. He's a Boston native who's in his late 40s, but he's only done a couple of previous recordings under his own name. Quiz is definitely worth a listen, and "Good Morning Heartache" will knock you out if you're a fan of Crescent, "My Favorite Things" or "Afro-Blue."

Virtual Space

The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation announced its latest Jazz.NEXT grants—amounting to $462,350—on October 13, and among grants to the Berklee College of Music, trumpeter Dave Douglas and the Jazz Journalists Association, one that caught my imagination was a $93,600 grant to New York City's Symphony Space.

Located on the Upper West Side, Symphony Space has always struck me as a forward-looking venue with a very broad artistic mandate. I have particularly fond memories of the 12 hours I spent there experiencing the free Wall-to-Wall Miles Davis performances about a decade ago.

Through its Jazz.NEXT support, Symphony Space will develop The Symph App, a smart phone application that will allow people who own an iPhone, iPad, Android or Google TV to stream jazz performances. An open-source app, The Symph App will also be made available to musicians, other venues and the jazz community at large for their use. The app is scheduled to launch next spring, when at least 34 jazz events and discussions will be made available.

Also mentioned in the grant announcement is the fact that Symphony Space will be releasing more than 100 live recordings, including jazz.

Pork Pie Delight

Despite the jazz tradition of 'sitting in', it's remarkable how seldom I've actually seen someone appear unannounced with a headline act and get the feeling that I'm witnessing something unrehearsed and fully in the moment.

I was having mixed feelings at last night's concert by The Mingus Dynasty at the Quebec City jazz festival—aside from a spirited take of "Ysabel's Table Dance," the band had seemed a bit listless, with a high number of onstage conferences and on-the-fly arrangement coaching. Then, in the second half of the show, leader Craig Handy introduced special guest Kurt Elling—who headlines the festival tonight.

Wearing jeans instead of his de rigueur slick suit, Elling blew the room apart with his version of Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," encouraging tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake to roll out the kind of multi-tiered, lyrical solo that made me fall for his playing when I first heard him in the early '90s. Elling was sweating, Blake was burning, the whole band playing like Mingus himself was kicking their behinds.

It was one of those moments when all you can do is tell your friends, You had to be there.

Jazz On The River

The Saint Lawrence, not the Mississippi.

In an era when many jazz festivals are struggling to survive, it's great to see one growing and extending the North America festival season into October—in the company of the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

Next week, I'll be attending the Quebec City Jazz Festival, which is headquartered at the city's Largo Resto-Club.

The lineup is an impressive one for a festival in just its fourth year, and includes: Charles Lloyd Quartet, Ron Carter Trio, Mingus Dynasty, Kurt Elling and the John Abercrombie Quartet (with Mark Feldman, Joey Baron and Thomas Morgan). In addition, the festival has a large assortment of some of Quebec's best musicians, including: Évidence—a trio I'll put up against any in New York City; Jean-Pierre Zanella; Hommes de Jazz; Jazzlab; Normand Guilbeault Ensemble; François Bourassa and Jeanne Rochette; Trio Janis Steprans; and Trio Michel Côté.

Guelph Wrap-Up

So, now it comes back to me. In the three years since I've attended the Guelph Jazz Festival—which seems to be the consensus choice among my fellow jazz critics as the best-kept-secret great festival in North America—I've forgotten how exhausting the pace is here. I began with good intentions to blog-if-not-Twitter regularly, but the combination of inconsistent Internet connections and constant musical and social stimuli derailed that plan. Now, comfortably installed in the hotel bar, where the WiFi is good and the Japanese beer very cold, I'm in a reflective mood.

First the good—and bear in mind that all will be reviewed in depth (and minus the slight Sapporo buzz) in a forthcoming issue of DownBeat: this morning's concert with Marc Ribot, Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor was the transcendent uplift I was looking for this weekend. Damn! Ribot is a terrific guitarist. No surprise, but it bears repeating. I love his ideas and his tonal choices. I'm looking forward to digging into his new solo recording for a Signal To Noise review when I get home. The same venue—a small, sharply raked, theatre at Guelph's beautiful River Run Centre—was also the site of excellent performances by Marilyns Crispell (solo) and Lerner (with her trio). I'd give the slight edge to Lerner, if only because her piano work with her trio is slightly more integrated than that of Crispell, who still seems to be wavering between the roiling waves of sound that many of us grew to love when we first encountered her and the more lyrical material she has favoured lately. This is to take nothing away from either of these approaches—I love both—but they do occasionally seem at odds.

Much less compelling was a disastrous afternoon outing by the Ratchet Orchestra, which despite boasting some of the best players in Quebec sounded like a train wreck that wouldn't stop.

In the coulda-been/shoulda-been column, a late-night performance by Jane Bunnett, Grimes and Andrew Cyrille leads. Despite Bunnett's best efforts, Grimes and—to a lesser extent—Cyrille weren't compelled to communicate broadly. Too bad, because one gets to hear Bunnett in this kind of setting too seldom. I just kept reflecting on how utterly fearless she is, and how great her early recordings with Don Pullen were. Go, Jane! More gigs like this.

Follow Me On Ping

Apple introduced its new social networking for music, Ping, yesterday. If you want to see what I'm listening to, you can follow me.

Jazz's Shoulder Season

As longtime readers know, I've always been a fan of the Guelph Jazz Festival—not just for its adventurous programming and combination of academic papers and concerts, but because it extends the festival season past Labour Day. This year, the festival is paying tribute to ECM Records, with concerts by Dino Saluzzi & Anja Lechner, Marilyn Crispell and Charles Lloyd, and co-ordinating a 'nuit blanche' event that promises to tie in events throughout the small college town.

This year, the season is extending even further for me, with an assignment from DownBeat to report on the fourth annual Quebec City Jazz Festival. I haven't seen the full lineup yet, but headliners include Charles Lloyd (this time fronting his marvellous quartet with Jason Moran), Ron Carter, Kurt Elling and the Mingus Dynasty.

I'll be blogging from both festivals.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

In case you're wondering what Jazz Chronicles has been up to this summer, the photo says it all. I became a grandfather for the first time on August 20, and I've been soaking in good family times in recent weeks.

Jazz Chronicles will return shortly. Right now, I've got my hands full.

Through The Spyglass

Treasure Island – the fifth album released by pianist Keith Jarrett's so-called American Quartet – begins in what sounds like the middle of a performance, the band already churning on Jarrett's "The Rich (And The Poor)." Driven by Charlie Haden's bass, it's a slow groove that sounds like some of the extended vamps improvised during his solo concerts of the time. Recorded on the final two days of February 1974, Treasure Island actually features an expanded band, with guitarist Sam Brown on two pieces and percussionists Danny Johnson and Guilherme Franco throughout. Those added percussionists are well used, too, as the band explores some funky movements – making Treasure Island one of the more exuberant recordings in the band's catalogue.

On "The Rich (And The Poor)" the percussionists balance the weighty theme and Jarrett's gospel-inflected piano trills with what sound like a bicycle bell and a child's metallic noise-maker. On "Fullsuvollivus (Fools Of All Of Us)" Johnson and Franco stir up a cacophonous backdrop to the quartet's cascading improvisations. Jarrett's piano pulses with energy, Redman reels out a declaratory statement. What struck many listeners at the time—and what remains so attractive about the performance now—is that this was clearly music with American roots, abstracted but not obscured. There is no mistaking the relationship to what the Art Ensemble of Chicago had been doing a decade earlier, and yet Jarrett's take sounds like it is coming at the source material from a classical perspective.

Another element that makes Treasure Island compelling is the accessibility of the material. On the title song, Brown and Jarrett trade the lead on the bright, upbeat melody—their tones and attacks almost indistinguishable from one another, while the theme of "Introduction/Yaqui Indian Folk Song" is almost pastural. "Le Mistral" has a strong pulse running through it, and Jarrett's playing on "Death And The Flower" is rhapsodic. Only "Angles," with its flatulent bass solo, brawling tenor and Ornette-informed head strides outside the comfort zone that buyers of The Köln Concert might be happy living in.

From the somewhat iconic photographs of Jarrett to the detailed map work in the ornate cover art, Treasure Island stands as the least thorny, dare-I-say-it, most commercial release by the American Quartet. Little wonder, then, that the album was reviewed in Rolling Stone and other mainstream music publications of the time, and remains an ideal entry point to the band for those who are familiar with the latter-day Jarrett.

Cryptography

Here in Ottawa, you would be challenged to find a bigger civic booster than Ken Gray, a columnist, editorial writer and blogger for The Ottawa Citizen, a daily newspaper that was also my home as a columnist for 10 years. To his credit, Gray is always looking for ways that Canada's capital city could expand its horizons—methods that include playing host to major international sporting events and paying attention to urban theorist Richard Florida.

Gray is also a jazz fan, and he has taken to using his summer vacation days to immerse himself in the music at the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival. This week, he's back at work and reflecting on 11 days spent inside the "Gold Tent"—the white vinyl enclosure that sits to the left of the festival's main stage in Confederation Park (that's it over my left shoulder in the YouTube video posted below). He focuses on the non-jazz activities inside what he calls a "crypt," which include people BlackBerry surfing, gourmet sandwich eating and chatting—anything but responding to the exhortations of Kenny Garrett to get up and dance.

I've spent my own time inside the "crypt"—both as a paying customer before being employed by the festival as a media consultant and during brief moments on the job—and can attest to Gray's observations that the people in there sometimes seem less interested in what's happening on the stage than in the latest memo their boss has emailed to them. But, where Gray is off base in his efforts to make Ottawans seem like hicks who need to get with the program and act like they live in a world-class city is in believing that concert-goers in other cities act differently. I've seen the same types of behaviour at jazz festivals in San Francisco, Vancouver, Montreal and, yes, New York City. In Spain, I've seen audience members at jazz concerts more excited by the pintxos they buy between acts than headline performances.

One of the best things about festivals is that they welcome all comers. During my 24 years observing Ottawa's jazz festival I've seen the same people over and over. Some of them bring a book to every concert. Some of them treat the concerts like background music as they unpack picnic baskets and sip wine from plastic cups. Some of them seem to lack any grace whatsoever (to the woman who held a loud conversation on her cellphone during the percussion workshop last week, may your BlackBerry be stolen). At least they are there, and hopefully repeated exposure will improve their appreciation.

Jazz and Lifelong Learning

Outside my office at the Ottawa jazz festival, I answered a few questions for a reporter about the importance of music education.

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A Few High Notes To Finish

The 30th edition of the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival wrapped up last night, ending with an exhilarating performance by Tomasz Stanko's quintet—which might well have garnered many people's nomination for best indoor performance, had it not been for the stunning show that trumpeter Christian Scott gave in the same venue two hours before.

Exposing listeners to relative newcomers like Scott at the same time as giving them a rare opportunity to experience masters like Stanko is what the festival does best. This year, it also did a good job at giving large outdoor audiences what they wanted: a chance to be uplifted by party music from the likes of Smokey Robinson, Kenny Garrett and John Scofield. So, it was appropriate that a large crowd was still shaking it in Confederation Park to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings in the moments after Stanko had finished indoors.

As usual, The Ottawa Citizen's Peter Hum has written a thorough overview of the festival as he saw it.

Metal Machine Improv

I played hooky from Ottawa's jazz festival last night to head down the road two hours to Montreal to catch the trio of Lou Reed, John Zorn and Laurie Anderson. It promised to be entertaining; it was that in more ways than one.

What began as a capacity audience was reduced by about 20 percent after the first, long piece—which was greeted by loud, sustained booing, catcalls and angry expletives all around me. Those who were clapping seemed to be momentarily overwhelmed.

"Play some music," yelled someone behind me and to my left.

"If you don't think this is music then get the fuck out of here," shouted Zorn, dismissing the booers with both arms.

What were these 500 or so disgruntled people expecting? Versions of "Sweet Jane" or "Walk On The Wild Side?" Perhaps an electronic rendering of Zorn's later, peaceful film music? Maybe for $100 and up they were expecting a show that met each and every one of their individual wishes.

What they received were huge slabs of sound, led mostly by Reed's heavily processed guitar with Zorn's manic, overblown alto roaring over top. Anderson acted mostly as the tiller person, steering this massive craft with slashes and filigrees. At its most noisy, it resembled Metal Machine Music meets Albert Ayler, which was stimulating, but there were long swatches of great beauty, as well.

After a main set of about 63 minutes, and a generous encore, the musicians stood and waved to prolonged cheers, acknowledging those who had remained open enough to see where the journey went.

Early This Morning

Everyone knew last night's jam session at the 2010 TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival had the potential to go nuclear, what with Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Matt Wilson and Manu Katché in town with their respective bands.

The hang at the bar—with Wilson, Lovano, Cuong Vu and others—was terrific, but what was happening on the bandstand was something else again. I left before Lovano sat in, but my friend Peter Hum captured it all here.

De-construction Site

Of the many myths shattered or illuminated by Robin Kelley's engaging biography of Thelonious Monk, one of the most revealing was that Monk, Kenny Clarke, Dizzy Gillespie and the other denizens of Minton's Playhouse did not set out to deliberately confound their musician peers with their new music. Rather, it was a situation where talented, young musicians collectively sought to play their way out of idiomatic dead-ends that had developed: apply these substitution chords to this structure and see what happens.

The allusion to that 70-year-old revolutionary step was impossible to miss when Mostly Other People Do The Killing morphed from one of their speed-jazz original compositions into Gillespie's "A Night In Tunisia" inside the OLG tent at last night's gig at the 2010 TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival. Today, most young musicians who go through BMusic programs at NYU or the University of Michigan graduate knowing more about harmony than Monk and his associates knew at the end of their lives. They don't only know how Stravinsky influenced Charlie Parker; they also know how Parker influenced hip-hop artists who influenced Jason Moran and Robert Glasper. The world is a bigger place, and every young musician worth his or her AFM card knows how to get around it.

Let's blow it all up, agreed bassist Moppa Elliot, trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon and drummer Kevin Shea. With a sensibility that seems equal parts Spike Jones and The Bad Plus, MOPDtK shred musical conventions with all the abandon of the boppers and all the reverence of Ornette Coleman. They drive people out of their gigs in anger, and drive just as many people to yell lusty encouragement.

What those who leave miss is the level of technical skill that the quartet brings to the music. Evans is a ridiculously talented trumpeter who once told me that he takes as much influence from Cootie Williams as he does from Don Cherry. That he can take cues from both pioneers and create something new—like the burbling phrases he played through a close-miked Harmon mute, doubling Elliott's bassline—is the kind of thing that makes MOPDtK the most-exciting live band I've seen in quite a while.

Painting With A Full Palette

A few years ago, a jazz composer told me that he was genuinely sorry when he graduated from university, because it meant that he didn't know when he would next get the chance to hear his music played by a full ensemble.

Such is the lot of the composer/arranger. Famously, during the 1950s, the great Gil Evans languished for years in the wilderness (his New York City apartment, actually) before Miles Davis swept him up, rich with a new Columbia Records contract.

From the stage in Confederation Park last night, one of Evans's most-prominent successors—Montreal-based Christine Jensen—thanked people for coming out to hear what she said was the equivalent of a month's work for a small group: three prime-time gigs with her jazz orchestra. Featuring her gifted older sister Ingrid on trumpet and electronics, Jensen's band is studded with many of Montreal's finest players, and her compositions—many of them inspired by the landscape of Vancouver Island—are rich additions to the jazz orchestra canon. It's great to hear the band, but just a shame that more people won't get the chance.

Smokey Does It

It's so easy to be disappointed by your childhood heroes, and I've seen my share of elderly rock, blues and jazz performers coasting their way through a set to the next paycheque. I was prepared for a pleasantly nostalgic evening in the company of Smokey Robinson, but was suitably impressed by a consummate professional who still knows how to show an audience a great time.

He might lay the sex appeal on a little too strong for a senior citizen, but while he's cooing about lingering in bed with his lover he's also reminding you that he's the man who showed Marvin Gaye how to be sensual onstage, and the master who schooled young Michael Jackson. Mr. Robinson still has it, and while he might look a little silly at his age in red leather pants, 37 Top 40 songs give you the right to do just what you want. He rested his voice on the opening pair of songs, leading me to think that he didn't have much left in his high range, but for the rest of the evening—and it was a lengthy set—his marvellous instrument seemed as supple as ever. There's a lot of show biz in his act but, in spite of the set patter and the pair of dancers who took me back to that part of my youth that was "misspent" hanging out at the Coppertone Revue on the midway of the local carnival, he seemed to be in the moment and having a great time interacting with an audience that was happy just to be spending a beautiful evening with him.

At Least The Pestilence Missed Us

So, Day -1 of the 2010 TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival (the festival officially starts tomorrow) began with reports of bad weather... so bad in Chicago that drummer Max Weinberg and his big band were grounded long enough to miss their narrow transportation window.

Then, an earthquake hit. Only a 5.5—a mere shiver by Haitian or Californian standards, but pretty severe in this part of North America—but enough to throw travel into additional disarray (did I mention that the Chinese president was arriving in the city, shutting down the airport and various roads?). That threw Gil Scott-Heron off his schedule. First he was flying to Montreal and being driven to Ottawa, then direct to Ottawa but delayed, and then...really delayed.

Scott-Heron's backing trio gamely took the stage in his absence—by this time it was raining pretty steadily—but with just keyboards, sax and congas their repertoire was mighty limited.

Scott-Heron finally joined his band around 10 p.m. (his show was originally slotted for 7:30).

Now ready for the real thing.

It's On!

Moving to my onsite office tomorrow afternoon for the start of the 30th annual TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival. Hoping to do some blogging, time permitting.

Every year—whether I'm working for the festival or just observing—people ask me which acts are on the top of my list. There's so much to choose from over 12 days of music, but I will pick one band to highlight.

A few years ago, in Vancouver, I caught guitarist Gord Grdina's Boxcutter with clarinetist François Houle and fell in love with them. Grdina is an exciting soloist who brings something of a punk attitude to music that alludes broadly to John McLaughlin, and Houle remains an underrated master of his horn. I'm hoping this band will transport me again, and win a huge bunch of Eastern Canadian fans.

See you at the festival.