The next couple of weeks are six string heaven with an incredible number of axe slingers performing in Vancouver.
 Starting with a real feast, the New Music Society presents Guitars! Guitars! at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street. For four nights running from Wednesday October 17th to Saturday the 20th (with four hours scheduled per night), there’s a broad survey of creative guitar players. Highlights include:
- Bill Frisell – no stranger to Vancouver audiences, he was here most recently in the spring. But although he’s performed here in ensembles ranging from duets to large improvising orchestras, I don’t recall his ever having done a solo performance. His first commercial recording was actually a solo recording of Juliette of the Spirits for a Nino Rota tribute album and he’s recorded many solo pieces, complex and evocative such as Rag.
 - Rene Lussier – has neglected Vancouver in recent years but has been here many times in collaborations with the NOW Orchestra and related musicians,Les Granules (his ongoing duet with Jean Derome), and other visiting ensembles. A particular favorite was the Four Guitarists of the Apocalypso Bar at the old French Cultural Centre on 16th; that’s going back quite a ways. A master of tapes and twinning guitar lines with spoken word as in his masterpiece La Tresor de la Langue, an musical evocation of the French language in Quebec.
- Keith Rowe – co-founder of the legendary British free improvisation group AMM along with percussionist Eddie Prevost, Rowe is a sound sculptor who famously eschews tuning, using the guitar as a producer of the raw material that he can chop into malleable pieces sometime with physical chopping utensils. Sonically, he stands somewhere between Derek Bailey and Hans Reichel but he’s left his mark on many innovators including Michael Nyman, Syd Barrett, and Brian Eno.
- Tony Wilson - A natural, musically omnivorous player, Wilson's contributions to the Canadian creative music scene have been immense, mainly via his close working relationships with the finest players in Vancouver's jazz and creative music community. Past projects have included Video Barbeque, Celtic Works, Bugs Inside, Flowers for Albert, The Monkaholics. His current working groups are both sextets, one composed of the younger generation of Vancouver's finest (Jesse Zubot, Masa Anzai, JP Carter, Russell Sholberg & Skye Brooks), the other composed of Tony's generation of players (Peggy Lee, Dave Say, Kevin Elaschuk, Paul Blaney & Dylan van der Schyff). Aside from duo projects, he tours and composes at a steady pace. He has performed with some of the greatest practitioners and proponents in jazz and creative music worlds including Vinny Golia, Myra Melford, Gerry Hemingway, Han Bennink, William Parker & the like. [Summary courtesy of Zula]
- A guitarist’s pick of other great players (Gord Grdina, Sir Richard Bishop etc.), too many to go into here.
 Also Wednesday at the Cellar, CJBS presents a protégé of both Ed Bickert and Jim Hall, David Occhipinti alighting to support his new recording Forty Revolutions. Occhipinti leads the quartet featured on the recording, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, Andrew Downing on bass and Terry Clarke on drums.
 Next Tuesday October 23rd drummer/percussionist Scott Amendola brings his quintet to Ironworks. As the regular drummer for T.J.Kirk with Charlie Hunter and Will Bernard, and a collaborator with the aforementioned Bill Frisell, Amendola has certainly worked with some great guitar players. Guitarists in his group this time round are both Jeff Parker from the Chicago Underground and Tortoise and a previously unannounced addition Nels Cline. Nels Cline has been turning heads as a fairly recent addition to the rock group Wilco, but jazzers have been onto his work with Julius Hemphill and the JAH Band, Vinny Golia and the Nine Winds family, OrchestROVA and his own Nels Cline Singers for some time. Add Jenny Scheinman on violin (another frequent collaborator with Frisell) and they’ll blow the roof off the joint. Another CJBS production.
Other short (six-string) notes:
- Talking Pictures with Ron Samworth on guitar featuring new music at Ironworks on Saturday October 27th.
- Tony Wilson and Ron Samworth duo at 1067 Granville Friday October 19th.
- Tony Wilson’s quartet at Rime October 23rd.
- Guitarist Bill Horvitz (Wayne’s brother) with his trio featuring Steve Adams from Rova at at 1067 Granville Thursday November 1st.
- Guitarist Pat Coleman with Bob Murphy on B3 organ, Phil Dwyer on saxophone, and Joe Labarbera at the Cellar on October 26th (matinee on the 27th)
- Strunz and Farah at Cap College on October 27th.
- If that’s not enough for you, you can head to Seattle for Earshot to hear John Abercrombie, Gene Bertoncini, Vieux Farka Touré, or the Nels Cline Singers!
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