The following review, in a slightly edited form, first appeared in Coda Magazine (Issue 299, September/October 2001).

The first Vancouver Festival ran in conjunction with Expo 1986 and much of its content was based on Artistic Director Ken Pickering's friendship with musicians that he had presented in preceding years. From this beginning the Coastal Jazz & Blues Society have developed what is arguably the finest and most diverse festival in North America, avoiding the popular concept ideologies that dominate most events these days. At this festival it was possible to hear numerous players who are responsible for original personal language, information of our time; as important now as were Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane to their history. This time around they included the saxophonists Steve Lacy and Evan Parker, bassist Barre Phillips, percussionist Paul Lytton, trombonist Johannes Bauer, and from the younger generation saxophonists John Butcher and Mats Gustaffson. Few of them wearing suits!

Barry Guy, Evan Parker, Matts Gustaffson, and Hans Koch. Photo by Bill Smith

Having attended many of these festivals (as musician, writer and photographer) has inspired me on many levels to investigate the development of the creative process that is loosely called jazz; on this occasion the main focus was Barry Guy's New Orchestra and the splinter groups culled from it.

Three venues dominate my choices; the Vancouver East Cultural Centre ‹ locally referred to as "The Cultch", a fine old church-like building, Western Front that was once a Knights of Pytheus meeting place, and Performance Works, a converted warehouse.

The Cultch series began with an evening of "cabaret art" music, with Vancouver diva Kate Hammett-Vaughan's project, "Songs to a Muse", the text and music written by local talent and performed by a well-rehearsed quintet. A wonderful beginning. The feature attraction of the evening was the Steve Lacy Quintet focusing mainly on material from the upcoming "Beat Suite" release, with the text of eminent beat poets Jack Kerouac, Robert Creeley and such, vocalized by Irene Aebi. Unlike Kate's project it sounded under-rehearsed, with the highlights being the marvelous trombone work of George Lewis, and the whole band cohesive on Lacy's "Blinks" and Monk's "Bye-Ya". A curiously disjointed evening.

The second evening, two quartets with the common denominator of Marilyn Crispell and Barry Guy, were drawn from Barry's New Orchestra, and set the standard for much of the improvised music that was to be presented at this festival. The first proposal added Swedes Mats Gustaffson (saxophones) and Raymond Strid (drums), instantly establishing a raucous free jazz mood, reminding one of the ghosts of Albert Ayler and Frank Wright. A powerful urgency in the message, subterranean blues trying to jump-start a bland world. Judging by the many new youthful folk in the audience, almost desperate to applaud, it would seem that there is a new revolution abroad. Is it still attached to social/political philosophy as it was all those years ago at Slugs?

Proposal two adds Evan Parker and Paul Lytton to the mix giving us the Parker/ Guy/ Lytton trio with a guest pianist they have worked with successfully on other occasions. The trio establishes the mood, with vast personal experiences, more than twenty years of intimate interaction. It is instantly apparent that these gentle banshee warriors are the masters of our time. A subtlety of space arrived at from a life together. Pianistic beauty becomes the focus with Evan listening intently, allowing Marilyn to establish her ideas: breathing, breathing, no clutter, prestidigitators of sound. Often tidal, waves changing every grain of sand with each in/out-flow, sometimes sensuous song as gracious as fine china arranged on a patterned linen tablecloth, other times rhythmic energy so powerful it fills the darkness of the theatre, the audience still desperate to applaud, finally coming to an end as Coltrane's spirit crept secretly into Evan's song. Ascension perhaps!

Normally listing all the members of an orchestra would be wasted words, but in this case, as MC Diva announced: This is the cream of European musicians. So apart from the two quartets equaling six, you add Hans Koch (bass & contrabass clarinets and soprano saxophone), Johannes Bauer (trombone), Herb Robertson (trumpet) and Per Ake Homlander (tuba), making an orchestra from ten powerful individual improvisers.

As though continuing from the previous evening, Barry Guy's New Orchestra opened with the trio of Parker/ Guy/ Lytton the first of seven movements in a suite titled "Nasca Lines" which was written for the Upstream Ensemble in Halifax and premiered the previous week at the Nova Scotia Festival. The second set was the complete version of the suite, "Inscape - Tableaux". The scores, notated mostly in graphic form, are works of art in themselves, the requirement to perform them relying on the brilliance of the improvising musicians listed above, all chosen from Barry Guy's shared history with them. To describe this experience blow-by-blow is not possible for it ranged from dense mighty roars to hear a pin drop dynamics; one section ending in a flutter tongue rumble. It all began with a high pitch stratospheric wail setting a baby off in the audience then both subsiding into gentleness. What a fortunate child to be introduced to such music so early in life. Moments of great big band riffs, at one point reminding me of my favourite London Jazz Composers Orchestra recording, "Harmos", but realizing that it is the signature sound of the composer that I am hearing, as identifiable and distinct as the great composers of history; a Duke Ellington or a Charles Mingus. Did I imagine that Marilyn Crispell was the potion that awoke the beast from movement to movement? I became so entranced that I forgot about writing in the dark!

Of the five splinter groups, two reviewed above, the brass trio of Robertson, Homlander & Bauer in performance at Western Front, was the other that caught my attention. Three exceptional improvising brass players simply working off each other with an arsenal of extended techniques, hardly a Sally Ann oompah, lotsa humour, with the standout being the push-me-off-the pavement trombone of Johannes Bauer.

One more time at the Cultch, with Bentje Braam, a international quintet under the leadership of Dutch pianist/composer Michiel Braam, performing an original collection, "The Second Cool Book". Oh so cool, not really Warne and Lee but that era observed by Europeans who often have a much clearer view of American history than Americans themselves. Especially the humour.

Another element of this festival is the daytime free events which attract a most diverse assortment of listeners of all ilk and ages. Sunny mid-day walkabouts reaped charming interludes on the Granville Island stage: Saul Berson's quartet in a Musette mood, Bruce Freedman's free-bop trio, Tony Wilson in trio with the great Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode and Steve Arguelles getting close to Hendrix. The Performance Works series opening with John Butcher, especially in duet with Dylan van der Schyff, fitting well with the loud starlings, dog barks and baby gurgles; the detailed string trio of bassist Barre Philips, cellist Martin Shütz and violinist Hans Burgener, also heard the previous evening at the Front, and the introverted trio music of pianist Sten Sandell. Even one of the lunch-bag office crowd events had the Anna Lumiere Quartet with boss tenor Graham Ord. We won a bottle of water for guessing that the tune being played was "On Green Dolphin Street". Yeah!

Other events that bear mention: A double bill with Tim Berne's Hard Cell high energy trio, and the unusual configuration of Dave Douglas, Louis Sclavis, Barre Phillips and Dylan van der Schyff, taking a while to come to terms with their newness; the NOW Orchestra's open improvisation for general admission, and finally my last night, spent at 1067, a non-festival musicians loft venue, saying good-bye to friends, having a pint or two, and listening to the superb nonet of composer/guitarist Tony Wilson.

There was of course much more music, but my old bones couldn't make it to everything; so as Molloy sez: Perhaps I'm inventing a little, perhaps embellishing, but on the whole that's the way it was.