For further info see the VIFF website

Since its release last month, accolades for the Phil Dwyer Orchestra‘s release Changing Seasons have been seemingly unanimous. Writing for a large ensemble, especially incorporating strings is notoriously tough to pull off.  Most jazz projects with strings end up being star vehicles (like Charlie Parker or Clifford Brown “with strings”), head-butting exercises (Stan Getz or Ornette Coleman “versus strings”), sonic sweetening, or unnaturally forced third-stream amalgamations.  As a composer Phil Dwyer has managed to write an extended jazz orchestra piece which is not only an organic blending of all the members of the ensemble but profoundly democratic in its approach.

In fact, rather than being a star vehicle for Dwyer himself (whose talents on both saxophone and piano would certainly justify that role), the featured soloist is violinist Mark Fewer who straddles the jazz and classical world having performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (as concertmaster from 2004 to 2008), as featured soloist with the Hard Rubber Orchestra, is chair of the Schulich School of Music and who has numerous recordings of contemporary music.

Phil Dwyer was my guest on the A-Trane earlier this month and after taking pains to ensure that pianist Chris Gestrin was properly credited for his outstanding solo in the Spring movement of Changing Seasons, he expanded on his sister’s comment:

PD: Sometimes when I listen to it I feel the same way.  When I listen to it, I can hear the results of all those years of hard work and studying and trying to decode some of the mysteries of the great players.

The string session was just magic, one thing I try to do every time I write something is bring the lessons of the previous projects to bear on whatever I’m working on.  So over the last number of many years of writing for string players in different situations, you start to learn how to speak their language and what kinds of things they feel comfortable doing. The same concept as writing for horn players but they tend to be different things, you can write for a great string section but sometimes it’s rhythmic issues that creep in and stop it from sounding really integrated.  I got lucky or I’ve been paying attention because the first few times I wrote for strings there were definitely some things that I just didn’t know and I went on a mission to try to learn as much as possible.  It continues, not really a process that I can see an end to …

ND: Let’s back up a little bit, can you talk a little bit about how the session came about?

PD: The piece came about as a piece that I had proposed to [violinist] Mark Fewer, he thought it was a good idea and we went through a few early drafts in terms of what instrumentation it would be.  Eventually we worked out a partnership between the jazz program and the string program at McGill University.  We did a performance there almost exactly a year ago with a combination of McGill students, some teachers and some members of the freelance community.  It went well and it really gave us an idea of what went well in the piece.

So from November of last year to July of this year [2011], I did anything I could to make the recording happen. I tried to figure out where to do it and I’m really happy that we decided to do it [at The Factory studio] in Vancouver.  I was on the floor with a bunch of musicians that I grew up playing with, and some of them were my teachers when I was younger like [saxophonist] Tom Keenliside and [trombonist/composer] Ian McDougall.  The comfort level between the musicians was really high.  There were a few people I wanted to bring in as special guests, Walter White who has worked with Maynard Ferguson and Jazz at Lincoln Center came and played lead trumpet, [trumpeter] Ingrid Jensen came in and did a cameo solo on one tune, her husband Jon [Wikan] was playing drums and [saxophonist] PJ Perry came from out of town.  But out of the 38-piece band, 33 of them were Vancouver musicians.

ND: I was thinking with Ingrid Jensen’s solo spot, she drops into so many sessions and does one tune that just lifts the bandstand.  Like her performance on Transit with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society or the Diva Jazz Orchestra or Maria Schneider – always comes in and nails it beautifully, and her solo on Winter is so wonderful.

PD: We did six takes of her solo and each take was better than the other one!  But the one that’s on the record is so great, she’s ridiculous!  By the way, you’ll notice that Winter is the longest track which is a tribute to Canadian reality but in the middle of it we go south!

ND: The recording is marked as recorded in association with The Hard Rubber Orchestra which I believe both you and Mark Fewer have collaborated with and of course, John Korsrud and a number of other hard rubbers play on the recording.

PD: The Hard Rubber organization and Diane Kadota were absolutely key in getting this done from an administrative standpoint.  I had a bevy of very generous private sponsors for a very expensive project – I was really lucky in knowing people that believed in what I was doing and I was able to tell people with an absolutely straight face that this was the best work that I’d done ever.  So now that it’s out and it’s getting really well reviewed, I think that everybody’s really pleased to be a part of it.

ND: You don’t really do that many projects as a leader, even the trio recording [Let Me Tell You About My Day] is a few years old now.

PD:  That’s almost ten years ago, I’m trying to be the least recorded as a leader ever!

ND: But on the other hand as a sideman, you’re incredibly well-recorded …

PD: Well that’s my thing, I could make records all the time I guess but I played on – I wouldn’t even know where to start counting – there are about 50 records that I could unreservedly recommend to people to listen to that have my playing on them.  I worked as a freelance sideman for so long in Toronto that I never really got that leader mentality. I worked as musical director jobs and that sort of thing but this project was just one of those things that popped into my mind and before I could even start thinking about all the reasons why if wouldn’t be possible, I was well underway!

If you’re looking at recording a 35 minute piece of contemporary art music for a 40 piece band, you wouldn’t have to think too hard to find reasons why not to do it.  But I’m sure glad that I hung in there, it was well worth it – I’m 45 years old, I joined the union when I was 16 and so 29 years into my career here I am …

ND: It’s funny this morning I was just thinking about the first time I heard your name, I started doing this very radio show back in 1986 at the old location of Coop Radio and you had recorded a cart for Coop Radio that I think I can still paraphrase as “when I’m at home I’m either practicing or listening to Coop Radio” and then you went off on some great long saxophone cadenza and I thought that sounds great, gotta hear more of this.  And you must have been all of 19 …

PD: Exactly, I did that for Les [Szabo] who used to do The Joint is Jumping [live from the Classical Joint] which I could get in Qualicum if I put my arm out at a 38 degree angle and held a wire coat hanger …

ND: and you probably still can … so how’s life in Qualicum Beach [on Vancouver Island] these days?

PD: Pretty nice, it’s kind of a sleepy town, it comes and goes – right now not so much time on the road but I’m enjoying that too, I’ve got a big two and a half acre yard and there’s always something to do out there. we have a big vegetable garden and we’re trying to eat out of the garden twelve months a year (ed note: Changing Seasons?).

ND: One of the things on my list (someday) is to come over to the Music and Culinary Arts Festival that you put on every year – is it on again for this year?

PD:  We’re trying to decide that right now – it looks like it’s going to be a pretty busy summer playing-wise so we’ll see.  Last year I did a few private camps for adult musicians that went really well, it was really fun.  We’ll probably do some version of it but two years ago, we did a month straight with about 25 concerts, had a hundred and twenty students and it was a big undertaking.  Looking after the administration myself, it’s a lot of work but a lot of fun, sure ate well though….

ND: Were you involved with the Bamfield Festival as well?  Some friends of mine went up to that and were talking about how wonderful it was – the setting and the integration between the chamber music and the jazz, the feeling that there no musical borders there at all, all put together so wonderfully.

PD: It worked well this year, more so than in previous years – right from the beginning this year, people were making plans to work together and I wrote an expansion of a piece that I’d written a few years ago that had almost everybody, I think about 25 out of 28 musicians, that was pretty fun.  But it’s an amazing spot, I just love the west coast!  I go out to Bamfield and I would live there …

ND: It sounds like there are more and more musicians who are based on Vancouver Island who travel for work but love to stay there, bassist Ken Lister who’s on the recording and a bunch of other folks …

PD: There are lots of well-known people that live on Vancouver Island but travel for work.

ND: So what’s upcoming on your calendar?

PD: I’m playing in Vancouver with my good buddy [drummer] Alan Jones and a bass player from Portland named Tom Wakeling (Wednesday Dec 7th at the Cellar also with Chris Gestrin, Brad Turner, and Steve Kaldestad) and Friday/Saturday (December 9/10) I’ll be at the Cellar again with my Great Canadian Songbook project (with Jillian Lebeck, Vince Mai, Dave Sikula, Andre Lachance and Joe Poole).

ND: Wonderful stuff, I know quite a few people who couldn’t get into the CBC show at the Jazz Festival last year because it was so packed so it’ll be great to have another opportunity to hear it live.

—

The Changing Seasons Suite really does mark a new stage in Phil Dwyer‘s development as an artist, an ambitious work that totally delivers on its promise.  As Phil Dwyer has described it, the theme running through the composition is change.  “Changing weather, changing climatic conditions, the changing economic structure of the world and some big changes in my own life.  It’s a call to acknowledge the fact of all these changes taking place and a query as to what are we going to do about it.”

In this case at the very least, the change is for the good.

—

This interview was condensed and edited from an interview on The A-Trane Radio Program recorded on Nov 4th 2011.

The full interview with excerpts from movements Spring and Winter can be heard here:

The A-Trane Friday November 4th 2011 3PM

The 2011 Vancouver Jazz Festival performance of Phil Dwyer‘s Great Canadian Songbook project is available through CBC’s Concerts on Demand, the full concert in audio and selected performances as video (under the Jazz tab).

As mentioned above, Phil Dwyer will be appearing at the Cellar in early December with two different ensembles, more information available at The Cellar website.

Changing Seasons by the Phil Dwyer Orchestra Featuring Mark Fewer, composed and arranged by Phil Dwyer is now available on the Alma Records label.

OCTOBER 21st & 22nd at CORY WEEDS’ CELLAR JAZZ CLUB

They want hear your voice! Please fill out the survey!

Visit the web site.

The Phil Dwyer Septet featuring Laila Biali videos are now online.

Look for 5 new videos of the Nightcrawlers with the Big Band Sound coming soon.

All CBC music videos here:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/videos/

No matter how much you deny it, this day always comes. I always wake up on Day 10 with a heavy, sad heart. Heavy both with its fullness from the extravaganza of the previous nine days’ packed full with music and great hangs, and, of course, sadness that all the rest of the days of the year can’t be the same. Thank the universe for the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. And thank the universe for the pretty wicked Vanky music scene, which includes a great variety of music including so much blessed jazz and improv/creative sounds.

André Lachance Quatuor @ Roundhouse – Festival Stage

Funky, fun group of four of Van’s best that clearly resonated with the audience at this free stage. Great to hear Brad Turner on the Rhodes, Chris Gestrin holding down the bottom-end, playing bass lines on the Moog, the near-ubiquitous (that’s a good thing) and sensitive drummer Joe Poole, and of course, Lachance leading the quartet with some fine guitar. Album please!

Kjaergaard/Street/Cyrille @ Roundhouse – Performance Centre

Popped in to hear some of this, and see what bassist Ben Street was up to since I last heard him some years ago. In another frame of mind/mood, I’d have loved this mellow, spacious, piano-led trio, but not on this day.

Kevin Elaschuk Quartet @ Roundhouse – Exhibition Hall

Kevin Elaschuk, man of many hats and a soaring horn sound

When a gig like this is on the schedule, it can be easy to think, ‘Oh, they’re local. I can see them anytime.’ I’m certainly not immune to it (though I usually have crazy work hours to blame… ;o). But that line of thinking can backfire, and if you missed this gig, you missed an absolutely joyously swinging couple of sets by four great Vancouver musicians who were clearly in the zone. Elaschuk sounded fantastic, with a strong, soaring clarity combined with the heart and soul he can’t help but put into it and that’s a magical musical happening. Hearing tenor saxist Ross Taggart for the first time in years reminded me of what a swinging, joyful player he is – he brings such spirit to the proceedings, and roused the crowd with some fantastic solos. Add the graciously solid and lively swing of bassist André Lachance and fast-becoming-a-fave Joe Poole on drums, and you’ve got a gig that no one seemed to want to leave after set one, including me – and Swedish fave Atomic was starting next door before Elaschuk’s awesome Quartet would be finished. An extremely enjoyable and memorable, high-energy late afternoon gig. Didn’t even miss the adult beverage area gone from the room – too busy being high on music instead, seduced by the swing. Thanks boys!

André Lachance, Joe Poole and Kevin Elaschuk in the zone

Atomic

Fredrik Ljunkvist and Magnus Broo cooking up something hot

Hot, tight and hyper. Just how we love our cool-climate Scandinavian jazz. Nevermind that my heart was still next door with the glow of the Kevin Elaschuk Quartet vibe still swelling it, Atomic was only after the body, and it took it: feet tapping away, trying desperately not to make noise on the floor when those sudden silences in the form of dead stops on a dime (like I said, tight) occurred. Such skilled players, such intense connectivity with each other and in that intimate space of the Performance Centre with the audience literally starting two feet away. Not for the faint of heart. Or body, for that matter. Yet another fine onslaught, as expected, and yet even beyond. A welcome and beautiful pummeling with which to end the fest.

Now what?

Want more music year round? Go out! Easy as that. Go to http://www.coastaljazz.ca/ and  http://vancouverjazz.com/ and http://vancouverjazz.com/webcalendar/index.php. Check your local listings. It’s out there, it’s happening, dig it. (See ya there!)

Need MORE music, as in Vancouver’s own Music Centre? (We’ve got film, we’ve got dance – next logical step….) Go here: http://www.vancouvermusiccentre.ca/. Check out what this group is looking to do; voice your opinion, get involved. Let’s make a beautiful music centre together, shall we?

Thanks, Coastal Jazz, for the soul-filling. And yes, thanks everyone from the army of volunteers to the amazing sound technicians to the money, in the form of sponsors, for making it happen. It is appreciated.

While the Jazz Festival is over for another (great!) year, we all know jazz is a 365-day-a-year happening in Vancouver. Lisa Cay Miller, another very active musician (aren’t we lucky?) on the Vancouver scene, takes the 20 Questions Quiz.

At what age did you start playing an instrument and what was it?

I was 3 or 4 when I first started playing the piano.

Do you still play the first instrument you started on? What others do you play?

Yes! I play flute (I was a flute major in college, but I don’t play it often now).

What has been the biggest surprise you’ve experienced about playing music as a career?

I wish that the arts were a more integral part of our cultural identity and more important in our society.

If you could travel back 5, 10 (20?) years, what’s something you wish you knew about music or even the business that must happen for music to be heard?

I still don’t know what must happen for music to be heard. The music business is a mystery to me.

What are your thoughts, in general, on Vancouver’s jazz scene?

There are many dedicated creative musicians here and a lot of very intelligent and committed programmers. I love that.

What musician(s) or genre might your audience be surprised to find you a fan of? And why are they worth checking out?

I don’t know if they would be surprised, but I love Tom Jobim and Elis Regina. They are so insanely musical, and so personal in their approach.

What’s happening in your musical life, currently, and what are you working toward in the relatively near future?

I’ve got an incredible year coming! Q (Peggy Lee, Steve Smith, Dylan van der Schyff, Eyvind Kang and I) just recorded our second album, and we’ll be touring with Eyvind Kang in Belgium, France and the Netherlands in May of 2012. I’m really looking forward to that. I just finished new piece for the ensemble mmm… (flute, violin and piano) which will be premiered in Tokyo, September 29, 2011. In November of 2011, I’ll be the Artist in Residence at De Bijloke Music Centre in Gent, Belgium, performing my compositions with with Audrey Chen, cellist from Baltimore, Jean Yves Evrard, guitarist from France and Jaochim Badenhorst, Belgium reed player living in New York. In March of 2012, I’ll be in New York City for a month, composing, performing and studying with composer Bunita Marcus, pianists Sylvie Courviosier and Denman Maroney and composer/performer Ikue Mori. I’m feeling very lucky!

Tell me about a memorable gig you had at a previous Vancouver International Jazz Festival?

One of my favorite performances at the festival was when Q performed at the Roundhouse in 2009, and also the group’s debut performance by Q at the Cultch in 2002. I really enjoyed improvising with Peggy Lee and Nicole Mitchell at Ironworks in last year’s festival.

Tell me about a favourite gig you heard at a previous Vancouver International Jazz Festival?

I really loved seeing Barry Guy New Orchestra in 2008. I Found it incredibly inspiring – what a great band, and amazing compositions.

What gig(s) (other than your own) are you looking forward to at this year’s festival and why?

I’m really looking forward to hearing Colin Stetson. I heard him perform with Eyvind Kang and Laurie Anderson in Delusion, and he really knocked me out. [Interviewer note: Of course this interview has been posted after the fest, but from what I heard, most who caught Stetson would agree he lived up to his rep.]

Lisa Cay Miller

ON THE RECORD: Lisa Miller Octet – ‘Sleep Furiously’, available by contacting: greenideas@telus.net

ON THE WEB: http://www.myspace.com/lisamillergroups

ON STAGE: Lisa Cay Miller performs solo piano every Sunday in July 2011 at O’Doul’s Restaurant & Bar 9pm-12am.

Magnus Broo & Paal Nilssen-Love @ Roundhouse – Performance Centre

Paal Nilssen-Love listens awfully closely to Magnus Broo

Bummed bummed bummed to have missed this. Came into Performance Centre during last piece; very quiet, very spare, very not what I expected, but with no idea what came before. Saving it for later…? Merely winding down from earlier high? Maybe, The Thing was still to come… and it’s, well, some Thing.

Beer Garden

Party in the park

Or the Cider Garden, as I prefer to recall it. Bigger and more well-placed than the last time I saw it, the expanded Cider Garden offered a primo, if sorta distant, view of the stage, and of the goings-on of the audience in front of it. Awesome! I’m not sure if the sole person taking money and making change for ticket purchases was working alone because slower consumption was in order, given some of the city’s behavior a few weeks back, or simply what was deemed ample staffing, but I can tell you that once or twice, it didn’t feel ample. Cause then you had to go and line up again to have someone pour your drink from a spout attached to the side of a truck. Which was pretty cool. And even made you kinda forget you had to line up twice. I’d like one of those in my driveway.

The Thing @ Roundhouse – Performance Centre

There is nothing like sitting in a darkened theatre-style room that is clearly designed for maximum listening experience, with a few hundred of your closets friends (and they must be, if you’re all there to hear something like The Thing – there’s a certain bond amongst this crowd). Black curtains all around, theatre-style seating, and the stage is mere feet from the front row, literally at their feet, on the floor, and (of course!) amazing sound. If the gods are willing, this music is transporting, free and flowing wherever you will let it take you. Just let it. And, really, you shouldn’t even bother trying when it’s Scandinavian powerhouse trio The Thing. Norwegian Paal Nilssen-Love is an absolute shit-kicking, fierce drummer –fierce like I-wouldn’t-want-to-meet-him-in-a-dark-alley-fierce; from a distance, standing away from the drum kit, sure, he looks like a nice, normal guy, but put him behind that kit and this focused ferocity comes across his face, channeling through his body into a royal ass-kicking of his kit that is truly awesome to behold (not to mention to feel the vibrations from across the floor). Fellow Osloite Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten, who has the best, boldest name (even more fun to say once you know how to pronounce it correctly), so can get away with being so low-key by seemingly trying to hide himself while literally draped over his bass, even when causing sheer thunder to rumble out of it. Blown away that Swedish saxist Mats Gustafsson uses the floor as a horn stand; literally just lies the instruments down. (I suppose it’s only fair to mention that he does take care to swivel the neck up so the mouthpiece doesn’t touch the floor.) It’s fitting, somehow, especially in this group, because he is kind of a brute with his bari and tenor saxes; creating strange and beautiful noises through what one would call traditional playing, but also smacking, honking, probably chomping, and definitely scream-yelling into his instrument. I usually sit in the back row, off to the side (easy escape), but sat in the second row for this: I wanted to be closer to The Thing, to have my head blown back and my brains blown out, like I knew they could. It worked. In fact, I wanted to see how it felt to be in that front row, centre; I was actually jealous of the people down there being bombarded at close range with way-out free jazz, Euro style, and turned up to 12. It’s usually preferable (to me, anyway) to have the heart engaged and the rest simply has no choice but to follow. The Thing hits lower, somewhere in the gut, pinning you back against your chair, senses heightened, highly attuned to the four-spirited machine (theirs, yours) that has you where they want you. And you can’t look away, either. Those heads down, eyes closed tight, frowns of extreme concentration involved in intense active listening that’s as much a part of the proceedings as the sounds they’re making. A full-body musical happening that I highly recommend if ever you get the chance. I sure hope to again.

Wilson/Lee/Bentley @ Ironworks

Whoever thought of putting these three together is a genius to whom fans of something real exhibited through passionate, honestly emotional music owe a debt of gratitude. Tony Wilson is revered for being a guitar player of extraordinarily creative skill who brings a rare spirit to his music, completely at one with his instrument as a very extension of himself, and a songwriter of achingly beautiful pieces. Coaxing a veritable orchestra of sounds out of her cello, Peggy Lee’s skill and sensitivity on the instrument and in her songwriting, are consistently astonishing. And there’s a cocooning magic in the gentle, warm tone of saxist Jon Bentley’s tenor sound – it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Any one of these musicians is capable of conjuring up musical magic, but put these three incredible musicians together just wait for the magic to start hovering above before it floats down to envelop you. Heart heavy, deep shallow breathing – ah, there you are – hadn’t felt you since Day 1’s infamously fantastic Tonbruket gig. This is soul music, pure and simple. And of course not so simple – complex, emotional storytelling weaving you in and out of a state of active consciousness, tripping along on edgy textures of scratching, striking bow on strings below cello bridge, sharp cello string pluckings, foreign objects inserted into guitar stings to warp and redefine its sound, smooth waves of tenor (or sorprano) melody sometimes shocked away briefly by the insertion of choppy, quick hits or smacks. There is no bullshit with these three; there’s no show, no on and off, seemingly no separation of music and musician. They all are the music they play. (Oh how I wish (for all of us) they had more opportunity to play together, and we can hope, but we can also see/hear these three in many settings because they are Vancouver’s very own (well, more or less around these parts, but we’re still claiming them). And you can get their gorgeous album ‘Escondido Dreams’ at Drip Audio, http://www.dripaudio.com/releases.php) A rare and beautiful experience, and easily a Top 3 highlight of the fest.

There is absolutely nothing that could get me to leave the mainland and take a boat to a small island so overcrowded it felt like half the country was on it and it might actually sink, with virtually no means of escaping quickly when one needed to. Except jazz. And the birthday of our dear Nation. No, not that one. Brian Nation.

Mats Gustafsson & Colin Stetson @ Performance Works, Granville Island

Missed most of this sax summit in two men, but heard last piece and encore and grabbed a few shots. So glad Gustafsson’s still a monster, attacking bari and tenor with a ferocity and physicality unmatched as far as I can see. Want to check out Stetson more when the chance arises (missed him rest of fest, too, as it’s Day 10 as I write this…, and I’m not sure how he escaped my attention while in Toronto off and on these last six years). So, will sum this short musical interlude up with this…

Mats Gustafsson blasts off

Peggy Lee Band @ Performance Works, Granville Island

I love Peggy Lee’s music. It’s rare that I am not psyched for (and extremely excited in anticipation of) it, but this day I was just not in the zone. A good reminder that if we don’t ‘get’ or enjoy something at a certain time, it doesn’t mean we won’t in another frame of mind/mood. I’ve fallen in love with so much music from giving it a try another time. Tough on this day, with this wonderful band, but there it was. Part of it, I think, was that I hadn’t heard tenor saxist Jon Bentley in about five years (maybe more?), and the anticipation of hearing him in what was certain to be an incredibly beautifully intimate trio setting with gifted cellist Lee and extraordinary guitarist Tony Wilson the next night at Ironworks (the gorgeous room where listening is paramount), simply negated any listening pleasure I would normally enjoy from this large ensemble.

Gord Grdina’s Nordic Sextet: The Listening @ Roundhouse – Performance Centre

Wow. A veritable Canadian-Scandinavian super group. There was a lot of excitement in the room for this gig. Grdina’s star continues to rise, and he’s got the goods, man. A very talented guitarist with the full package – technical abilities that amaze the eyes and ears, and the passion and emotion to engage the heart. Beautiful tunes that often blend Middle Eastern sounds with jazz and rock elements into pressure-cooker stunning musical expeditions. Throw in seriously heavy bassists x 2 in the forms of Vancouver’s Tommy Babin and Norway’s Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten (so much fun to say), kick-ass Vancouver drummer and longtime Grdina bandmate Kenton Loewen, and top it off with Swedish sax sensations Mats Gustafsson (very busy today with some hardcore playing) and Fredrik Ljungkvist (of beloved, brash Atomic, set for two gigs tonight, Sunday, July 3 at the Roundhouse – Performance Centre) and you are guaranteed to be blown away. Having just arrived that day from a gig the previous night in Ottawa, they played in that furious, insane way that only sheer exhaustion can fuel – and it was truly awesome to behold with the ears and eyes: vivid images remain of Haker-Flaten slung over his bass, eyes squeezed tight; stoic Loewen sitting deceptively still; Canadian hairy beast #1 Babin paused, left hand holding bass beside him, right hand on hip; Ljungkvist with tenor out front, boyish face scrunched up; Gustafsson gyrating back and forth, swinging a tenor or a bari, depending on his mood that moment; and Canadian Hairy Beast #2 Grdina standing, sending out gorgeous sonic waves, guitar slung over shoulder, yelling out the changes cause they’ll never see him with their eyes closed and it’s that loud… An aural and visual assault that occasionally soothed the audience – probably so it could then pummel them some more with this insane beauty. Absolutely mind-blowing fantastic gig. There would be no leaving. Set two was a must-stay to watch more closely the players’ circle: intense listening among them, admiring glances, too; this was a rare and special cross-cultural meeting of raw passion and intense expression from some of the best from the creative music that they so obviously enjoyed and that their audience was incredibly lucky to bear witness to.

Jazz Fest Fact(ish)

If you weren’t here for it, you might be able to tell it’s been a long, cold winter that isn’t giving up very easily, perhaps by looking at the length of hair and beards of some of the local musicians.  #1 (although I believe he sports this year-round, so may be off on a technicality) and #2 as above, and #3 is JP Carter, witnessed yesterday with that fiery red beard that his trumpet tucks into. Stark contrasts to the very shorn northern Europeans, who must’ve had an early Summer. So unfair.