Tesselations , which has
Tesselations , which has been likened to the cyclic, meditative music of American minimalist Terry Riley. Norwegian electro-acoustic soundscapists Supersilent take the stage at midnight. In between, Halifax composer and reed player Paul Cram leads his sextet through a diversity of musical creativity developed through his own work in composing for theatre, dance, film and television. Throughout the Festival, Canadian-born and Berlin-based composer, multi-media installation and sound artist Gordon Monahan will have three installations running for public enjoyment. Monahan has devoted much of his work to the juxtaposition of natural acoustic phenomena with elements of media technology, environment, architecture, popular culture, and live performance. One installation, l-Wzen it Rains (2000-02), involves computer-controlled water drops which fall upon amplified objects. As well, his installation of "imitation" loudspeakers, Music from Nowhere (1989) will be on display. On September 11th, Monahan will perform on his l-Wzen it Rains installation, using a theremin as his interface, and in collaboration with exceptional Guelphbased percussionist and visual artist Jesse Stewart on drums and homemade percussion instruments. Monahan is also an accomplished keyboard player, and will perform with Stewart on electric organ and, in addition, will perform a piece for solo piano. Finally, a compilation of videos documenting Monahan's various sound installations will be available to Festival visitors. For complete details on the 12th Annual Guelph Jazz Festival, visit www .guelphjazzfestival.com. So now is the time. Venture out into new territory - that space where you can explore Some Thing New. (Jason van Eyk is the CMC's Ontario Regional Director. He can be reached at 416-961-6601 x. 207 or jasonv@musiccentre.ca.) AACM tribute at 12th Guelph Jazzfest "The story of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) of Chicago is one of the great triumphs of music in the 1960s. In a time of political and racial turmoil, a genuine institution was built in black Chicago without the help of press, recording companies, and government grants, an institution that would continue to influence the arts through the rest of the century." (John Szwed, Jazz. 101) by Phil Ehrensaft THE UNLIKELY and remarkable Guelph Jazz Festival has pulled off quite a coup to mark its 12th year: a unique opportunity for Torontonians to hear and meet members of a movement that is a central force in contemporary jazz, The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) . Guelph is the site of Canada's premier faculty of agriculture. It's not the kind of college town where one would expect an internationally prominent festival of avant-garde jazz, accompanied by an annual colloquium, on September 7-1 lth. Thanks to festival director Ajay Hebble' s aesthetic commitment and organizational talents, Guelph hosts just such an event. Community volunteers are essential to the festival's operations. I suspect that most of these folks would have run out of the room twelve years ago if Hebble suggested listening to avantgarde improvisation. There's a big lesson here for practioners and partisans of new music. Community was, and is, central to the AACM's aesthetic. Adventurous musicians in Chicago' s very tough African-American ghetto organized an egalitarian, nonprofit association which is now entering its fifth decade. Their musical universe was hammered out cooperatively by the whole group. Solos, as the high point of jazz performance, were de-emphasized in favour of group playing, both improvised and composed. They renovated an abandoned school and taught the Art Ensemble of Chicago Roscoe Mitchell, Don Moye, Jaribu Shahid, Corey Wilkes, Joseph Jarman new aesthetic to everybody from utter beginners to professional jazz musicians. Aesthetically, the AACM turned away from the high decibels, frenetic pace and atonality of New York's free jazz. Their jazz revolution focused, as Ekelhard Jost points out, on tone colours, adventures beyond bebop harmonies that gravitated loosely around a pedal point (a central base note), a large and always expanding variety of instruments, and a pace that was usually serene. Carrying the integration of nonwestern music and jazz to a whole new level was a primary thrust. The Art Ensemble of Chicago's motto, "Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future" is a real indication of what happened in the AACM' s music. Initial emphasis on Africa and its Diaspora eventually broadened to all regions of the globe. The AACM' s musical philosophy is succinctly expressed by one of its founders, Joseph Jarman: "There is nothing special about classical music, nothing special at all." That comes from a musician who's more than attuned to Western art music: he also composes it. What Jarman rejects is a dominant attitude in classical conservatories that Euro-American art music is the highest stage of musical evolution. Ultimately it was difficult for AACM members to make a living in Chicago. Many of its key people moved to New York dur- ing the '70s and '80s. The Chicago emigres and the young musicians they mentored became and remain a major strand of New York's jazz scene. On the morning of September 9th at Guelph, there' s a chance to hear key AACM members talk about their jazz revolution. On the evening of the 10th, we'll hear their revolution in concert. WHILE THE AACM is the crown jewel of the 2005 festival , it's not the only jewel. Each year the festival samples the most interesting jazz talent on both sides of the Atlantic. Top American and European musicians discover Canada's fine jazz talent pool and spread the word when they get home. For the full Guelph Jazz Festival schedule of concerts and colloquia, go to their website at www .guelphjazzfestival.com or telephone 519-763-4952. Tickets and festival passes can be purchased from the River Run Centre Box Office; toll-free phone 1-877-520-2408 or local (519) 763-3000. Dave Snider Music Centre 3 225 Yonge St. PH (41 6 ) 4 83- 5 8 25 c M a i I: sn idc rmu si c @ s n i d c rm u s i c .com www. s n i d c rm us ic .co m One of Toronto's Oldest Music Stores ... With The Best Selection of Pop, Jazz & Broadway Sheet Music in the city Serving Canada S111•oe 1856. 24 stores including 9L5 Bloor Sl W 416-588-7880 ?777 Slcclr,s Ave.I/'/ 41G-6t;:1-86·t2 11'.l:l ~latkham Rd 410-4:,8-8001 902 Simcoe St I J 905- -11-1 1G12 Brnrnpton* 370 Main Sl.N 905-450-4334 Burl1nplon' 31 BO ~la,,,wuy !Jr >105-31 g 3'.< .JO Mississauga' 900 Rall1burn Rd W 905-· /:1-:;fJ39 - For Beginners and Professionals - Come in and browse over 25,000 sheet music publications. We have a w ide array of Woodw ind, Brass, Keyboards, Guita rs a nd Accessories. Music Lessons offered on site. WWW, TH EWHOLENOTE ,COM S EPTE MB ER 1 - O CTOBE R 7 2005 Back to Ad Index
y Jim Galloway IN MEMORIAM: PAUL HoEFFLER WAS a good friend for more than 20 years. His life was photography and his passion was Jazz. He was a creative man and his work is an important visual document spanning 50 years of the music that he loved, photographs that help to define the essence of the music - whether it be a study of Billie Holiday, capturing the chaos within, or a telling picture of Johnny Hodges almost smiling. His approach to photography was a mixture of discipline and creativity, like the playing of the musicians he loved. There are musicians who play well, but with no inspiration, and then there are the artists who truly "make music". Paul was that equivalent in the field of photography - a creative visual artist. He grew up in Rochester and in the fifties began photographing jazz musicians and the "scene" around them. He captured his musical life and times, photographing jazz greats and lesser-knowns, always with the same searching eye. A quiet, introspective man, he was no shrinking violet when he had a camera in his hands; an aggressive edge came to the surface and that, combined with his unerring eye resulted in some of the finest and most historically significant images in jazz. For five years in the 1980s when I was doing my weekly radio broadcast from The Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Paul would show up regularly and takes shots of the passing parade of guest artists who appeared, sometimes using my video camera to get footage of the show, but always with the indefatigable enthusiasm that was a hallmark . I am happy in the knowledge that he once said I had rekindled his interest in jazz photography. There was many a discussion, over a glass of single malt, about the music and the people who make it happen. Although a master at capturing someone in an unguarded moment, if you posed for a photograph it was inevitable that Paul would run off at least a roll of film, "Just one more! " being his catch phrase - that, or telling you to "suck in your gut" and "look animated" and then again, "Just one more! " He always wanted the best out of you when he took a picture. We shared some good times and special moments; all I can say is that I wish there had been more of them. Thank you, Paul. THERE CAME WORD, about a week after hearing of Paul 's death, that William Thomas "Keter" Betts, a consummate bass player and gentle human being had passed on. He played with pretty well all the greats in jazz including Dinah Washington, Earl Bostic, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan, Woody Herman, Charlie Byrd and Nat Adderly, his longest stint being perhaps the years when he was with Ella Fitzgerald. He was a firm believer in the individual uniqueness of people - that if you are a musician, for example, you take what you are, who you are, be true to that and try to make a small difference. A sly sense of humour - no more will he blame me, tongue in cheek, for all the cold weather we Canadians sent down to him. Out and about. The festival season is drawing to a close but there are still a couple of interesting and contrasting events this month. The Guelph Festival will ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~--, ST. PHILIP'S ANGLICAN CHURCH d,n'z:z. -i,,espers Roselyn Brown and Friends Flute and Sax Jazz Standards and Smooth Jazz Tunes Sunday October 23, 2005 at 4:00 pm 25 St. Phillips Road, Etobicoke (Dixon Road at Royal York) 416-247-5181 An offering will be received in support of the Church and the Musicians Sponsored by: JSL Musical Productions www.jslmusic.com run from the 7th to 11th, covered in some detail by Phil Ehrensaft and Jason van Eyk in this issue. Then from Sep 23 to 25 we have the somewhat more mainstream All Canadian Jazz Festival Port Hope. Among those featured are Jane Bun- >- nett, Matt Dusk and Molly Johnson. ~ For information on day passes and > ticketed concerts, call 905-885-1938. 6 In Toronto, no festival activity, c, but some interesting goings on just j the same. For example, Nancy - Walker, Brian Barlow and Kieran Overs will perform Jazz Vespers at Christ Church Deer Park at 4:30pm Sep 11 , while later that evening at the Al Green Theatre, 750 Spadina Avenue, the Yitzhak Yedid Trio (featuring pianist Yedid, Ora Boasson, bass, and Mikhail Maroun, oud) perform contemporary world jazz. For more info call (416) 924 6211. On the 15th, more jazz in church with the Debbie Fleming Trio at St. John's York Mills Anglican Church, 19 Don Ridge Dr. 416-225-6611. Meanwhile the club scene gets into fall mode with The Montreal Bistro presenting a full line-up of mostly Canadian music: the Laila Biali Trio, Steve Koven Trio, Genevieve and the Don Thompson Quartet, Ted Quinlan Quintet, Brian Barlow Trio, the Dave Young Quartet and Al Henderson Quintet. The exception to the home-grown jazz takes place Wed, Sep 21 to Sat, Sep 24 when Sackville Recordings present Australian trumpeter Bob Barnard, pianist John Sheridan and drummer Don Vickery. The Rex has its usual feast: Duncan Hopkins Quartet, Joel Miller & Mandala, Laura Hubert Band, The Rex's Annual Tribute to John Coltrane and Mike Murley Septet being offered as some of the main courses. Closing thought. With the end of a successful summer festival season approaching I wonder about all those thousands of people who come out for jazz festivals and then disappear, never to be seen in clubs throughout the rest of the year? If you enjoy the music, please get out and support live jazz and don't simply be fairweather friends .There is a tremendous amount of good music in this city all year round and it deserves your support. BEYOND THE JAZZ LISTINGS by Sophia Perlman !;; .,, ....l .,, z :;; c, Cadence BACK IN JUNE, I had the privilege of attending a workshop with a group of elementary school students who were participating in the "Share the Music" program presented by Roy Thomson and Massey Hall. The workshop, all about a capella music, was presented by the Toronto-based quartet Cadence, who are releasing a new album at the Lula Lounge this month (September 20). This group's infectious energy captivated their young audience, and had the adult chaperones just as incapable of keeping still in their seats! And if you want a seat at the Rex's Annual Tribute to John Coltrane, it's best to get there on time. The performance, which is being continues on page 47 Featuring some of Toronto's best jazz musicians with a brief reflection by Jazz Vespers Clergy Sunday, September 11th· 4:30 p.m. NANCY WALKER, piano; KIERAN OVERS, bass; BRIAN BARLOW, drums Sunday, September 25th • 4 :30 p.m. THE WIL:LIAM CARN TRIO Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge Street (north of St. Clair at Heath St.) 416-920-5211 Admission is free. An offering is received to support the work of the church. including Jazz Vespers. S EPTEMB ER 1 · O CTO BER 7 2005 WWW. THEWHOLENOTE.COM 29 Back to Ad Index
