Volume 22 Issue 9 - Summer 2017

Jazz Notes Something

Jazz Notes Something Else! Fourth Festival of Creative Music Hamilton, ON, June 16-19 STUART BROOMER Jazz festivals sometimes follow an uncomfortable pattern. Early success breeds an appetite for more. It’s difficult to attract crowds with niche music, so the emphasis turns to the most accessible forms of jazz, sometimes even distant relations. Fortunately, there are people like Hamilton’s Cem Zafir, committed to jazz at the margins, edgy, experimental music that’s defined by the risk of improvisation not by the tapping of feet. Zafir, who first started booking radical jazz-John Zorn’s Masada and Rashied Ali-in BC around 2000, started the four-day Something Else! Festival of Creative Music in 2014. He’s clearly developing a sustainable model, using well-known, compatible musicians whose working lives involve overlapping ensembles. Amid the welter of bands appearing between June 16 -19 is a hard core of international improvisers, with musicians from the Netherlands and Japan as well as Canada and the US. Ken Vandermark, saxophonist, composer and master of creative musical networking is artist-in-residence. He opens the festival with a solo performance and then over the next few days appears in numerous shifting ensembles. The DKV Trio (the other members are percussionist supreme Hamid Drake and stand-out bassist Kent Kessler) appears with guest guitarist Joe Morris on Saturday afternoon; during the Sunday matinee, DKV combines with Eloping with the Sun, the long-standing trio of Drake, Morris and New York bassist William Parker in which the three emphasize various African, ethnic and small instruments (even the trumpet is the pocket version). Alone, Eloping with the Sun concludes Saturday evening; DKV returns for the Sunday evening concert. In another combination, Vandermark appears in duet with trumpeter Nate Wooley. Vandermark’s contribution to the duo is a workin-progress called Sequences of Snow, in which he takes “visual and sonic aspects from [Michael] Snow’s films…as inspiration for material to interpret and transform for a completely different medium.” Wooley, whose experimentation extends to applying the International Phonetic Alphabet to trumpet sound production, also appears in a solo concert as does Joe Morris, who can alter one’s view of a guitar’s possibilities. Perch Hen Brock & Rain, heard on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, consists of two well-travelled couples with distinguished resumes: Netherlander saxophonist/clarinetist Ab Baars and violist Ig Henneman and Brooklyn-resident saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey. Baars, a prominent member of Amsterdam’s ICP, also has a guest-spot with Eloping with the Sun. Another couple, the Tokyo-based trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii Cem Zafir appear in Kaze (Japanese for “wind”), an intercontinental explosion of brassy brilliance with the French trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins. There are plenty of other performances as well, including solo turns by trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. Montrealer Woody Epps’ Togetherness includes stand-out musicians, like saxophonist Erik Hove and trombonist Scott Thomson. Spontaneous ensembles punctuate the afternoon series, including a tribute to the late Toronto guitarist Ken Aldcroft. It’s an opportunity to hear a spectrum of international radicals who are never heard in Toronto in this concentration. For a complete schedule and locations, see zulapresents.org Ken Vandermark 38 | June 1, 2017 - September 7, 2017 thewholenote.com

Beat by Beat | Jazz Stories A YORKVILLE STATE OF JAZZ ORI DAGAN You’ll notice that this year, there are overall far fewer listings for the TD Toronto Jazz Festival, June 23 to July 2. This year, with a few exceptions, all events will take place in and around Yorkville. In achieving this intensification and scaling back, Toronto Jazz has almost completely eliminated the club series (although according to director of operations Patti Marshall the festival may wish to work again with the clubs in future). Maybe, for now, it’s a good thing – quantity does not always mean quality. And after all, a few generations ago the historic Yorkville neighbourhood was a true “music hub” in this “music city” of ours. As this magazine goes to print, 50 years have passed since the then infamous May 1967 “love-in” was held, a stoner’s throw away from Yorkville at Queen’s Park. Back then Yorkville was a mecca of art, with legendary artists performing regularly at coffee houses like The Riverboat, Penny Farthing and The Purple Onion. Following decades of developers and lucrative land deals, today there is hardly any live music in the affluent area (a shout-out to The Pilot for being the enduring exception to the rule). So here is hoping the festival creates some buzz to bring it back. But this cannot happen without YOU! That’s right, you, WholeNote reader. More than anyone I know, you are likely to spread the word about the fact that in addition to two quality mainstages (at Koerner Hall and the newly re-opened Concert Hall), this festival will have over 100 free shows that will be happening. I wanted to highlight a handful of these daytime performances, so I hunted down eight of the artists who will be appearing in them. To read the full interview with each artist, see this article online, where in addition to the “where, what and when” summer information included here they each recall a “most memorable summer musical festival moment.” Mark Kelso & the Jazz Exiles Mon Jun 26 8:00pm, OLG Stage on Hazelton Ave. Mark Kelso (drums); Jeremy Ledbetter (keys); Luis Deniz (sax); Joey Martel (guitar). Other summer gigs? “With the Jazz Exiles, the Rochester Jazz fest and the South Coast Jazz fest. Various other festivals with Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy.” Joy Lapps Project Mark Kelso Fri Jun 30 2:30pm, OLG Stage on Cumberland St. Joy Lapps (steel pan); Andrew Stewart (bass); Elmer Ferrer (guitar); Michael Shand (keys); Larnell Lewis (drums). Other summer gigs? “I’ll be performing a special show as a part of the Newmarket Jazz Festival on August 17. For that show, I’ll be playing with this same quintet opening for my hubby Larnell… We basically have the same band, because he stole my band and then added horns…. lol. But when you’re married you share everything 50/50. Plus we all love to play together so it’s kind of nice that the group gets to create together in difference musical situations. It makes for amazing chemistry and lots of running jokes. You can find us at the Toronto Pearson Street Festival on June 17th. So far I know Michael and Larnell will join me for this date. thewholenote.com June 1, 2017 - September 7, 2017 | 39