Number 8 2002 Vancouver International Jazz Festival Diary
Day 3 – Sunday, June 23, 2002
Nothing like a midnight show to provide a convenient excuse for sleeping half the day away! Got to Gastown for second half of François Bourassa Trio (Bourassa, piano; Guy Boisvert, bass; Yves Boisvert, drums) with André Leroux (tenor sax/flute), straight-up, lively piano-lead jazz. Wish I’d heard more (aka not slept so late). I’d love to hear this in a club.
Ken Vandermark’s School Days (Vandermark, tenor sax; Jeb Bishop, trombone; Kjell Nordeson, vibes; Ingebigt Haker-Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums) down at the other end woke some people up to the wonders of free jazz and just how inviting it can be. Am loving the proliferation of the more out music on the free stages in the light of day. Great solos from a knockout band full of knockout players. And then came Metalwood. A massive audience for a monster band to deliver a killer show in the broiling late-afternoon sun, complete with the only encore I saw happen in Gastown. With four studio albums (and one live) under their mighty belt, the foursome that is Metalwood (Brad Turner, trumpet/keys; Mike Murley, tenor/soprano saxes; Chris Tarry, electric bass; Ian Froman, drums) has amassed a large repertoire of great tunes, so you get a different variety each gig. While each show is mostly very satisfying, their consistent greatness always leaves you hungering for more, more, always more. Good thing there’s another MW gig Thursday, June 27 up at Capilano College!
Turner is sounding so fantastic that the only place to be next was the improv gig at the Vogue (yes, you heard me, improv at the Vogue) with BT, percussionist Dylan van der Schyff and double bassist Wilbert de Joode. Tough gig doing improv in a venue known for more straight musical sensibilities AND opening for Ahmad Jamal, but they did a smashing job of making great music and very likely bringing improv into the lives of quite a few folks for the first time. To the audience’s credit, they were ready for receiving the gifts up for grabs to those willing to take a bit of a leap into the unknown, and I suspect the name and rep of Brad Turner was an aid in that. Turner was barely at his mic when he dove right in with a cool lick he worked over for a bit while de Joode and van der Schyff edged in behind with some tender forays that soon evolved into some grooves and chunky rhythms that all were happy to fall into before shaking it all out and feeding off each other in an intimately edgy exchange. It was easy to get happily lost in that — 20-25 minute piece went by as if it were 5 minutes. Between improvisations, Turner has some gracious comments about having just met de Joode at soundcheck that day, various types of improv, and even a bit about music consistently available in Vancouver year-‘round that seemed as well-received by the audience as the music. In their second piece they took the willing audience a little further out with more sounds, squeaks, screeches through instrument manipulation; half-depressed trumpet keys, wet fingers skidding across drum skins, hands playing bass wood like a drum, etc., all to great effect before a rapt audience filled with expressions of wonderment and glee. Nice work!
Ahmad Jamal. That man is energy personified. Live wire status is assuredly his, he of the punchy, lively pounding, so full of life and exuberance complete with audible toe-tapping under his piano. No gentle twinkle toes, he’s got a finely tuned dynamic sense that comes from experience yet seems so fresh. How does he do that through all the years? Must be the joy he so obviously takes in playing, and being in a beautiful venue with an audience in your pocket can’t hurt. What a kick to watch and listen to – was dying to snap some pics, but alas, not allowed this evening. Rats.
To Studio 16 for the guaranteed thrill of the Kate Hammett-Vaughan Quintet. The chemistry these five terrific musicians have amongst them translates into a great performance every time. Tunes from the Quintet’s songbook went from a giddy ‘On the Street Where You Live’ to the unsettling Mingus tune ‘Weird Nightmare’ to their downright wretchedly dark (and goosebump-provoking) take on the Ellington/Lee ‘Gonna Go Fishin’. Studio 16 was the perfect venue to hear this group in because, well, you could hear them. In fact, most venues have been great for listening to the music and not having to strain to hear it above audience chatter. Way to go, Vancouver. Midnight brought the Dutch acoustic group The Electricks onto the stage at Studio 16 for a lengthy improvisation session that, like the great spirits of the day, went long into the night. Alas, Hammett-Vaughan’s Quintet filled my tank up beyond full and I hadn’t much room for anything but absorption of all that had come in a long day of amazing music.
Diary Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
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Diary Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Writer/Photographer Josephine Ochej is a regular contributor to The Jazz Review, the Westender and Coda Magazine.