Resolution

For me, New Years Resolutions are promises to yourself meant to be broken, consequently I no longer make them. In 2006, the only Resolution that mattered to me was at Banff when I had the privilege of performing Hugh Fraser's arrangement of Part 2 of Love Supreme.

I am a believer in the use of goal-setting techniques in order to advance my progress as a musician. At the start of every year, I make lists of the various projects in which I am involved and then detail what I would like to see happen in the coming year. I also take a look at my ever-expanding collection of instruments and list what needs tweaking, repairing, replacing, whatever. Nothing is too trivial.

Everything ends up on a single sheet of paper, which I refer to several times during the year. I cross things off the list as they are done. I amuse myself at seeing what was important to me in January, but no longer relevant in July. Some things never get crossed off - too big, too small. Some things require a lot of TME (time, money or energy), others, sometimes surprisingly, just happen without effort. In the end, most of the individual listed items don't really matter, rather it's more important whether or not I've made progress in the year.

I start out by reading the previous year's list one last time. I am usually pleasantly surprised with how much I have accomplished. Generally, the ones that aren't crossed off don't cause much regret. I can either carry them over or dump them. I also have space to add the good things that did happen, even if they weren't on the list.

There are times when I am plagued by artistic sef-doubt and feel that I am stuck in a rut. Looking over the list reminds me just how much I've done.

It's important to have some ridiculously large things on the list, say "Get the call from Maria Schneider to sub in". That one is not really on my list, but maybe it should be. The odds of that happening are so minute as to be incalculable, but just having that in writing allows for the possiblility of other big things to happen. And they do.

It's essential to be very clear, sometimes the more detailed, the better. I might write a separate page on something very important, say if I were to be in the hunt for a new tenor sax, which thankfully I am not. A lack of detail may cause unexpected results. Last year I wrote down "new clarinet" to replace the loaner I've had for a few years. By the fall, I had to return the loaner and I did get a very nice clarinet on eBay, an alto clarinet. D'oh! Gotta be more specific on that one.

Ideally there should be more of the "being" and "doing" sort of goals, rather than the "having". That sets up a better state of mind for good things to happen, rather than the mere accumulation of more stuff.

There are actually very specific and detailed goal-setting systems out there, ones that require daily writing and recitals of lists and so on, but that's really too much work for me. I know people who do that and have amazing results. People into the personal development movement like to quote Emerson (Ralph Waldo, not Keith): "Once you have made a decision, the universe will conspire to make it happen." A quick Google search on that quote got a lot of hits on self-help sites, very few on scholarly Emerson sites, so it may be paraphrased or misattributed, or completely fabricated. Nevertheless, personal experience proves that it works for me. It may be a little bit woo-woo for some, but I'll take it.

I prefer one of Stan Karp's memorable sayings, which I believe came from his mentor Bill Green. "People often overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten." I interpret that as taking the path to slow and steady growth. My goal-setting technique is just one more tool to use in making that journey.


Note: I always feel like I'm writing this blog in a vacuum. It comes as a pleasant surprise when someone comments on a post, so I welcome any feedback. And if there is anyone hanging on every word that I write - get a life! - I neglected to hit the "publish post" button back on Dec 12th and now there is another entry in its proper place.

Le fin de l'Espace

Late last evening I got a call to go down to l'Espace.

As many people know who read the vancouverjazz.com forum or the local papers, the city just closed down one of Vancouver's most unique and beautiful performance spaces. I received numerous requests for an on-line letter writing campaign to save this one-of-a-kind venue, but it was all for naught.

I first discovered the place several years ago when Viviane Houle started a short-lived Salon series, featuring songs by a wide stylistic range of local singers. The moment I walked in the door, I was in another place, certainly not Vancouver. Maybe Montréal, maybe Paris. The place was too damn cool, all this exposed brickwork and a giddy eclectic decor that was just so right. A lot of people spoke French, whether they could or not, and the wine and food flowed out of the kitchen area, and the music was transcendent.

As I understand it, Régis Painchaud and a friend discovered this place under the Granville St. bridge about 10 years ago. It was an early 20th century garage, probably one of the first places in the city where cars could be worked on. It was abandoned, full of ratshit and syringes and they were contracted to salvage building materials before the city demolished it. It was owned by the city, but rather than destroy it, these two realized the potential of this building and covertly renovated it.

By the time I discovered it, it was quietly being operated as a performance venue, a frequent film location, and a place to hold private receptions, including the COPE election-night party when Larry Campbell got elected as mayor. It stuck in the craw of of the beaurcrats at city hall that they had been outflanked. Régis had powerful political allies, particularly in Jim Green. They had a concept that the whole area around the l'Espace building could be converted to an artistic hub for the city. There was an ongoing battle between the politicos and the pencil-pushers to keep this place open.

I was involved with presenting a NOW Orchestra show there exactly three years ago when the city shut l'espace down. It was 5:00 the day of the show when Coat called me to tell me the gig was off. We all went down there for a drink as the musicians showed up for Coat to pay them for not playing. Régis had already been entered in negotiations with the city to do what was necessary to make the place legit. These talks dragged on for years and he was always optimistic that common sense would prevail. During this time, a very limited number events were allowed to happen.

When the NPA's Sam Sullivan stole the last civic election, the writing was on the wall. Any pet project of Jim Green's was doomed and the pencil-necks at the permits department saw their opportunity to move. They set conditions for Régis that could never be met, and no amount of public appeal would stop them.

I got down there at 11:00 pm, just an hour before the doors were to be locked forever. The first person I saw inside was a security guard sent by the city to ensure the deed was done. Régis was there, bone-tired but as gracious as ever, also Viviane Houle and Stefan Smulovitz. Régis had a few items left that he thought could be used at 1067, and some things he wanted to store there. The place was gutted to the walls, and there were a lot of boxes and various items strewn around the main floor. I loaded up my car with the things for 1067. At the end, just before midnight, Régis dug through a box to find a small gift for my daughter.

It was heartbreaking.

'Tis the season to be active

Somehow I missed posting this one back on Dec 12th.

I'm about midpoint in my stretch of daily gigs and so far so good. There is something to be said for performing this frequently, namely the benefits of connecting with your instrument in a way that doesn't happen when you're solely in the practice room.

The Christmas show I'm playing in wraps up next Monday night, by which time I'll probably be ready to be done with it. At present, it's enjoyable to do and there's always room for improvement. As Bill Green used to say, "If you know it so well, why doesn't it sound better?"

The show itself is an institution in Vancouver, this being its 40th year of production. In total, about 24,000 people see it each year, no mean feat. I feel this may not be the strongest production they've ever done, but I'll leave the critiques for the audience. For me, this whole experience is always a fascinating peek behind-the-scenes at the Christian music thing, which is a world unto itself. There are some very good musicians in the show and some great singers and I guess they can make a decent living on the circuit. It's something I just get a yearly glimpse at, being an unrepentant heathen and all.

Sprinkled through this performance schedule are my more regular gigs, which are the tonic for the Singing Christmas Tree. With Wanda, we have a number of corporate Christmas gigs, always welcome at this time of the year. Tomorrow Sharon Minemoto's subbing in with us, so that should be fun.

The improv rolls along as well. Last week's show for the NOW workshops at the Western Front went very well. After that, I went to the Cellar for the second set. The music was pretty strong but there was an unusually small crowd there. I attribute that partly to a fairly dry wording for the billing that the VCMI people insisted upon. Too bad - the players had worked hard to put on a good show.

<- Carol Sawyer, Clyde Reed & me at The Cellar Last night it was ion Zoo's turn and I was very pleased how this group continues to develop. Here's a photo from the show. This shot is indicative of one of the challenges photographing groups at the Cellar, that it's hard to include the pianist in the shot unless you shoot long from the back of the room, which often results in a flat looking picture. The other way is to stand at the bar and shoot over the pianist's shoulder, which generally means you will have a depth of field problem and certain players will be out of focus. Plus, the area on stage right is usually underlit, despit my efforts to aim more lights over there. So you end up composing shots just for the pianist, or for the rest of the band, which is what happened here. Too bad, because Lisa Miller was just great last night. <- over Lisa's shoulder

Tonight Carol and I are off to Chris Gestrin's to finish off the mixdown from our last performance at the Cellar. As I anticipated, there was so much good material from last night, that it will be very hard to resist the temptation to include some of those tracks on the cd. By coincidence, that's Chris's picture on the wall just in front of my bass clarinet.

Also on the recording front, we've secured the funding to take the Wanda Nowicki Group back in the studio - thanks, Joe! So we will switch back into that mode early in the new year - always a fun and educational experience.

This is a good sign that I'll start off the new year in a fairly active mode.

Busy again

Why is is that for many of us, for two months of the year, that things are crazy busy and the balance of the time musicians have to scramble for work? Every 6 months it seems that the universe is unfolding as it should. June and December are quite active for musicians at my level of the jazz food chain.

I'm gigging vitually every night for the first few weeks of December, sometimes twice a night. The New Year's Eve gig that we were working on just fell through a couple of days ago (cheap bastards won't shell out any more than a regular night) and I don't even mind not working that night.

Tonight is going to be an interesting one. When Coat and I were programming the NOW workshops, we didn't think twice about following our annual pattern of making the last Monday in the series as an evening performance. All well and good, except that we had previously scheduled this evening as a special night at The Cellar for alumni of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute. Then Coat got the call from Canada Council to sit on a jury all of this week. So now, not only had we programmed two events for the same night, but Coat would be out of town.

With some help from Dave Chokroun, who will hold the fort at The Cellar until I arrive, I will make things work. I will host the show and conduct the large ensemble at The Western Front, then bomb over to The Cellar to host the balance of the evening's proceedings and maybe get some playing in as well.

Well it beats sitting home and watching the TV, except for the bit that I posted on vancouverjazz.com today. There is a great musical segment at the end of Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip. Who are these guys?

Why does strange shit happen on the day I'm trying to get my jazz festival submissions in? This is a regular pattern over the last few years. Though I'd started early enough, it went down to the last day yet again. And just like previous years, that's the day my computer slowed down to a crawl and the printer wouldn't work right. Then on the way down to CJBS, I got a flat tire. Brand new tires, no apparent holes or leaks, just flat. I was redlining as I had to head out to a gig right after that.

On the plus side, doing a couple of private Christmas functions over the weekend has its benefits. The food was good and plentiful and people are all dressed up, though the latter is a particular disctraction for our piano player. If only all of our gigs had such hazards.

Another positive is the we've also almost finalized the Monday lineup for The Cellar for the first half of next year, right up to the jazz festival. I'm just nailing down the last couple of slots in Coat's absence. The lineup just keeps getting better and better and it's quite gratifying to see the depth of talent in this city and give them a chance to be heard.

Fallow

I can't recall having such a slow period for gigs in the last few years. Since joining forces with Wanda Nowicki a couple of years back, we've worked fairly steadily. Adding in ion Zoo and the other ventures that I get involved with, I'm usally as busy as I want to be. Since the Cage concert, though, work has been less plentiful.

With Wanda, we do a lot of restaurants, and in the last few months, many of the places have changed music policies or closed altogether. I know that change is just a fact of the restaurant business. In the past, we've always been able to find new venues, but at present, it's a bit of a challenge. In addition to her voice, one of Wanda's real talents is hustling gigs, so I am sure this is just a temporary situation.

In retrospect I was so busy in September and October that I didn't bother chasing down gigs for November. December is going to be a very busy month, so it all balances out.

So what do I do during the slow times? Nothing surprising here. I never seem to have enough practice time. As opposed to the young lions out there, the Evan Arntzens and Eli Bennetts of this world, I am on the slow track to learning the saxophone. Every day that I play, I feel that I get incrementally better, albeit microscopically. That's just the way it is for me. And Stan Karp will have a lifetime of things for me to work on.

On Sunday evenings, I have been part of a newly-created rehearsal ensemble that is reading through the extensive library of the NOW Orchestra. There is a lot of great music there that doesn't deserve to sit on the shelf. At some point, I will be able to bring out the three large ensemble pieces that I wrote for the Banff orchestra, also a good thing. And I get to play my alto sax, which otherwise sits in the case most of the time.

I have a couple of compositions in the works. Writing music is not something that I do on a regular basis. I need to have specific projects and deadlines. I am excited to have been asked to write something for LSB, an improvising string trio. I've been bouncing conceptual ideas for a graphic score around in my head and now it's time to get them on paper.

I've been doing the NOW workshops at the Western Front, something that I have helped to organize this year. I will be leading the final concert on the fourth of next month as Coat Cooke is off to Ottawa to sit on a Canada Council jury. My second composition in the works is for this concert, using a distillation of ideas gleaned from the workshop series.

The Monday evening series at The Cellar has been excellent. By the end of December, there will have been over 60 groups that will have participated this year. Only a handful of them have not been to my taste. Some have been absolutely outstanding, and this has been evidenced by the steadily growing audience numbers. I've had a small hand in the programming of this series and it's extremely heartening to see new talent appearing with such promise. Cat Toren's set last week was a fine example. I have been photographing most of the evenings for the past couple of months and some of my favourite shots are available for viewing on my page at flickr.com. Or click on the link at vancouverjazz.com. It's in the centre column under the Jazz Gallery heading.

I'm a rank amateur when it comes to photography. I liken it to performing on an instrument that I've never played before - sometimes the results are dubious, but the effort has been enjoyable. I've made a point of giving some prints to the bands and e-mailing all of my shots to the leaders. All of us have had too many gigs that have gone undocumented and later wish that there had been some record, audio or visual, of that time. We have worked at addressing that for the participants in this series.

And finally, there's the annual spate of submissions with their attendant deadlines. It often falls to me to put together the packages for the various groups that I am a part of, and this year I have my annual high hope of avoiding that last-minute panic to prepare and deliver them.

Cagian interpenetrations

It's now Sunday at the end of a very long week and I am pooped.

Vancouver New Music presented a 4-day festival called Silence:John Cage. I was invited to be part of the large ensemble playing Atlas Elipticalis on the final evening. There were about 18 people in the group, a mix of the free improv crowd and UBC new music types. I'd played with many of them previously, so it was a comfortable fit for me. It was also very pleasant to be rehearsing at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, with floor-to-ceiling views from the 7th floor.

<- Giorgio Magnanensi and Marina Rosenfeld

It's always great to have a chance to work with VNM's artistic director, Giorgio Magnanensi, and he taught me an invaluable skill this time around, namely where to find the very best espresso in town and how to order it. He led the first day of rehearsals and it was fairly taxing, especially on him. Conducting this piece is akin to butoh dance, only slower.

<- Carol Sawyer, Clyde Reed and me at Rime

That night, I played a double-bill at Rime. The first set was with ion Zoo and it went very well. We are now a quartet, with Lisa Miller joining us whenever there is a piano available. Lisa is also part of the Atlas ensemble and at one point I became aware that she and I were both playing at that moment from a Cagian perspective. Afterwards, she confirmed that was the case. It was very cool to see that the Atlas experience had an immediate effect. It will be another tool in the ever-growing tool box.

The second set was with the Helsinki 8, just our third performance. The group has a lot of sonic possibilities, and gets stronger each time out. We did a set of mostly scored pieces, including my graphic score from Banff. It went well enough, though it did confirm my feelings that there is a much better piece hidden in there if I just use 10 per cent of the material. The gig was lightly attended. Blanche Norton, Rime's booker, told me that we were up against some stiff competition that night, particularly the Cage festival. That tickled me because half of the evening's performers were also in the festival. It was a fairly satisfying night on the whole, but getting in at 2:00 am just exhausted me the next day.

<- 7 of the Helsinki 8

Back bright and early at the Dance Centre, we were greeted by the guest artist for the Saturday performance. Marina Rosenfeld was described in this week's edition of Seattle's the Stranger as a "NY-based dub plate sorceress", and I thought the Georgia Strait had some flowery music writing... A quick visit to her website revealed her substantial credentials and she was indeed very stimulating to work with. She directed the group throughout the morning session, then had one-on-one discussions with each of us. She encouraged us to interpret Cage's performance notes to the word, and that definitely elevated the music as well as pushing our boundaries.

Many of the people in the ensemble remarked about how much work it took to perform the piece. Playing Cage requires a significant philosophical shift in one's approach to playing music, which in turn forces a pushing of technical boundaries. It just doesn't happen in a straight line, at least in the traditional sense.

<- excerpt from Atlas Elipticalis percussion 1 part

Atlas Elipticalis was composed by Cage in 1961. The visual device for creating the score was achieved by overlaying star charts and the i ching on top of manuscript. All notes were to be played as quietly as possible, with as short a duration as possible unless otherwise indicated. There was to be no repeated notes, no "extraordinary" tone, no intention of melody and an avoidance of ego in the production of the sounds. Cage encouraged the idea of interpenetrations, wherein an instrumentalist produces two different sounds at the same time, say a bassist bowing with one hand and tapping the top with the other. Wind and string players were to play microtonally. Not all notes on the score had to be played. The list went on...

In short, rather than just a random production of sounds, musicians had to really think out how to play each and every note.

I had three sections where I had to play 70 notes or more in the space of 15 seconds. In other sections, maybe 9 notes in 2 minutes. And I decided to play just percussion. I had put together my rack with items that were often loud, had very long sustain and extraordinary sound quality, just the opposite of what Cage specified. So I had my work cut out for me. I had to find different ways of playing the rack, and ended up using bamboo skewers most of the time instead of sticks or mallets. Marina also wanted more "skins and wood", so I pulled whatever I could find out of my closet. It was quite a mixed collection, which I dubbed the "Randy Raine-Reusch Starter Kit".

In the end, the concert went very well in my opinion. Atlas Elipticalis was broken up into three sections. Other Cage compositions overlapped the various sections, often playing concurrently, yet they were distinctly different while occupying the same space. The audience and performers were intermingled and the audience was encouraged to move around to hear different sonic combinations. The program ended with two versions of the final composition John Cage wrote, first in the original piano/violin duet form, then with Marina doing a very musical and compelling version on her turntables, something Cage would have approved of, I'm sure.

<- RR-R Starter Kit

As I was listening to those pieces seated behind my percussion, I had an interesting experience. The performance hall was dark except for the starkly lit soloists. I was looking through my rack in Marina's direction, but she was obscured by one of my bronze sound plates. The way the lighting was, it appeared that the plate was a black square, not between the two of us, but rather in the black curtains on the opposite side of the recital hall. Logically, I knew where the plate was hanging, but the more I looked, the more it appeared to be a black hole, square in shape, on the other side of the room. This black hole was absorbing the images of everything directly in front of it, cutting off human forms at the neck or wherever. This effect lasted for what seemed several minutes as long as I was caught up in the music. When it came to a point that was less engrossing, the effect ended.

I understand that Cage enjoyed his shrooms, so he probably would have approved of this as well.

Humbility

I think it's important for a musician to stretch his/her musical boundaries. Taken in the proper context, all experiences be they good or bad can enrich one's musical ability.

To that end, I've been doing some new things lately.

One of them was leading an improvisation workshop at the Western Front for the New Orchestra Workshop. I've participated in the workshops for years, now with thanks to Coat Cooke, it was time to teach one. I immediately broke my own prime directive for what I think constitutes a good workshop. I talked and encouraged discussion for a greater period of time than we played. The participants were are fairly experienced, and so I decided to spend time on a number of more advanced improv concepts and to share a number of the more important points that I had distilled over my years of taking these workshops. Since then, the feedback from most in attendance was positive, but next time I will work to severely limit the number of concepts that I present. As any regular reader of this blog can attest, I can go on for a bit.

Another one has been to start taking music classes at Ache Brasil. As a saxophone player, singing while playing is a great conceptual technique, but doesn't happen in the standard sense. So it is a very new thing for me to sing, in Portuguese no less, and play percussion at the same time. At this point in time, I can't really do it for any length of time without screwing up.

I can't help but think that this is one of the most ancient forms of music making, yet a considerable challenge for me. Capoeira music is very deeply connected to African music and operates on the same primal level. It's a relatively simple combination of percussion instruments and song that quickly becomes fairly complex, subtle and powerful.

No problem for a university educated jazz guy, like, we're supposed to be able to play everything, right? Riiiight...

I have no pretensions about where I fit in the local music scene, and consider myself relatively low on the food chain. Conversely, I have done a few things in my life at what I consider to be a pretty high musical level. Yet it really counts for very little when I walk in the door at Ache Brasil. I'm just another novice pandeiro player, and I'm quite happy to have it that way.

The next challenge this coming week is my participation in Vancouver New Music's presentation of John Cage's Atlas Ellipticalis. The performance is next Saturday night at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, part of a John Cage series being staged next week. It's a great privelege to be invited to play a composition by one of the icons of 20th century music. The score is a going to take a lot of work just to understand. We have 3 days of workshopping it into shape, led by Giorgio Magnanensi and visiting artist Marina Rosenfeld. Just to add to the degree of difficulty, I'll play percussion, maybe have one sax or clarinet ready if the music leads in that direction.

Here again, I expect to have my work cut out for me.

Finally, this coming Wednesday night at Rime, I will perform one set with ion Zoo, then a second set with Helsinki 8, where I'll conduct one of the pieces I wrote this year in Banff.

That's enough on my plate for now.

Gratitude

This being Thanksgiving Day weekend and all, during a long drive out to a rehearsal, I had time to reflect on what I have been grateful for in my musical life.

It struck me that I may not be unique in being thankful to a long line of people who helped me develop what has become a life-long journey. I assume most musicians whose careers extend beyond their bedrooms don't develop in a vacuum.

If long acceptance speeches during awards shows or lengthy acknowledgements on an album cover are not your cup of tea, then you might as well skip this post. I figure I might as well do it here, where I control the horizontal and the vertical.

First and foremost, my friend and partner Clara has been my strongest supporter for almost 30 years. During all those years, she has had near unfailing support for my musical misadventures, often giving me wise advice and the occasional well-earned ass-kick.

My very first band teacher, Don MacKay, started me off on recorder in Grade 6 . I was considerably less thankful when I joined his marching band and he gave me a beat-up euphonium to play. My first-ever public performance was a Santa Claus parade and the mouthpiece froze to my lips. I switched to tenor sax the next day.

Band teachers: grades 7-9 Ken Elloway, grades 9-12 Jack Armitage - very patient and dedicated men, to say the least.

My music teacher in junior high school was Sister Margaret. A key day for me was late in my Grade 9 year when she asked the class who was going to continue on taking music in high school. Nobody put up their hand and she was so disappointed that she started to cry. I knew right away that she felt like she had failed in instilling her love of music to her students. I felt guilty, as I hadn't disliked her music class, so I signed up, no big deal, if it helped make her feel a bit better.

My high school music teacher and choir director turned out to be a significant influence on my life. Jim Farmer loved to show the interrelation of all of the arts through history, and was the person who introduced me to the likes of Stravinsky, Stockhausen, Penderecki and Cage. He taught us many useful skills like how to cheat on university listening tests, by memorizing the labels of the records. He staged big musical productions every year, sometimes too ambitious. He coped with them by sneaking a drink or two or three. He told us how being a music teacher meant a constant struggle with school administration for funding and recognition - how times haven't changed. The way he managed to be successful was be having a top-notch choir which always won its class in the music festivals, and to put on the crowd-pleasing big productions. He was only a few years older than us, and had plenty of human failings, but he was one of those very few great teachers that had a profound effect on hundreds of his students. That choir was my life in high school.

Jim's former university roommate was also a music teacher in the city school system. Brian May recommended me as his replacement in what became my first pro band. I had a union card before I graduated from high school.

In university, I am very thankful to have had a couple of great professors. Dr. Alfred Fischer was my composition prof. He was a student of George Crumb and pianist David Burge. Al really opened my eyes to the avante-garde. Marie McCarthy was a fabulous voice teacher and choral director. The rest of the faculty taught me many of the skills I was later to use in business - petty back-biting, bitter politics and general discord. The less I say about my sax prof and other voice prof, the better. This post is about gratitude.

I had also formed another band with some high school friends that was probably the only bona fide prog rock band in the Maritimes in the 70's. We kept at it for 5 years and gained some measure of success, and a fair amount of debt. Kurt Haughn, Kevin Atwood, Bob Atkinson, Bill Elliott and later Glenn Wright, Terry-David Désprés and Mike Connor were all a key part of my life. We were into that band as only a bunch of young fanatics could be. It broke my spirit when that band split up and I put my horns away for quite a few years.

I moved to Vancouver with Clara and forgot about music for many years. When I saw Urban Sax do their thing at Expo 86, I knew I had to play again.

Dave Quarin led the community big band that I stayed with for 16 years. He passed the band on to late great Ray Sikora, who inspired us to the end. Once Ray's health was no longer sufficient to lead the band, on the recommendation of bandmate Lorae Farrell, I called Robin Shier to see if he would take over, and he continues to lead it to this day. I learned volumes from these leaders, and the many great subs who directed over the years, as well as the workshops they organized with the likes of Jeff Hamilton and Bobby Shew.

Music stores have been very helpful for me and a couple have certainly seen a fair amount of my income, disposable or otherwise. Gerry Prussin has been there for me for years, and also now Sandro and the guys at Mussullo Music. Bob Syme has been my number one repair guy forever.

Bob introduced me to Stan Karp over ten years ago. I was looking for a new sax teacher and Bob told me there was only one guy to see and he would rock my world. Bob was right. Stan has been a great friend and teacher and has been the single reason why my playing has gotten to where it is today. I hope I'm still studying with him when I'm 100.

The other guys I've taken some lessons with: Dave Quarin, Graham Ord, Mike Allen, Cam Ryga.

I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to three of the stalwarts of the new music scene in Vancouver - Kate Hammett-Vaughan, Coat Cooke and Ron Samworth. They have been movers and shakers in this city for as long as I've lived here. I've known Kate since our days together at Acadia and she occupies a special place in my heart. Even after all of these years, she continue to knock me out with each new performance. Ron continues to create amazing and inspiring music in a variety of situations. His words of support to me are valued. I have done what I can to support the New Orchestra Workshop's endeavours, especially when Coat has had a heavier workload in recent years. In return, Coat's support of my musical ventures has been invaluable.

I can't begin to list what I've learned from them personally, and also from the things that they have been involved with, especially the New Orchestra Workshop and the NOW Orchestra. I took my first improv workshop with them 12 years ago. Last week, I taught my first one for them. The list of facilitators over the years (myself excluded) reads like a who's who of the world improvising scene. I got something from every session I attended. The individual members of the NOW Orchestra have all been inspiring to me.

Another one of those giant debts of gratitude is to Hugh Fraser and Lorae Farrell. The first call to Banff five years ago was one of the major turning points in my musical life. The guest artists - Maria Schneider, Kenny Wheeler and Chucho Valdes in particular - what can I say. Words fail. The friendships and musical relationships that have come out of that experience - Bill Mahar, Michelle Grégoire, Paul Rucker and Marianne Trudel to name but a few.

All of my bandmates past and present. Even the dinks (rare as they may have been) - I am a better person for playing with all of them. In particular, the people in my two main current groups: Wanda Nowicki, Chris Potter, Mark Bender, Carol Sawyer and Clyde Reed. I am blessed.

In previous posts, I've given shout-outs to guys who present music in Vancouver: Cory Weeds, Cem Zafir, Tom Cone and David Pay, guys like Raymon Torchinsky, also at The Cellar. Ken Pickering, Robert Kerr (now at VANOC), Carl Chinn and everyone at Coastal Jazz and Blues. People like Stefan Smulovitz and Jared Burrows who organize annual events for the improvising community. Julie Smith, for organizing the Vancouver Creative Music Institute with an illustrious faculty - George Lewis, Evan Parker, Marilyn Crispell, Mwata Bowden, Nicole Mitchell, François Houle, John Korsrud, Giorgio Magnanensi, et all.

Then there's Brian Nation at vancouverjazz.com. The contributors to the jazz forum and blogs, trolls excepted.

So many good friends that I've made. I've written about many of them in this blog, many more still unnamed. My community in high school was the musicians, and they continue to be so today.

Yeah, I'm bloody thankful. Time to eat turkey.

Get Smart, slit wrists and other musical musings

I've been reflecting on the amount of time I've been spending on music-related things - photos, going out to see gigs, working on setting up gigs, composing or arranging, tweaking my instruments, internet time especially vancouverjazz.com, burning my groups' cds and printing covers, doing cd cover artwork, and so on, not to mention blogging. Part of that is just necessary to move ahead as a performer, but I wonder how much is avoidance on my part. I love practicing and don't want to stop once I get in a groove, but getting started every day is a challenge. If I actually spent all of that time seriously practicing, I might be dangerous. OK, maybe menacing. Would you believe devil-may-care?

(I hear rumors of a Get Smart movie in the works - how can they ever replicate the comic genius of Mel Brooks, Buck Henry and Don Adams? And don't get me started on Barbara Feldon!)

Back to my original thoughts, I see this tendency mirrored in my daily battles with my daughter to stick to her piano practice. Maybe it's just payback time.


The Monday evening series at The Cellar is proving yet again that Vancouver is chock full of fine improvisors. Coat Cooke has done a great job of pulling this together and highlighting new groupings and musicians deserving of greater exposure. There could be a whole 'nother series featuring the established groups and musicians. I've cleared my Monday evening slate in order to be there weekly.

<- Clyde Reed, Bill Clark, Coat Cooke and Kenton Loewen at The Cellar on September 25th.

This week's gig by the Coat Cooke Trio was exceptionally good. Though not an unestablished group, Coat certainly deserves the monthly spot for all of his efforts in creating this series. He has lined up a series of guest artists each month and trumpeter Bill Clark was a fine fit. He and Coat and Clyde Reed have had decades of experience together in the NOW Orchestra and the group explored a lot of new and compelling sonic territory that night. The trio's cd on the Cellar Live label is getting fabulous reviews, and a guy like Bill could seamlessly turn this group into a killer quartet.

My contribution is to photograph the groups. Too often there is not enough documentation of one's gigs, and with Raymon Torchinsky recording almost every night, photos are a nice complement. I finally figured out the best combination of lighting levels and camera settings and was quite pleased with my results. I'm quite flattered that Brian Nation saw fit to make one of my shots Pic of the Moment on vancouverjazz.com. Now I just need to get myself set up on something like Flicker to post more of my pictures. As an added bonus for the performers, on some nights I'll bring my photo printer along and give them a shot or two of the gig before they pack up. Polaroids for the 21st century...


On another note, in my last post, I made reference to some of the indifferent managers that I deal with at certain local venues. Two of the people that do not fit that generalization are Cory Weeds and Cem Zafir, of The Cellar and Zula Productions respectively. Cory mentioned in his latest blog post that The Cellar is celebrating its 6th anniversary. I for one now feel like The Cellar has been there forever, always keeping its commitment to presenting the finest jazz has to offer. It is hands down the only place to really listen to jazz in the city. The Monday evening improv series presented by the New Orchestra Workshop Society is certainly well beyond the usual stylistic leanings of the club, but I think it's a good fit. As for Cem, he had a teriffic run at Rime and now is aiming to turn the WISE Hall into a great venue. I have a lot of respect for these guys. They could turn their considerable talents elsewhere, and the artistic fabric of this city would be the worse for it.


Tuesday saw ion Zoo do a short but sweet gig at the Western Front. We were providing music for a book launch and poetry reading presented by the literary magazine Capilano Review.

Some time ago on the vancouverjazz forum, I mentioned one of my worst all-time gigs, which was at a poetry reading. For those of you who don't hang on my every word (namely, everybody) I'll recount that infamous evening. About a dozen years ago I was playing with a saxophone quartet called The Four Neat Guys. We had a repertoire of light classical music and swingy sax quartet tunes. We got hired to provided light interval music for an author's night at the Harrison Festival of the Arts. The night was going along fine until we heard from a young angst-filled poet who used the evening to spill her guts in the most vivid way she could, going into great and gory detail about losing her virginity and a subsequent abortion. Good times. The whole room was ready to slit their wrists. OK guys, Pink Panther theme, 2, 3, 4...

Fortunately last night couldn't have been more different. We had two very, very short sets to play, for which we were very nicely compensated. Carol improvised a song using a poem written by the featured author of the evening. The second improv, she went on this very entertaining jag about being daunted to perform in front of a room full of writers, so she'd do it in Esperanto so nobody would know what she was saying. After a break for the reading by the featured writer (which was right on schedule as opposed to Kaslo, and not gut-spilling as opposed to Harrison) our third and final improv was also based on a poem. It was all very together and entertaining and very well received by the audience. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Carol doesn't realize how good she is, despite what we tell her. Clyde was totally bang-on with his bass playing, despite some last-minute manipulations of his bridge backstage. I played soprano sax, bass clarinet and debuted my just-refurbished alto clarinet. I was quite pleased with my results. One of these days, I'll go just with clarinets alone, but for now a saxophone on the side is my security blanket.

In a very recent posting, I wrote how sometimes I don't know if a gig was good or bad. There was no guesswork here, it was a keeper.

Just like Kaslo, I forgot to arrange for someone to take pictures of the performance with my camera. There's always next time.

Descending into Hope


<- Similkameen sage

I was dreading the end of last week. Wanda had been asked to do a gig in Kaslo. The dough wasn't particularly good, but expenses would be covered. The main impediment was the bloody long drive to get there, 9 hours each way at the least. On the other hand, the organizers of the Kaslo Jazz Festival would be in attendance and this was a fine opportunity to get our foot in the door.

There were a number of early signs that we shouldn't take the gig. I won't bore anyone with the details, but there were a few miscommunications between band members, and with just over a week to go, we discovered that our bassist and pianist both couldn't make the trip.

We knew from the jump that Chris, our pianist, couldn't make the gig, so I got guitarist Rich Rabnett, now living in Nelson, to fill in. Rich and I have done a number of free improv things in the past, but nothing straight up, so I was looking forward to this gig. I had to ask him to line us up a decent acoustic bassist who could read down our arrangements, of which there is exactly one in that neck of the woods. So now we had to hire two subs. Paying them what they wanted in order to make the drive to Kaslo cut into our share, but what the hell.

Then last Tuesday, while in the depths of that cold bug that was going around, I realized that Wanda doesn't drive, and without our bassist Mark coming along, I would have to do all of the driving in my car, not Mark's van as originally expected. Plus I got a note from my daughter's school that Friday would be a Pro-D day, no classes. That meant that I had to line up some care for her for the day. For various reasons, none of the usual group of classmates' parents could help me out, so I was going to have to pay for daycare for the day.

Then my wife suggested I arrange for a rental car (we are a one-car family) in order for her to deal with all of the necessary family logistics while I was away. As ever, Clara has supported me unconditionally in taking this road trip, so if she asked me to line up a car, I'd do that gladly. Now the trip was going to cost me out of pocket. I had to decide on whether or not to bail, in which case Wanda would have to cancel the gig at the last minute, or just take my lumps and go.

I've always maintained that I'm not in music solely for the money, so I decided that I would look at this as yet another investment. I also decided that I would take a good attitude into the trip, despite the cost, the 20 hours driving, and the energy required to make it happen. I always have a choice in these matters. I could decided to be miserable, in which case the whole trip would be guaranteed to be miserable, or I could make the most of it.

Every year at Banff, during his music business lecture, Hugh Fraser has talked about how he handled similar situations, often on a larger scale. He talked about when he self-produced VEJI gigs that he knew were going to lose money, or cancelling an entire recording project mid-stream. In the end, he always found that if you are coming from a place of musical and personal integrity, these events would have a payoff greater than the momentary loss. Sometimes that payoff would come from unexpected quarters, but it would always be there in the fullness of time.

With this in mind, I decided to soldier on, despite the perceived roadblocks. I also knew this gig was important to Wanda.

So we set out for the Kootenays at 6:00am Friday morning. Driving through Langley, it was all we could do not to show up at Mark's door and say "We're here, let's hit the road!" He would have felt so guilty from this prank that he probably would have come along. We didn't do it only because we wanted to make good time, but we regretted not pulling this one on him.

The weather was perfect and the roads were virtually empty. I've done the drive to Nelson many times in the past, always on long weekends in the summer when there was considerably more congestion. I discovered a few secrets to a successful road trip which I am willing to share here. #1 - Drive a new car with a decent stereo. My old Volvo was getting to the point where I was uncertain if I could reach the out of town gigs without a major breakdown - not good for the nerves. And it didn't have a cd player.

<- Copper Eagle, Greenwood

#2 - Know where the real coffee and the decent food is. I am a typical Vancouver coffee snob and I need to have multiple fixes of serious caffeine, especially when I'm doing all of the driving. Those Bunn carafes of diner coffee don't cut it. The Copper Eagle in Greenwood is recommended. The Omega in Grand Forks is not.

#3 - Know when and where to gas up. Of all places, Princeton had the cheapest gas of the whole trip. Many years ago, I literally had to roll down the mountain between Grand Forks and Castlegar, all 21 kilometers of it. We hit Grand Forks too late at night to find an open station and I ran out gas right at the summit. We coasted into the Castlegar Chevron at 5:00 am.

#4 - Make sure you drive through the Similkameeen and Okanagan areas during business hours, not for the fruit stands (which are great), but for the winery tastings. We discovered this time that a well-timed glass of wine (avoid the plonk!) certainly made the trip go smoother. And they have nicer bathrooms than at the West Hedley Mall.

#5 - It almost goes without saying - pick your tunes. We had quite a range of music going on in the car, from Ella to Hard Rubber Orchestra. But early on in the trip, we started to have a series of times when the randomly selected music perfectly matched the setting in which we were driving.

<- Abandoned farmhouse west of Keremeos

The first time it happened was driving through Keremeos on to Osoyoos. I threw on Bill Frisell's sublime Quartet album, with Eyvind Kang, Curtis Fowlkes, and Ron Miles - one of my desert island picks. I now know it also works beautifully with desert valleys. The match was unreal, and when it happened, I knew that our trip was going to be much better than expected.

<- Spotted Lake, just east of Osoyoos

Past Osoyoos, as we crested the intriguingly named Anarchist Mountan, it was time for Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits, and we hummed along the almost deserted highway. Well, the car hummed, we were gettin' down.

The capper was on the return trip, descending into Hope along with Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. Vince Mendoza's orchestrations are just so goddamn magnificent, combined with Joni's voice, Wayne Shorter... I could have veered off the cliff and died a happy man. As it was, we just had to drive in silence for about a half hour after that. Even after that length of time, I had to be careful what I put on, choosing Ellington's impeccable Such Sweet Thunder.

Listening to these cds at volume on the open road is so much different then having them play while I'm navigating through traffic in the city. I could really listen to so many of the details that make all of these albums so great, even though I've heards them many times already. I have little time when I can just sit and listen at home, so this was a real treat and almost enough incentive to take another road trip next weekend.

We arrived in Kaslo well ahead of schedule. Wanda's friends Jim and Barbara met us and took care of us the entire time we were there. They had two spare bedrooms in their lovely house and fed us at every opportunity possible. We got to the Langham Cultural Centre in Kaslo ahead of schedule and set up before dinner. That was a good thing as our hosts kept us overly long at dinner and we only hooked up with Rich and bassist Rob Johnson just before we had to go on. With no time to go over Wanda's arrangements, there were a few rough spots, but I doubt anyone in the audience noticed.

The deal was that we were to play a brief set, then take a 40-minute break, during which there would be a presentation about the SS Moyie, the restored paddlewheeler docked in Kaslo. Short story long, this guy droned on for an hour and half in the most excruciating detail possible. That meant we had to wait around to start our set almost at the time we were scheduled to finish. Rich and Rob were very gracious about it. They were having fun, so were willing to wait around. My major concern was that the Kaslo jazz festival people missed the first set. They arrived when we were scheduled to start the second set. Wanda chatted them up over complimentary drinks. I would have been truly pissed off had the left due to this boor not being able to keep to a schedule, but fortunately they stuck around and liked what they heard.

<- Langham Cultural Centre, Kaslo

I killed the time by exploring the building. It struck me as being somewhat similar to the Western Front in feel, and also as it was home to a nice little theatre space, a gallery and numerous artists' studios. The Langham building is about 100 years old and has the dubious distinction of being the place in Kaslo where the Japanese-Canadians were interned during the 1940s. There was a museum documenting this sad chapter of Canadian history. I read through the exhibits, feeding my middle-aged white guy's guilt, dreading that I may find a family name that I recognized.

Thus invigorated, we played a decent second set, though we lost most of our audience due to the delay the speaker caused. He had the theatre doors closed so nobody could escape during his somnolent talk, talk, talk. When everyone had a chance to get to the bar, they went and many never returned.

Regardless, Wanda and I immediately felt that the trip was a success. We had made a good Nelson connection with Rich and Rob. We shared the bounty of the Kootenay harvest. We had left what we hoped was a favourable impression on the Kaslo jazz folks. We'd also made a good connection with the people at the Langham and we now know the costs involved in self-producing a gig there in future. Combined with a gig in Nelson and another in the Okanagan, we feel we could now set up a modestly profitable mini-tour.

Most of all, we felt the appreciation of the all of the people involved with setting up this gig, particularly our hosts Jim and Barbara. Yeah, it doesn't pay the rent, but it's always a welcome change from indifferent or sometimes worse treatment that seems to be the norm in many of the places we have played in Vancouver.

We hit the road Saturday morning at 8:00 am. I chose a longer route through the wierd little ghost town of Sandon, then on to New Denver (great cafe, but passed on the Nikkei interment museum - enough guilt already, thanks). The drive through the Slocan valley was beautiful. Wanda and I had enough time to discuss plans for the band, fix the US administration and deal with the Middle East mess.

Our only bad meal of the trip was at the aforementioned Omega in Grand Forks, unless you're a fan of overpriced soup and brown caesar salad. FYI the cheapness of borscht is now pegged at $6.95 for a small cup. Next stop was the Nk'Mp winery where we picked up a nice bottle of merlot - they have a great operation there. Then on to Keremeos to load up at the fruit stands. Finally we rolled on to Vancouver to the sounds of Joni and Duke, getting home at 8:15.

<- Keremeos valley

<- Obligatory fruit stand visit

I was pretty beat the next morning, gathering only enough energy for a family stroll along the dykes at Steveston. It was another beautiful day, as if I needed reminding what a beautiful corner of the world we have the good fortune to inhabit.

Next up, ion Zoo returns to the Western Front on Tuesday evening.

Perceptions

I'm sitting here reflecting on my emotional reactions to how some of my recent gigs have gone. First off, I'm excluding the ones where I say to myself, "Man, that really sucked." or "Shit, that was unbelieveable!". Fortunately, I can't really remember the last time I said the former, though I've had my share, and one that definitely falls into the latter category was the show featuring Chucho Valdes at Banff.

It's the ones that fall in between these two poles, especially when I have some sort of personal interest in the outcome. So that eliminates the more commercial ones like the fundraiser I played last week. I go into every gig with the aim of playing as best I can and at fulfilling my designated role for the evening. For the fundraiser, we were background music, and we did a fine job of being wallpaper. That's all there is to that sort of gig.

Rather, I am thinking about my other three most recent gigs, one with the Silent Summer Nights Monster Orchestra, a restaurant gig with Wanda, and the ion Zoo set last night at the Cellar. I think they were all good gigs, at least in terms of audience satisfaction. How they merited musically is where I get hung up.

The only way one could tell if the Monster Orchestra show had any merit would have been to be part of the audience. Keeping my focus on three conductors, and being in the back of the orchestra where the sound was sketchy, there was no way that I could really hear everything that was going on. The energy felt good and there was a large range of sounds and textures that seemed appropriate to the movie. The audience seemed to really like it, mind you quite a few of them were pretty stoned. I had fun playing, and that was really why I came away from that gig feeling like it went well.

I know the audience really liked us at Wanda's gig on Saturday. Seb's is a fairly small room and we got immediate feedback from the patrons. They came up and complimented us and bought cds from us, so we knew we did our job as far as providing an evening's entertainment. Plus, we can make objective assessments of how well we played technically - how well we blended as a group, kept the time and the feel, played over the changes, tuning, etc. A recording of the night would have provided a way for us to go back an mark how we did. I fear that I would have to take a few marks off for showboating a couple of times when I soloed, getting a little too big for my own britches. It happens with this group when things go well and I'm having fun. Another measure of how we did on the night is if we get booked again. In that regard, this group is generally quite successful. We bring in people, the rooms are usually full, we start and finish when we're supposed to, take reasonable break time, look good and play not too loud - all the things that a manager is looking for. It's why this group works so frequently.

ion Zoo is much harder to evaluate. In free playing, many of the familiar measuring sticks are thrown out the window. There are certainly no chord changes to play over and we generally avoid groove. We have a passing acquaintance with tonality, which we may choose to work with or not. Form? Pretty amorphous. So what is left are often much more fundamental questions: Was that musical? Did we connect and communicate as a group? Was it original? Did we connect with the audience? This sort of questioning is one reason why I am so attracted to this form of music.

There is a variety of opinions in improvised music circles as to whether or not connection with the audience is important. I believe it's crucial, otherwise you're better off wanking off in the practice room. It does have a bearing as to the choices I make in the moment, as I believe I have a responsibility to the audience. As I've mentioned in previous postings, I also believe that having a singer in the group provides the most direct connection with the audience. Carol Sawyer is tremendously talented and has a knack for improvising stories and songs based on her life experience, often in a very funny and engaging way. We do strive to connect with our listeners.

<- ion Zoo sound check at the Cellar

So was the Cellar gig last night any good? I think so. We had a reasonably good-sized audience. We kept them in their seats through our set and they listened to what we were doing. (It's never good when they start streaming through the exits!) I always take it as a good sign when we can quiet a large room, as Wanda can also do when she nails a ballad. We had a few of those intuitive group moments when we all started shifting together. We also came up with some interesting spontaneous compositions, where it sounded like it had been written. Some of the moods we created were also new for us, somewhat on the dark side. Maybe it had something to do with being the 11th of September, I don't know. (I hate what I call the numericization of the English language, like 9/11, 24/7, "get the 411" or even "that's a big 10-4", but that's a topic of for another rant.)

The only real way to evaluate this particular gig will be to listen to the recording of the night, preferably a few weeks down the road. Our track record is that almost always we have created some good and interesting music. Perhaps I am too analytical of what's going on during the performance, that I can't step back and be objective. But I need to be involved in order to make what I trust are musical decisions. And I want to be playing from my emotional core.

We've had a few gigs where things have been transcendant, and if we have anything less, I'm a bit let down. That's a pretty big burden to put on one's self, and a nice way to undermine all of the good things that happened at a gig. It's those damned expectations again.

As for the audience, I'm sure that there were as many reactions as there were listeners, ranging from "Oh, wow" to "That really blew" to "Oh man, Bagnell's stealing my shit again!"

Another very sure yardstick for the success of a gig is if the leader, in this case me, forgets the cheque for the band at the bar. Which makes me yet again a loser.

Gearhead

September brought a slew of activity and I was happy to get back into a routine at home . The first gig was with the Silent Summer Nights Monster Orchestra, an annual film soundtrack performance series every Labour Day Weekend. Through his Eye of New Collective, Stefan Smulovitz continues his long tradition of presenting improvised sountracks to movies, mostly the silent variety, or at least with the original soundtrack turned off. SSN is held over three nights at Grandview Park, and the final night features a large group of improvisors, about 26 this time round.


I played percussion, bringing out the Big Rack, and was part of the percussion section with Joel Lower and Gary Wildeman on drum kits. Playing with them is a gas and I feel I lock in better with them every year. The night got off to a good start when I won a door prize pack from Womyn's Ware, including some massage oil and a nice little stuffed Orgasm, which is apparently the new pet rock. On the whole the night was quite successful. The movie was Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis from 1927. There were three conductors, Stefan, Coat Cooke and Giorgio Magnanensi, so you had to keep your focus on them all of the time. Each had a specific role and would jump in and take over in various combinations. Having the Big Rack, I could provide sound effects, play time with the drums, or play Stefan's written melodies on the crotales, so I was able to function in a few different roles. I played a bit at the afterparty at the WISE Hall, but the music wasn't really happening, so I called it a night.

Later in the week, I played at a private function with Footprints Jazz Trio, basically the Wanda Nowicki group sans Wanda. Since we started gigging with her, we've had a lot less trio gigs, so it was nice to go instrumental again. I certainly needed to blow the rust out of my tenor, which I hadn't touched in the month of August. The organization of this gig left a lot to be desired. We were promised dinner, but the food only appeared when we were playing, and nothing was set aside for us. Then, with about two numbers to go, one of the organizers told me that they wouldn't have a cheque for me for at least three weeks. I was choked and let her know that I would have to pay the guys out of my own pocket. My friend who had arranged the gig was laying low, knowing I wouldn't be very happy about the payment situation. Serves me right for not looking after the details.

It certainly resonated with me today when I read Cory Weeds' latest blog installment about the value people place on live musicians. I was originally asked to do this gig for free, which I refused. Then I saw their advertising where they prominently featured the word Jazz. They finally came back to me offering a reasonable payment, probably after they were refused by a number of other musicians.

So I join Cory in wondering what value the general public puts our chosen art form. Nowadays music students spend untold thousands of dollars on instruments and related accessories, private lessons, college and various workshops, not to mention thousands of unpaid hours in the practice room. With the exception of a few places in the town, if you want to work regularly and aren't at the top of the jazz food chain, you play for the door or get paid peanuts. It doesn't make sense. Yet we persist.

It puts me in mind of the last gig at Rime that I did with the Wanda Nowicki Group. We agreed to play for the door because we were confident that we would be a good draw and we were, so we got reasonably paid for our efforts. During the second set, a group of guys came in and wouldn't pay the cover. They sat at a table near the back of the main floor, not far from the stage and talked loudly. On the break, Wanda went over to the table and very diplomatically asked for a cover fee. They all refused. Obviously their precious money was better spent on beer. I really wanted to find out where they worked, so I could be as discourteous in their job situation. Assholes.

We do persist in this because we love what we do. I am fortunate that I love the music that I am playing and so will take a certain amount of crap in order to perform. I have friends who are longtime professional symphony players and are burnt out. They hate the music that they do, being in a city where the repertoire is very conservative, playing Bach, Brahms and Beethoven year in and year out, yet it's the only way they can make a living. I am indeed fortunate to live in a city like Vancouver.

I'm looking forward to the next few days. Saturday night will be the first gig with Wanda since July, then I have a set on Monday evening with ion Zoo at the Cellar. These two musical styles are as different as chalk and cheese. I enjoy them both immensely.

Wanda's going to be at Seb's Market Bistro on East Broadway, a place where we always enjoy playing. It's cramped, but the food and the atmosphere is great and owner Francois always treats us well.

At the Cellar, we are going to have a focussed set. I am only going to play only bass clarinet and soprano sax, Clyde will be playing his cut-down travelling bass, and Carol will bring her full voice. Sometimes it's a really interesting exercise to achieve more by using less - the power of limitation.

Which brings me to what I was originally planning to write about. Hi my name is Steve and I am a gearhead. There, I've said it.

I own quite a number of instruments, a lot if you count the percussion individually. I have had most of my saxophones for between 15 to 25 years, and my closed-hole flute for over 30 years. Some of my percussion has been around for that long too.

The last sax I bought was my Serie III Selmer tenor, over 8 years ago. My clarinets have come in the last couple of years (coming out of my experience with Maria Schneider at Banff) and I just got the open-hole flute this past June. Most of my percussion has been purchased from eBay, which is insidious in its ease to absorb my money.

It's the accessories for some of the wind instruments which is an endless source of gear-hunting - new mouthpieces, reeds, ligatures, custom necks, new cases to replace 30 year old junkers, stands. It goes on and on.

Then there was the PA system last year, which gigging with Wanda has paid off. I got some really nifty mics, then pre-amps, compressors, a parametric EQ... There were my computers, a laptop, a couple of printers, various peripherals... Now it's digital camera equipment - lenses, another printer, neat accessories, cases, WAAAAGGGGHHH!

My only justification is that I'm not as bad a gear fanatic as this guy who has dozens of mouthpieces, or that guy who buys a case of reeds just to find the right one, or the guy with the complete home recording studio, but never uses it.

I tried to be a one-horn guy. Lord knows I tried. I envy a musician like Lori Freedman who hasn't bought anything new for her bass clarinet other than reeds for the last 25 years. She professes to not remember what type of mouthpiece she plays and has very little interest in seeing what the new instruments are like. She is the Anti-Gearhead. Guys like Dave Say, who's playing the same horn (albeit a very nice one) that he's had since high school, one that's so out of adjustment that a mere mortal couldn't get a note out of it. Yet he never sounds anything less that great every time I hear him.

I'd like to be like them, but I'm just not wired that way. I'm the classic jack of all trades, master of none. And I'm happy to be like that.

Travelogue

<- Annapolis Valley
I took August off from the blogosphere and most everything else, including gigs. I can't remember the last time I took such a long break. The highlight of the month was a family trip back to Nova Scotia, where my wife Clara and I both have family. It was a great vacation, to say the least. Those of you who have been to the Maritimes already know this, and for those who haven't yet been, maybe I shouldn't let the cat out of the bag, but Atlantic Canada is without doubt one of the most special places on earth. I spent the first half of my life there, and the last 25 years vacationing there regularly.

Every time we go, Clara and I pick another corner of Nova Scotia to explore. After all that time, it never ceases to amaze us that a turn down an unfamiliar little road can lead to a new and often breathtakingly beautiful spot. We certainly found our share of them this time. And it takes time for me to adjust to how really friendly the people are everywhere we go.

On the downside, the uncontrolled development and suburban sprawl in Halifax and particularly in my hometown of Dartmouth makes me puke. Cole Harbour (birthplace of hockey hero Sydney Crosby) is so bad that the only relief that I saw on the day we passed through was the purpose-built set location for the Trailer Park Boys movie. Endless strip malls, butt-ugly architecture, gawdawful public housing developments - I will never criticize Vancouver city planners again. Vancouver specials and monster houses have a long way to go to match the dross that I saw. The cities are booming. Dartmouth's population has increased tenfold since my early days there and local city planners are not dealing with it very well.

Halifax waterfront ->
I took about a thousand photos with my new digital camera - it's hard for me not to post most of them. As far as music, that all went by the wayside between family obligations and touring around the province. I had made some overtures to Paul Cram, a founding member of the NOW Orchestra now residing in Halifax, to hook up. Unfortunately the one new music gig he had in August fell on an evening when I was in Cape Breton. I quickly came to appreciate the rarity of such gigs in Halifax, maybe once a month at the best of times. Yet again, I am grateful to be a part of the Vancouver scene, where the improvised music community is relatively healthy and quite active (but still not lucrative!).

Whilst in Cape Breton, we sought out live music every day. The area is justly famous for its fiddle music, producing acts like the Rankins, Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac. As a kid I was never a fan of this genre, and really haven't changed that much. What I do appreciate as a musician is that this is a living music, and that these people perservered for decades, regardless of being perceived as cool or not. Even though the Celtic music craze has cooled off somewhat in recent years, it continues to thrive in Cape Breton. It was great to go to a restaurant to hear an old pro play and to see the young musicians coming up, paying their dues, no different from jazz. And that this music comes from the hearts of the people of Cape Breton and much of the rest of the province, this is not something I can dismiss.

There is more money at play in Nova Scotia now, with offshore oil revenues starting to pour in. I noticed that many houses, even in poor fishing villages, have been spruced up. A lot of this is due to tourism - people there know it is a major employer in the province, second only to the goverment, especially the Armed Forces. People take pride in their way of life. Very few times did things ring false, in a tourist-trap way. There is also money flowing into the province as wealthy people "from away", mostly Americans snap up every inch of oceanfront property. Europeans, particularly Germans, as well as western Canandians (west being anything past New Brunswick) are also in the real estate game. Two hours south of Halifax, at the end of a nondescript road in the middle of absolutely nowhere, we found million-dollar-plus homes sitting on rugged headlands.

Fortress Louisbourg - fantastic! ->
Another factor, particularly in Cape Breton, is that an entire generation, maybe two, have left the province to work in Toronto, or more likely in northern Alberta in the oil patch. Money is being sent back home, and it's a rare person, especially a Caper or a Newfoundlander, who doesn't dream of returning home sometime.

A nice spinoff of all of this is that the food is way better. We ate at quite a number of great restaurants all around the province, some of them absolutely spectacular. Clara had a bit less luck than I did. She ordered a couple of Greek salads of dubious provenance, and got stuck with fake crab in crab cakes when they ran out of the real deal. That was pretty lame - you can fool the tourists but not someone who's lived their life on the East and West Coasts of the country.

My absolute favourite was the Red Shoe Pub in Mabou, owned by the Rankin sisters. Obviously they learned what made for a great restaurant while they spent so many years touring with their band. They took that concept home and adapted it to home cooking with some real flair, and added live music every night. It worked for me.

That same night, we enjoyed the bar at the Glenora Distillery, where we stayed with friends from Vancouver. Glenora is the only distillery in North America to make single malt whiskey (it can only be called scotch if it's made in Scotland), and Glenora's Glen Breton 10 year old holds up pretty well to a random sampling that we tried at the bar. The tasting was all quite erudite and dignified until the four of us got plastered. Then we retired to one of the guest chalets on the grounds. That's where I fell down the stairs - I've almost healed up from that one.

Clara was feeling a bit too wee the next morning when we did the distillery tour, and passed her glass over to our friend David, a born Scot, who was more than happy to oblige. I have Stan Karp to thank for turning me on to the ultimate single malt. Glen Breton still has a way to go to catch up to Lagavulin.

While on vacation, I had planned to do some composing, a graphic score for a string trio in particular. I also thought a few quiet days at my brothers' beatiful and isolated beach cottage would be conducive to going through a pile of various recordings that I've made over the last 5 years, with the aim of compiling the best onto two or three cds. None of that happened - we were just too busy and to boot, my laptop display packed it in after a few days.

So I returned to Vancouver with a couple of unfinished projects and a bunch of gigs. Clara is one of those fatalists who declared that summer is over on the Labour Day weekend, but I've decided that summer will officially continue until I finish these tasks. So I may be wearing shorts and sandals well into January, given my rate of production when a firm deadline is not looming...

Finally, a shot of me attempting to surf. It would have been great to have had a picture of me standing up on the board, but that would have required that I actually managed such a feat. Maybe Photoshop can help.

Con Works

The listening session on Monday evening convinced us that we indeed have something good with the ion Zoo recording from the Cellar. Listening to it on Lisa Miller's home stereo was helpful. The group sound was not as together as it sounded on Chris's studio monitors or in my car, which has a nice stereo system. I have yet to give it a listen at home where we have a decent stereo, or at Clyde's, who has a great system. The challenge is to get a mix that sounds good on all systems.

We seem to be inclined towards releasing it as a cd, but this is not a process to rush. One thing for sure is that we want to perform more with Lisa. We've got a couple of more dates already booked for coming months where there's a nice piano, so the opportunity will be there.

I visited Raymon Torchinsky yesterday to pick up some more recordings from subsequent Cellar gigs. He is a big booster of ion Zoo, so that is encouraging.

I'm writing this from a cafe in Seattle near where I'll be playing tonight. What can I say - either Homeland Security has totally failed or free jazz musicians are not yet on the watch list. I guess they are too busy listening in on America's phone conversations.

I think it's such a crock that it's not permitted to have a free flow of artists over the border. Certainly in the musical circles that I inhabit, it's not like there is a massive amount of money being sucked out of the Vancouver music scene by visiting Seattle musicians, or vice versa. There's a negligible amount of money involved at all. For my case, it has averaged out to gas money, perhaps covering accomodations occasionally. It's great that I have friends here where I can crash on a relatively comfortable bed for the night. But really, if I was into creative music for the money, then my motivation would be dead wrong from the get-go.

I come down here to play with Paul whenever possible because we've always created great music together. I figure we've played about a dozen gigs together in various configurations since we've first met and they've always been musically satisfying. He's a great player and a fine person, just the sort of musician that I prefer to spend my time with. Besides, my daughter loves him, and that is the litmus test. Her radar is way better than mine.

Tonight's show is with the Paul Rucker Large Ensemble, a group that he created two years ago directly out his experience at Banff. Driving down today, I listened to the cd of the initial concert we played at Earshot, the one that got so much acclaim. The opening tune in particular absolutely kicks ass, and the music is strong throughout.

We are back at Consolidated Works tonight to reprise that show. The event that brought this show about is rather unfortunate as it is being staged to mark Con Works' closing. I don't know the circumstances at this point, but I would bet that money is at the core. This place is about 30,000 square feet and it's in the Westlake area, fairly close to the Space Needle. It has been a multi-media artists' space with facilities for theatre, film, large scale installation art, music and a pretty cool lounge. I've been envious of not having such a great space in Vancouver, but now it's coming to an end. Judging from the fairly virulent anti-Republican material I seen there, it's a safe bet these guys haven't been getting a cent from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Time to get to the soundcheck...

I'm now finishing this post off back home in Vancouver.

The show went fairly well. Paul has often gotten funding from the City of Seattle to produce the Large Ensemble Concerts. But in this case, he was really doing it to honour Consolidated Works, and it was a door gig. Half of the people from the original show performed, about a dozen. The entire evening was improvised, rather than playing Paul's compositions and the first set went fairly well. Fairly early on in the second set, Paul starting having some fun and a general goofiness permeated the set, as evidenced by a deconstruction of Row Row Row Your Boat. The audience enjoyed it - perhaps it was just refreshing for them to see some avante-garde musicians not taking themselves too seriously onstage. At one point, the seriously talented guitarist Bill Horist struck a rock god guitar pose, placing his foot on the middle of my back for maximum effect. It was that sort of night. To be honest, it wasn't my favourite set that I've played with this band, nevertheless it was fun.

Best of all for me, I had the pleasure of playing with all of these guys 3 or sometimes 4 times now, and they're all great people. I'm sure more musical connections will evolve out of this. And they all want to come up to play in Vancouver, quite envious of the scene we have up here. And here I am thinking that Seattle is pretty great. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the world's longest undefended border, undefended at least for now.

I hit the road for home at midnight and ran nonstop to the border, then home for 2:15 am. By not taking any pee breaks, I was sufficiently uncomfortable to stay awake for the drive, but just barely. Then of course, I couldn't get to sleep at home.

So this morning was a bit rough, and it stayed that way for the day. By the end of of the afternoon, I had a short temper and just wanted to get the evening's gig over and done with. I arrived at the restaurant with instruments and PA system, but no charts. I've been playing Wanda's tunes enough by this point, so I did quite well from memory, aided by the odd peek at the bass book. I had been feeling fairly comfortable with the music lately and I know I should just ditch the charts. They're a bit of a crutch, but I really have a poor memory for chord changes.

I have a great wealth of arcane trivia that I can call up but something that really matters, like chord changes, elude me. What can I say - I'm lame.

On the whole, it ended up being a pretty good gig. The place was quite full of people and they really liked our performance.

So here I am pecking away at a keyboard rather than hitting the sack. Lame!

Killer baris

There was an open Monday night in the Cellar schedule and Coat Cooke asked me if I wanted to put something together for July 10th. Ken Hoffman, my roommate from Banff, was planning to be in town. My original idea was to get trombonist Robin Jessome over from Victoria and we could revisit the ad hoc trio that did the surround sound recording. However, Robin and his wife Natalie are vacationing back home in Nova Scotia for the summer, so I called Chad Makela so as to have a three baritone sax group, with doubles on bass clarinet.

I also decided to work out some structures for each of the improvisations, particularly for the sake of Ken who's a great player, but not really experienced with free improv. I knew Chad would like it that way, too.

We set a rehearsal for the day previous to the gig and I brought about a dozen sketches of what I wanted to do. Ken and Chad hit it off immediately and the rehearsal went well, punctuated by honking and howling of Italian soccer fans celebrating the World Cup victory. I made a quick executive decision to forget about the bass clarinets. Ken hadn't brought his from Edmonton, so rather than search around for one to borrow, I thought we should just simplify.

The following night we showed up at the Cellar, and much to my chagrin, Raymon Torchinsky had brought his own bass clarinet for Ken to play. Unfortunately Chad and I hadn't brought ours. Raymon has been a great supporter of the series on behalf of the Cellar and has recorded most of the Monday night shows so far.

The gig was very lightly attended, the smallest crowd that I've played to there, but it was just 8 days since the jazz festival (burnout still a factor) and a lovely summer evening. That's pretty well impossible to compete against in this city.

Nevertheless, I thought the music went really well on the night. For the most part, my structured improvisations worked out. Chad and Ken and I had fun, and the audience enjoyed it. We each have our on disctinctive style on bari, and they complimented each other. Chad thinks that with some steady rehearsal, a really nice group could grow out of this, and I agree.

During the second set, Coat joined us for a couple of numbers, and that was really a blast. I'd asked Chris Kelly and Shane Krause to come by, but they couldn't. Six baris would have killed. Too bad Danny Kane isn't into this sort of thing any more - seven baris at once would probably have broken some sort of municipal bylaw.

Here's a shot of the four of us. I'll be picking up the rough mix from Raymon this coming week, so I'm very hopeful that the recording sounds as good as I expect it to be. My personal feeling is that some really fine music has been created during the Monday night run starting last year with the long engagement of the Coat Cooke Trio. Raymon has learned the house recording system and worked hard to get good raw recordings, then do rough mixes. Time may well prove that this has been a very important series of gigs, and to document it as well as he has is a real plus. I think there could be a number of great live cds coming out of this. There should be some distribution for them.

In the past week, we just finished our initial mixdown of the ion Zoo gig in February with Lisa Miller on piano. We did the mix at Chris Gestrin's place and were very happy with the sound on the night. Our next step is to have a group listening session and figure out just what we are going to do with it. This is one that may be releaseable as a cd. It's certainly good enough for festival submissions for the coming year.

Also on my calendar this week is a jaunt down to Seattle to play in the Paul Rucker Large Ensemble. Any time I get the call from Paul, I'm there.

Jazz Festival


This year was different for me as far as performing. Last year, between club gigs and VCMI, I had five festival gigs, and this year was just one, but a nice one. The Wanda Nowicki Group got a booking from CJBS to play at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Garden Stage on the second night of the festival.

It turned out to be a really nice venue and a fine performance. I hadn't been to the suspension bridge for at least 20 years and it was a chintzy tourist trap. They've done a lot of work there and now a really nice tourist trap. And the stage area was quite lovely. I had concerns that there would be no audience, but we ended up having a full house. I can now appreciate why this has been a perrennial festival venue.

We were booked as a quintet, and very happy to have Tom Foster play drums again with us, as he did in the studio. We may have benefitted from a rehearsal, but it went very well indeed and was enthusiastically received. Prior to the gig Wanda asked if we should bring 20 cds to the gig and I laughed and said we have never sold that many. I got to eat my words - we sold out on the first break and could have easily sold 20.

Tom is such a great musician to play with, we felt really solid with the time. Mark could ease up on bass with a great drummer beside him and his playing was much more fluid. Chris really bore down and we could see him concentrating on his playing. He's usually like a magpie - shiny things distract him easily. Wanda did great job fronting the band and singing as well as ever. The tunes flowed nicely from one to another. I was happy with my playing, though felt I could have been more relaxed.

We had a sound guy that I worked with before at Cap College and Lloyd did a fine job for us, a real professional, which was nice for me. I'm the default sound guy at our regular gigs.

So it really was one of our best gigs, which is satisfying, We've been playing a lot and it shows now. Tom added a lot of punch - it's a shame that we really don't have very many places where we could afford to pay (or even have room for) him. It will be a treat a few times each year when we can do it. I particularly liked how we did Waters of March, a fabulous Jobim song, a tune that took us a very long time to work up. I play percussion for the majority of the piece, except for a short instrumental section in the middle, then a longer solo to finish the piece. I told Tom that I would play pandeiro for most of the piece and he immediately played a drum pattern that was closer in style to a pandeiro than a standard bossa sort of thing. It really gave the tune a much more Brazilian feel in my opinion, and so it really worked well.

That was our official gig in the festival and I think we did it justice. I'd be very pleased to get the gig there again in future years.

I made use of my artist's pass right away. On the opening night of the festival, I saw Andy Bey perform. He's a very accomplished singer with a unique style. I particularly dug his arrangements.

My one regret was that on the night of our gig, I had to miss most of the NOW Orchestra show at the Cultch. I caught the end of it and it went quite well, particularly a new piece of Coat's called the Westside Stomp. It has a very strong political message, very anti-Iraq war, and that naturally played well at the Cultch.

Sunday afternoon I went to Ironworks, where the VCMI performance was being held. Having been a part of the program last year, it was very interesting to be on the audience side of things this time. All in all it was a fairly interesting show, and I got to hang a little bit with Marilyn Crispell, Mats Gustaffson and Nicole Mitchell. I am working to arrange a VCMI night at the Cellar during the fall Jazz Projections series, and this show convinced me that this year's participants would do a fine job.

Then I was off to Gastown, actually Victory Square to see Ann Schaeffer's group perform. It was the only unpleasant experience I had during the festival, and nothing to do with the musicians. The sound man was totally useless and ruined the gig in my opinion. Ann is a fine singer and guitarist, but this meatball had her acoustic guitar louder than the rest of the band combined. Her vocals were often inaudible. Onstage, drummer Kelby McNayr later told me they couldn't hear Ann's guitar in the monitors, and that's what he and the bassist needed to hear in order to pick up on her intricate finger picking patterns. Instead of applause for the first few numbers, the audience kept yelling out to fix the sound. After a half a set with no sound relief in sight, I had to leave. I just couldn't stand it any more. It was very out of keeping for this jazz festival.

I won't bore you with my gig-by-gig experience at the festival. In the end, I reflected on my trends in gig choices. I saw a lot of singers, particularly liking Jeanette Lindstrom enough to go to two of her gigs. She has a great voice and is a fine composer. I really dug her trumpeter Staffan Svensson - like JP Carter, an anti-trumpeter. He did none of that macho brass thing and really said a lot more by playing a lot less. Ditto for Russ Johnson, who was part of Michael Bates' great show at the CBC studio. I didn't see any sax players who rocked my world, free or straight-up, though I was unable to see any of Mats Gustaffson's appearances (I heard mixed reviews on him, but I've seen him before and like him), and I didn't go to see Paquito d'Rivera, who was reportedly fantastic. But this wasn't a "sax festival" this year. I don't know if any one instrument was more prominent this time round.

I caught a lot at Granville Island, and the final weekend at David Lam Park and the Roundhouse. I am a big fan of the High School Intensive and Nicole Miller did a standout job with them. The whole concept of taking an all-star high school band and having them play a combination of classic repertoire and some new music like graphic scores is a winner with me. It's usually the first introduction of free improv techniques to these kids and it opens a whole world up for some of them. And I love to hear some of these kick-ass young players.

I also liked Ache Brasil's show to finish off Saturday night at David Lam Park. I must admit I have some bias since my daughter has recently started studying capoeira at their studio, but these guys put on one hell of a high-energy show. I am also partial to Brazilian music as evidenced by my attempts to play pandeiro.

By Sunday night, I was dragging my sorry ass around, and as much as I hated to miss Alita's festival closing set at the Roundhouse, I had a birthday party to attend - my own. Even then, as I drove someone home to the West End after the party, I couldn't resist popping in to O'Doull's. But by midnight, just as Mike Allen was taking the stage, I had to bail.

The other thing I did at this festival, which was a first for me, was to go out to some of the late-night jam sessions. Cem Zafir organized the Avant-Jam sessions at Rime, which got moved to the pub at the WISE Hall. The initial Sunday night one was cancelled altogether because the pub wasn't open late Sunday nights. Of course, that was the first one I tried to attend. Then on Tuesday night I went to the one hosted by Ron Samworth - the leader of the final gig of the night at Rime hosted the following jam session. Only three musicians showed up that night, Ron, drummer Roger Baird and myself. So we got to play as a trio for the whole session. It was a lot of fun.

I went again on Thursday and Friday. Thursday night there were a lot of enthusiastic but inexperienced improvisors, which always translates into nonstop noodling on the night. Not my favourite night. Friday was hosted by trumpeter Dennis Gonzales from Austin TX, and he is an old hand at this sort of thing. He kept it organized and set parameters for each jam. This was a lot of fun too and afterwards I went out to eat with Cem, Dennis and guitarist Greg Prickett. I really like what Dennis does and I hope I have a chance to play with him in future.

These jam nights cost me dearly in sleep, getting in at 3 or 4 in the morning, but they were worth it. I certainly had the glazed-over look of a hardcore festival goer by that last night. All in all, another fine jazz festival. Too bad the T-shirts sucked. What was with that artwork???

So on reflection, what appealed to me most this year were the performances that had some emotional impact on me. I did go to see a lot more singers than ususal, which was telling. Again, I am seeing the effects of my time at Banff. Sheer technique bores me. It's what a performer says with it that counts.