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.