Primordial ooze


My daughter has been down with that bug for the last three days and I have been the primary caregiver during the daytime. When my wife gets home from work, we do a quick hand-off, then I am out and about.

Last Wednesday was memorable. Within minutes of the hand-off, I was on the way to Riverside for more work on the cd. On the way down, we listened to Abby Lincoln's take on Live for Life, with an arrangement that I wasn't particularly fond of. It started as a ballad and went to a latin feel midway through, but it wasn't entirely convincing, with the horns sounding a touch cheesy for my taste.

We had worked out a very spare arrangement for our version, mostly a piano/vocal duet. Unfortunately, our pianist, one Mr. Clint Porous, had the Lincoln arrangement stuck in his head and could not get away from the fromage-laden latin feel. The first couple of takes really didn't work, so we rejigged the whole thing there on the spot. The final take was even more stripped-down and far more effective. I wanted my tenor solo to come as a surprise, with nothing leading up to it, and then not to play again until the last chord. It took Rick Kilburn to point out that it was evocative of the John Coltrane/Johnny Hartmann cd, one of my favourites. I am very loathe to even mention Trane in any way with regard to my playing, because we are so very distant from each other on the jazz food chain. Nonetheless, I had to agree with Rick that there was an undeniable influence, totally unconscious on my part. Well, it's more flattering than finding comparisons between me and Boots Randolph.

We picked the good tracks from the previous session and got a rough mix of them so we could give them a listen. We also entertained ourselves with trying to get some lame quotes to help promo the cd. "They were all in the same room that night." - Rick Kilburn

We had to cut the session short as I had a 9:30 call at the The Cobalt. Walking through the doors for the first time in 21 years, I was struck by how small it was. The only thing I could remember from my gin-soaked previous visit was an electric blue room with a lit stage with stripper poles in the centre. All that remained of that was the circular housing for the lights on the ceiling, now unused and covered in spray paint. Piles of empties, likely left over from that same visit, were strewn about.

The carpet onstage was sticky and full of unidentifiable stains. The delicate tang of piss and stale beer wafted out of the men's can, which was just to my right.

That triggered a couple of olfactory memories.

The Basin St. bar, where I spent time chatting with a working girl about our families, while my business trip partner was out in the back alley, leaning up against a dumpster, getting blown by the bartender. He was an Australian, living in New Guinea, on his first ever trip to North America. We were visiting various coffee importers in the USA, the centers being San Francisco, New York and finally New Orleans. (They thought that new Seattle company may have an impact on the trade. Were they called Starbucks?) I could write a lengthy piece on our trip, but that will have to be another time. Suffice it to say that he was desperate to make it with an American woman before going home, and was driving me nuts about it. I passed up going to hear some real music on our one free night in New Orleans just to be able to shut him up. On his last night in the US, he considered it money well spent to be out in that alley.

The roadside redneck cowboy bar in Rocky Creek, Idaho. I was travelling with Clara and my brother and his wife, a Martha Stewart protegee. They needed an emergency pee break, so we pulled into the only place for miles around. That same putrid stench was wafting out the front door of the bar, but it didn't deter two women with bursting bladders. I advocated simply letting loose on the floor, just like the locals, judging from the smell. This joint's claim to fame was its upcoming annual Testicle Festival, a prairie oyster eating contest. Being married to a black woman, I figured I was pretty lucky to get out of there without being force-fed one of my own nards.

We were in Idaho the exact time that there was a famous standoff and shootout in Hayden Lake and white supremacists were flocking to the area to support their brethren. How charming. I always felt the way to keep these guys in check was to have a rule that you had to be able to spell the word "supremacist" before you could become one.

How easily I digress. The Cobalt has that same fragrant charm, with just about every available surface covered in graffiti and grindcore posters. The rest has been sprayed with beer and god knows what else.

Primord is as unique a lineup as I've ever been involved with. Two bari saxes, tenor sax (no bassoon that night, dammit), two guys playing half a drum kit, and me on The Beast. It was bloody loud and I'm glad that I had brought earplugs. That had a very interesting effect for me as I played by feel as much as by what I could hear. Low instruments have a very marked resonance back into the body of the player, made even more noticeable by the earplugs.

I admit that I do not practice The Beast on a regular basis. I only have call to use it a few times every year. I used to play it regularly with ion Zoo, but I prefer to limit myself now. My bass sax is from the 1920's and has an antiquated key layout. Certain notes are just plain funky and require alternate fingerings. Keys heights are significantly greater that other saxophones, making speed a challenge. And you have to be ready with a surplus of air support to get it to speak well. But it has a huge range of tonal possibilities and I can see why some improvisers choose to specialize on it.

When it came time for me to blow, I put as much energy as possible into it and tried to go for the unexpected. Adrian Rollini (1920's king of the bass sax), it wasn't. It seemed to be well-received, as was the band.

There is something meaningful to me about playing at a venue where so much music has been made by countless bands, often with people no less dedicated (often totally, maybe fatally committed) to the pursuit of their art. There is an undeniable significance to this place. When I first came to Vancouver, I missed out on going to places like The Cave, The Smiling Buddha and Rohan's before they closed. I am actually proud to add the Cobalt to the Commodore and the Chan Centre as places where I've performed.

Back in the saddle

This past Wednesday, I had a spring in my step that has been missing for the last month. I've talked to so many friends that also endured a lack of energy for a number of weeks as they dealt with that cold bug that's been going around. People have said that this year has been much worse than usual and I have to agree. I'm blaming it on global warming.

It was fairly timely as I've started getting active again. Last weekend was another Bugs Black Blood gig, this time at 1067. I considered it a victory that I didn't cough up a lung or two after the gig, for the first time in over three weeks. The group played its best that night and there was a decent crowd, with the beer selling out just at the end of the night. That's always a good thing.

Yesterday was a busy one. I had a rehearsal for a gig next week at The Cobalt. Aptly named Primord, this group features 2 bari saxes, one tenor sax/bassoon, me on bass sax, and my personal favourite, 2 guys playing half a drum kit between them. One of the things we are doing is an Iggy Pop/David Bowie tune, Tonight. There's a pretty high skronk factor. Gotta love it.

I've been to the Cobalt exactly twice in my life. The first time was in 1986 for my stag party, at the end of a very long night of double gin and tonics. I have a fleeting visual image, but no clue of how long we stayed there or what we did. I do know that we went home shortly after that and that I passed out embracing the toilet. My bride-to-be did what all supportive partners would do - put a pillow under my head, then took a picture which she gave to my alleged best friend and ringleader on the night.

The last time was earlier this year. We had a homestay student from Belfast with us for a few months and she enjoyed hanging out there with her mates. She would only have a few drinks each night, so she was a teatotaller by Irish standards. One night, somebody put something in her second beer and she was wasted. I got a call from her friends at 3:00 am to come down and pick her up. She was passed out, slumped on a chair on the sidewalk outside the front door. Nobody ever found out how it happened. Fortunately nothing worse transpired and her friends took care of her once they realized that she was in trouble.

I've not been to the Fake Jazz Wednesdays yet, so this should be fun. It's where free improv meets metal and noise. Perfect for the Cobalt.

Shortly after the Primord rehearsal, it was a fairly substantial stylistic shift as I was off to Riverside's new studio location to do the first session for the new cd project with Wanda and the boys. The plan for the first night was to lay down a number of the tunes that we have played at almost every gig we have ever done. All fairly straight forward, we may have five good takes in the can. We didn't spend much time listening to playback, so we'll have to wait for the rough mixes to be done.

I took my camera along, but didn't have a chance to take it out of the bag. We were pretty intent on getting as much recorded as possible. We were working with the same engineer as we've done with all of our sessions there, so things were very relaxed.

The Monday night series is back at The Cellar next week after a two-week hiatus. Featuring the Ben Wilson Quintet and nada, it promises to be a very good night. The dress code is "Tennis, Anyone?".