Heavy metal and other debris

I put blogging on the back shelf for a few weeks. There was just too much going on. So, here's a bit of catch-up. Helsinki 8 had one of its infrequent gigs, this one being at the SFU School for Contemporary Arts grad show. It was in what once was the American Can factory, down on the Vancouver waterfront, a very cool building. We played a couple of fairly atmospheric sets, with a bassoonist sitting in for Soressa, one of our singers. It was sort of off-putting that one of the grad students had done a visual installation using the face of our guitarist Pessi, an image about 12 feet high. Pessi is already larger than life, standing about 6'7" or so, but this was BIG. At least we didn't have to play in front of it. The audience feedback was that my stab at conduction was the best received, so maybe we need to focus on more structured material.

The following night I played a duet set with Seattle percussionist Dean Moore at 1067. I thought I was over the top with my percussion collection, but Dean trumps me. He brought about four times what I have on my rack, with a number of very nice large Paiste gongs. Interestingly, in our combined assemblage of brass percussion, we had exactly one of the same item, a UFIP burma bell. Yet they sounded totally different.

Dean plays much more in the tradition of what I consider to be gong music, building up series after series of overtones from a beautiful deep fundamental tone. It's very reflective and somewhat sleep-inducing. It's not that it's boring, but the music is very meditative and has a powerful somnolent effect on people.

He played a couple of extended solo pieces, then we joined forces for the second set. I saw it as my role to be the destabilizing force, to create more tension and release. Sometimes we hooked up in very beautiful ways. Other times, I sought to find harsher sounds, or even random sounds. Once I threw a small chain at the rack, happy to let it create whatever sounds it wanted to. It bounced off of my stuff and ended up making a cool sound on one of Dean's gongs. So I came at this with a free improv aesthetic, and it seemed to work with Dean's approach. We're looking at doing a project in September in Seattle with a third percussionist in a cool new performance space, said to have really nice acoustics.

My only disappointment was that there was a very small turnout on the night. The previous night's attendance was similarly light. We chalked it up to being the Victoria Day long weekend. I resolved not to book 1067 on long weekends in future. Then I looked at my next booking there. It's going to be a fantastic night with Montreal's Marianne Trudel joining ion Zoo. Any steady reader of my blog knows how very highly I think of Marianne as a dear friend and a superlative pianist. She and Lisa Miller are going to start off with a piano duet set, two hugely talented musicians. The date - June 29, on the Canada Day long weekend. D'oh!!!

Next up was ion Zoo at The Cellar. Again, it was proof that this is a very fine group indeed, one that I consider myself most fortunate to be part of. I must admit that I was disappointed that this group did not land a spot in the upcoming jazz festival. I do realize that it's a difficult one to program, considering that we need a quiet and intimate venue plus a grand piano. As I pointed out in the jazz forum, there were at most a dozen slots available for local improvisors. A lot of good groups and musicians got shut out entirely. CJBS has gone a long way to creating and sustaining a strong improv scene here in Vancouver, yet can only offer a small number of spots in their festival. I guess we're in the same boat as all of the other various styles of jazz.

I'd hoped to get some useable shots for our upcoming cd cover, but the lighting at The Cellar was minimal. It was impossible to get a group shot in performance, particularly with the light on Lisa being minimal. I continue to morph into a Ross Taggart lookalike. Too bad that didn't include his chops...

Fortunately, sometime during his wedding preparations (congrats!!!), Cory has since gotten more of the stage lighting working. I got much better photos of The Fiddlers during their fine evening last Monday. There's only a few more Monday nights left in the current NOW series before the jazz festival starts. They are certainly worth checking out.

The balance of my musical time has been spent working on the Wanda Nowicki Group cd project. Rather than the DIY productions we have done in the past (I am sick of burning cds and printing up all of the labels and covers), we are going the full-blown release route, using a commercial pressing company, getting a graphic designer, etc. Getting all of the licensing done has been a pain, though as a composer I am totally supportive of making sure artists get their fair share for their efforts. By plugging away it a bit at a time every day, we are making progress, and it is beginning to feel less overwhelming.

Wanda have even come up with a title for the cd, always a challenging proposition. And she has found a graphic designer. We had a meeting with her and I think she has some exciting ideas.

I did a few hours of percussion tracks in the studio last night and I hope my efforts will enhance the cd. I wish I had the ability of guys like Pepe Danza or Jack Duncan to make the percussion sound really exciting at times, but face it, they are professional percussionists and it's a sideline for me. My aim is to enhance the music and I think by and large I accomplished that.

On one track, Leaf, I tried a different approach, laying down multiple tracks of various percussive sounds. Played back all together, they sound horrid. My hope is by eliminating 90% of them, just the tasty bits will be left. Leaf has been the piece that has been the trial for most of us, and I have growing confidence that it is coming together. Jeanette Lindstrom has asked me to send her a copy of it when we're done - now, that makes me nervous. She is just so great with her original material, it's a bit daunting to send her our version of it.

Tonight we're back at Riverside, hopefully for the last session before we start mixing and mastering.

ion Zoo at the Cellar May 14, 8:30pm

be there

info

Kvetch

There are times when I wish my life was simpler.

I recently got some grief from someone on the vancouverjazz forum, basically suggesting I was selling out for playing some straight-ahead jazz in the upcoming Vancouver Jazz Festival. I am pretty sure that he was trying to get a rise out of me and I wasn't going to go for it.

I've always believed that playing a wider number of musical styles enhances my development as musician, regardless of what my basic musical preference may be. Any reader of this blog for the last year would know that I've done a fairly broad range of things in that time.

There are moments, though, when I wonder if I would make more progress if I simply focussed on one instrument, one style. I would probably benefit by doing that, but I'm not sure I'd be happy. I certainly don't want to limit myself, but maybe I should be saying no more frequently to various offers to play on projects.

Maybe it's just everything going on right now. I have a gig tonight at 1067, the first set with Primord, lots of bass sax skronk, then the next set on clarinets. Monday at The Cellar, I'm really excited to be back with ion Zoo with at least 3 saxes, bass clarinet and percussion. Then next week I have a percussion duet set at 1067 (there's going to be a pile of gongs and bells and cymbals!). And a Helsinki 8 gig at SFU. And all the while, I'm finishing off the cd project with Wanda, at least three more studio sessions. Not to mention all of the artwork and paperwork required to move ahead that project and the ion Zoo release.

On reading this over, this is not really so bad. Sure, I have the rest of my life and all those other responsibilities to deal with, but there are many, many people juggling a lot more balls, particulary full-time musicians. People with serious health or personal problems. Accountants.

OK, I'll stop whining. Come to think of it, I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. Hey, things are looking pretty good!

Down by the Riverside

I finally managed to haul out my camera to get some pictures of Wanda and the boys at Riverside, on what was the third evening of our current recording project.

This was the night where we recorded a couple of the most challenging tunes. It was a lot of work, and I'm still not sure that we won't need another night with all of us to get some better takes. A lot can be done with the odd judicious fix, and expert mixing and mastering, something that Rick and Dwayne are great at. So I will hold back on my judgment on the results so far.

As ever, I am rarely satisfied with my own playing in the studio. I am my own worst critic, and I will probably ask for a retake or two, for my sake. One of the things that was different last night was that I stood in the control room while laying down the tracks with the band. I knew that there was a certain amount of leakage on the previous nights when I played in the main room with the rest of them. I agreed with Dwayne that it may be best to isolate me in order to have a cleaner sound with the bass and piano. Drums were already in a booth, so it was the control booth for me.

An unexpected experience for me was when we did Hi-Fly, where the rhythm section was grooving really nicely. When we rehearsed in my living room, we were all together in a fairly cozy room and I could really feel the groove in my gut, standing between the bass and drums.

I had no problems with the other tunes we did last night, and with the isolation being so effective, I had to rely on the headphone mix. I had an Aebersold moment, feeling like I wasn't playing live with a band, just playing along with some disembodied music over the phones. I can't recall having a similar experience before. I was also OK for the previous tunes, but on Hi-Fly, I wanted to feel that visceral groove thing going on.

I felt my bari solo in that tune was not up to par with the energy that the rest of the band was putting out. I want to be as good as possible because it's going to be a a standout track on the cd. I wish I were a first take good sort of player, but that just ain't the case.

We were very pleased to have Tom Foster back with us on drums for the night. He has been our drummer of choice since our last recording project together, and he is our go-to guy whenever we have gigs at places where we can utilize a drummer. The next time will be at the Jazz Festival, June 24 at Victory Square, to put in a shameless plug. As I mentioned, a couple of the tunes were pretty challenging and it was a hell of a lot easier with Tom in the driver's seat.

One of those tunes was Jeanette Lindstrom's Leaf, which sounds deceptively easy on her cd. You may recall that I mentioned doing a lift of this tune a couple of months back and being surprised to find out that it was mostly in 5/4. It just flows so nicely. I don't know if we quite got that same flow, but it will sound pretty darn good.

Last week, Jeanette sent me her original chart for it. There were some chords on my transcription that were different, but very close in sound. We decided to go with my chords. Jeanette asked me to send her our version when we finished. I don't know about that - that's a bit scary. Her entire cd is so damn impeccable and her singing is absolutely great. You can hear what I mean when she returns to town for Festival Vancouver in August.

We did try two takes with acoustic piano and two with Rhodes. The inimitable Mr. Cliff Piffling was most anxious to get his mitts on the Rhodes. It sounded pretty good, but so did the piano. Somebody will have to make a choice.

Mark was as solid as ever on bass, always bringing his A game when we play. And when you're at a studio run by Rick Kilburn, you know the bass is going to have to sound good. I think this is the fifth project we've done at Riverside so everyone is pretty relaxed about things.

Wanda did great, and took care of us with some nice snacks and beer. She had a challenge with the timing in Leaf. There are 4 single bars of 6/4 sprinkled through the tune, just to keep everyone of their toes. It certainly kept us alert.













With the bulk of the recording done, next week Wanda and I will head back to Riverside for the final touches, then the mixing and mastering.