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.