Bugs Black Blood

For the last week, I've been suffering from that bug that has been making the rounds and I'm getting bloody tired of it.

I didn't notice the early warning signs last Friday when I was playing with Wa and the boys at Seb's. I was having some difficulty playing some fairly familiar tunes, just mentally navigating the changes. From there, I raced over to 1067 to play until the wee hours.

The next morning I awoke with a very ominous sore throat and within a couple of hours, I was down for the count. I took it as easy as possible over the weekend, but I didn't want to miss playing the Cellar on Monday with a new large ensemble, Bugs Black Blood. We had a final rehearsal on Sunday night that I coughed my way through, then had a very tough night. On Monday, it was almost a coin toss as to whether or not to play, but I felt a touch better, at least until I reached The Cellar. Despite being warmly dressed, I got a severe case of the chills and just could not warm up all night.

I spent most of the night just sitting in my chair onstage as it was the warmest spot there when the stage lights were on. I was slightly less animated than Kenny Wheeler when he's not playing, in other words, catatonic. I just played my parts, stood and gave it for my solos, and otherwise just tried to get through the night without chucking.

I think things ended up OK, though my energy was seriously waning in the second set. The recording will tell the tale, for sure.

Anyways, I had to be there as the theme of the night was wigs. A bunch of people in the band and the audience wore goofy wigs. Never one to miss a chance to make a fool of myself, I opted for something much more elegant - the Austin Powers-style chest rug. There was a brief masochistic moment at the end of the night when I ripped the luxurious thatch off, with the glue ensuring that I lost what little chest hair I actually possessed.

That instance of self-mutilation done, I beat it for home as quickly as possible and had another very sleepless night.

There was only one time that I can recall being sicker onstage at a gig. It was many years ago and I was called to play a dance band gig in Chilliwack. The only reason I took it was because Dave Quarin was playing lead alto. He was the first guy in Vancouver I took lessons from and I'd never before had a chance to play a gig with him.

Mistake #1: I didn't own my own tux back then, and I borrowed a real nice one from a friend. It was a Christian Dior that he had bought in Paris. It looked great, it was just a inch or so too small in the waist and chest and two inches too long in the arms. (My friend has the build of a spider monkey.)

Mistake #2: I was running late so I didn't take a change of clothes

Mistake #3: I carpooled with some of the guys. Normally OK, but these were oldtimers who were the hardcore dance band types. The conversation was fairly limited to the various intrigues of the other bands on the circuit and about ricky-ticky arrangements. Dave must have gone up in another car - at least we could have had a fun conversation. It was a Friday evening gig, so the traffic was pretty bad. It made for a long drive.

Mistake #4: This was the killer. I wolfed down a very large meal before I left - Indian food. Rubina Tandoori was one of the best in the city, but it just wasn't sitting right.

By the time we hit the stage in Chilliwack, I had Stage One New Delhi Belly. As we played the first set, I started turning green. I hung on as long as I could, not wanting to look unprofessional in front of Dave (way too late for that!). But well before the set ended, I had to bolt right in the middle of a tune, and with my bulging eyes and cheeks, it was pretty evident to all what was happening.

Gentle readers, I will refrain from any detailed description of what followed, lest it put you all off of Indian food for the near future. I just remember feeling the incongruity of being so colourfully and violently ill while wearing a fine French tuxedo, which didn't escape unsullied.

I wobbled back onstage, only to dash off again. After a long break, I was able to play the remaining sets. As the elderly dancers would spin by, a number of grandmotherly types would ask "How you doing now, dear?" or offer advice.

The long drive home was punctuated by at least one bolting from the car. In all a miserable night. Dave wasn't inclined to hang out with a guy who was spending some serious face time with a public toilet - go figure. I don't even recall the pay being that great.

Maybe The Cellar wasn't so bad after all.

Futures: Microscores / October Trio + 1

It was a bit strange going to The Cellar two nights in a row without my camera. There have been a few times in the last six months when I arrive somewhere to see a gig and realize that I've left the camera home. Quite often those were the nights when there was something worthwhile going on.

For Tuesday night, it would have been inappropriate running around snapping off shots. Producer David Pay has set up things so that food and bar service are suspended during the performance in order for the room to be as quiet as possible. Typical of Dave's ventures, the room was pretty well full. People know that his events are of a high calibre and they turn out in good numbers. Having a full house in a room like The Cellar adds a great vibe to the performance.

Jessica Catron and Johnny Chang are to be commended for their dedication to The Microscore project. They now have over 260 pieces of no more than 30 seconds in length and will add to that total this coming weekend in Seattle. I loved the breadth of compositional techniques, going from whimsical to conceptual to extremely densely and carefully scored. Distilling the extended techniques for string instruments that are incorporated in all of these pieces could be the basis for a definitive book on this subject.

Ten Vancouver composers, myself included, had the priveledge to add to their growing repertoire. Nine of us were there. I thought Dave should have dipped into his life savings to fly Kelly Churko in from Tokyo, but apparently Dave didn't see it that way. Something about balancing budgets, I guess.

I appointed myself shop steward for the composers in order to bargain a nice fat royalty package for us, as Jessica and Johnny will be playing some of our pieces again. Dave and I are deadlocked between one drop and one glass of wine. He is one hardass negotiator. Either way, I feel I have a future as a negotiator for the NHLPA.

47 microscores were performed, bookended by four longer compositions by James Tenney. I was happy with how mine went. It was the second microscore on the program. I did think they rushed it a touch, maybe 29 seconds. Next time I will attach a $5 bill to my score. That should get me up to at least 34 seconds.

For the most part, I thought the evening was a success. Most of the audience liked it, but not everyone. I was too focussed on the stage to pay attention to some people who were making a bit of noise. It never fails to amaze me that people don't clue in to the fact that when everyone else in the room is being absolutely quiet, they should be doing the same. Apparently this was The Makeout Couple. Not only were they making out, but this guy was groping his much younger date, and they were making some noise almost as if they wanted everyone to see what they were doing. I guess contemporary string duets were making them hot, sufficiently so that they left on the first break.

I hope that this project continues for some time and that they (Johnny and Jessica, not the Makeout Couple) return to Vancouver sometime in the future with a mountain of scores. As for the MC, get a hotel room.

The MC were nowhere to be seen last night when the October Trio hit the stage. Eli Bennet filled in most capably until Evan Arntzen arrived fashionably late early in the second set. These two guys have a great rapport and play well together. They have a lot of fun onstage yet aren't above giving each other the occasional ass-kick, which motivates each of them to dig in a bit more. Eli raised the stakes with the last tune of the night. The group is playing an obligatory Monk tune each night now and Eli called the fiendish Four in One, which he had prepared. Evan had never seen it before and wisely opted out of playing the head right off the top. He comported himself admirably in the solos and did quite well taking the head out. Eli nailed it, and I could easily imagine Evan already plotting what to pull for the next meeting.

Seeing these two together broght to mind Cam Ryga's recent interview on www.vancouverjazz.com, about his history with Ross Taggart. I hope I've been witnessing the genesis of a similar musical friendship.

And I can't close off without mentioning Josh Cole and Dan Gaucher. The October Trio has played fairly steadily over the last couple of years and it shows. These guys were showing real depth as players and as composers. I've had limited chances to hear Dan drum, but this was certainly his best outing in my experience. I've previously heard Josh play only Christmas music when we did last years's Singing Christmas Tree together. He's got a future the other 11 months of the year.

These four guys are part of the future of jazz in this city. We are in good hands.

Confessions of a dangerous kind

At times, I can be a musical whore. Other times, merely a tramp.

Another busy weekend - Saturday saw me in two back-to-back gigs of the sort that I rarely play any more. First off was a wedding gig with a standard quartet. I can't remember the last time I played a straight-ahead situation with a full rhythm section. The groom had seen us gigging with Wa and liked our instrumental stuff. The reception itself was a good baptist affair, dry as a popcorn fart, but the groom wanted jazz and that's what he got. I was calling standards that I easily haven't played in at least 5 years and it was a refreshing change, and we had a nice young drummer on the job. Our pianist, Chuck Porea, always plays better on a real grand piano and this church hall had a nice one. No food for the band though.

From there I raced over to the local German club for a polka gig. The things I do for money. But the thing is that they really take care of you. I walked in the door and the leader had a schnitzel the size of my face waiting for me. Typically German, he'd figured out the time it would take me to arrive from the previous gig and had ordered up the food to be served up at just the right time. And even though he knows I don't drink at gigs, there were repeated offers of free beer. Everything was set up, charts in order, sound was set up nicely, even a new light for my music stand. At the end of the night, my chops were starting to go from 5 hours of steady playing. Then he paid me fairly well for the job. It really shows that European appreciation of musicians.

Another perfect example is at the local Austrian club. Right beside the stage door is one of the prime parking spots, with a sign that reads "THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR MUSICIANS". Where do you see that sort of thing nowadays? Ever?

So I end up doing a few polka gigs a year. I'm OK with it. For the last few, the dress code has just been all black. It's been a while since they've gone full dress.

There have never been, nor will there ever be, any pictures of me in lederhosen. It's my one stipulation with these guys.

I will fess up to having done drag once and only once, for a good friend's party where the strict dress code was evening gowns for everyone. The reason why is a long story. I asked a longtime friend of mine who's a drag performer to have his way with me, as it were. He looked me up and down and announced that I was a size 14. When he was done, I looked liked my mother had mugged Juliette. I stood about 7 feet tall from bottom of stiletto to top of wig (a reasonable standard for drag queens and NBA centers). There were photos, but nothing ever made it online. Even if it did, I could live with it. OK, I'll show you a well-turned ankle that may or may not belong to me, but nothing more. I promise. My favourite personal touch was a temporary ankle tatoo copying one of Kate Hammett-Vaughan's tats. (Some claim Kate is one of the city's finest queens.) I had a great back story as all good drag queens must. My name was Dixie Lexia, a failed country singer on yet another comeback.

All of that being said, pictures of me in lederhosen are verboten. Even a musical whore has some scruples, however flimsy they may be. But I must admit that the first time I put on the lederhosen, they felt warmly supple and inviting...

But I digress.

Sunday night saw me in rehearsal with a new large ensemble called Bugs Black Blood. I considered this the cure for the previous evening's dalliances as it was back to the more familiar territory of new and improvised music. We struggled with a score composed by one of the band members. I would guess it would be his first piece for such a group. It could have been more clearly notated and presented. We had to talk at length about different improvisational tactics that changed almost bar by bar. It became a group exercise in head-scratching and Coat did an excellent job in drawing the music out of it as he figured out how to conduct it. This sort of situation can bog a rehearsal down. I lost my temper when a brass player asked a question about a bar that we had just spent several minutes discussing, obviously not having paid a shred of attention to what we had just been saying. And he still didn't get it when I walked over and wrote it out on his part.

There is a general lowering of IQ in a room when things get derailed in this manner. I now have much less patience for this sort of thing, something I will have to work on. Coat showed a remarkable amout of patience and professionalism standing in front of the band working things out. I'm sure that in his shoes, I would have just asked the composer to take it home and fix it before laying such a thing on the band. As it was, he and I had a very productive talk on the way home about how to present complex conceptual pieces.

It was educational for me in a few ways. It showed me how not to present a composition. I also learned ways as a conductor to mine such a piece for the musicality hidden inside it. The bottom line is that it will be a good piece to perform, it's just taking way too long for the band to get a handle on it. I also had the insight that in my desire to write something that can be quickly understood and played (like a grid score), that when I write, sometimes I am willing to sacrifice a certain amount of complexity or detail. That's a good thing to keep in mind and address when composing.

Speaking of that, one of my compositions is being premiered tomorrow night at The Cellar. This is part of something called The Microscores Project. This is definitely the shortest thing I've ever written. As LA-based musicians Jessica Catron (cello) and Johnny Chang (violin) tour, they ask local composers to write a 30-second piece as a contribution to the project. Ten Vancouver composers have contributed and now the project has over 225 minatures in its collection. For details, see www.musiconmain.ca.

Wednesday night at The Cellar is also a must-see in my books. The artist of the month is The October Trio, one of the great young groups in this city that is garnering national attention. Saxist Evan Arntzen can't make the first set, so Eli Bennett is subbing in, then the two of them tear it up for the remainder of the night. As I documented a couple of weeks back, I saw their first-ever meeting onstage, and it was absolutely fantastic. Bassist Josh Cole and drummer Dan Gaucher round out the group, fine musicians both. For more, see http://cellarjazz.com/.

While I'm on the topic of The Cellar, last Monday was an interesting one. String trio LSB 21 continues to coalesce into a fine group. These guys just keep getting better every time I hear them. They've asked a number of local composers to write something for them. I've been stalled in writing a graphic score - the guts are there, I just have to take the time to lay it all out and assemble it. It'll be a full colour deal with images and notation, lots of fun to do but time-consuming. I really need a deadline to get off my ass, but these guys are way too nice to impose one on me.

The second group was The Microscopic. They had the most world music sound of any group we have ever included in the NOW Monday night programming. Neelamjit Dhillon plays tabla, Meredith Bates on violin, Alvaro Rojas on strat, and Aaron Joyce on Hawaiian guitar. It was all very well played and Neel's tabla playing really draws your attention. But just like VICO at the Cultch the week previously, the element of risk was way too low for my taste. There were some group improvisations, but they were pretty contained. This group will do really well in other circles - world, roots and folk - but in the paradigm of the NOW series, they were far too conservative.

Monday the 19th promises to be back to form. Stefan Smulovitz and Viviane Houle do a duo set and the Saul Berson Trio rounds out the bill. Joining Saul will be Gord Grdina and Paul Blaney, all of them top players in this city. I have high expectations. www.noworchestra.com has the details.

Now, back to transcribing a little shoeplattle ...

Of Silicone and Cialis

The middle of last week saw the return of Wa and the boys to a place I call the Yaletown Breastaurant. Now in its second incarnation, this place seems to be very indicative of a new pneumatic esthetic that seems to be in abundance in this part of the city. Every time we've played there, women seem to be bursting out of their tops. Even those of Asian heritage often are unnaturally curvaceous. For sure, in my next life, I'm coming back as a cosmetic surgeon and I'm setting up practice right at the corner of Davie and Mainland. The flip side of this phenomenon is that the men upon whose arms these women are found are often a decade older, usually more.

At our Valentines day gig at this establishment, our pianist, one Mr. Cross Pitter, was delighted to find a Cialis package in the men's washroom. He was devastated to find it empty, but we were thankful as had there been something in the box, it may have resulted in the keyboard being precariously tilted for the remainder of the gig. We amused ourselve to imagine the scene that would have occurred had we bothered to announce over the PA, "Would the ower of a lost box of Cialis come up to the stage?" and see all these guys checking their pockets. Dudes saying to themselves, "Whew, not me, I'm a Viagra man."

As we were taking down our gear at the end of that gig, Wa was accosted by a woman who wanted us have her friend sit in with us. Evidently he had a lounge gig or something in Europe and was certainly wealthy, and perhaps not too used to being told no. His friend certainly wasn't taking no for answer. She wanted to pay us to set up again and seemed oblivious to the fact that we were scurrying like rats to get packed up and the hell out of there. She just continued to use her enormous Teutonic chest to push her point home. Wa, ever the diplomat, was protesting that we couldn't do him justice without a proper arrangement of Just a Gigolo (seriously) in his key. At which point this gal said, "Come on, I used to live in Los Angeles. I know how they do it. Just count 1, 2, 3, 4 and go." We went.

The Breastauant really liked our group and had offered Wa a steady weekly gig, which we were happy to take. Unfortunately, and very typically, they hadn't really thought this thing through. They wanted to go with live music three nights a week, but never bothered to properly promote it (no advertising whatsoever) or to give it any time to build up an reputation as a live music venue. As a band, we do promote our gigs to our e-mail lists, but we cannot be counted upon to fill the place immediately. We certainly do fill places like Seb's every time, but it takes a while to build an audience.

Less than a month in, the Breastaurant decided to can the music. I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed nonetheless. I really saw this place as great source material for this blog, along the lines of The Hotel Pianist. Oh well, it'll give us more time (but less money) to focus on our recording project.

And then at The Cellar

I've decided to split up my last post as it was too rambling. And I'll add some pictures.

The last few Monday nights at the Cellar have been uniformly entertaining. As this series progresses, the bar continually gets reset to a higher level. I'll have to see what I can do about that when I return with the Bari Blizzard next month.

<- Cat Toren, Russell Sholberg and Dan Gaucher

Cat Toren's In Magnolia continues to grow as a group and they show more confidence moving from the scored material into improv, then back. Their evening was opened by Attention Diamond Shoppers, consisting of Rachel Wadham and Lee Hutzalak playing a combination of found materials and altered instruments with a high degree of musical sensitivity. They held court on a table in the middle of the room which they covered with a piece of pink fun fur. In lesser-skilled hands, this would have been a train wreck, but on this night, it was mesmerizing. And when both groups joined together for an extended improv, the delicacy and spatial placement of sounds around the room created something that I could guarantee had never been been heard before within the confines of The Cellar.

Rachel and Lee under Cory's watchful eye ->

My one regret was that both Rachel and In Magnolia bassist Russel Sholberg both had musical saws but never played them at the same time. I was dying for a cutting contest.

<- edgeffect

The following week saw another fine double-bill. Lisa Miller's edgeffect had the talents of Francois Houle, Jeremy Berkman, Stefan Smulovitz and guest guitarist Gordon Fitzell. Lisa's fine compositions mined a taut emotional territory and these talented musicians had a focussed energy about them.

The second set was another first for the NOW series, a group that had as its focus spoken, or sometimes semi-spoken word. cleftpallet featured Jonathan Wilke, Darren Williams, Nikki Reimer and Dave Chokroun. They applied the principles of slam poetry to music and some rules of improvised music to their texts. They were challenging, clever and often quite funny, but never resorted to schtick.

Last week was the return of Coat Cooke's new electric outfit, newly-named The Fiddlers. With Tommy Babin on electric bass, guitarist Chad MacQuarrie, drummer Skye Brooks and JP Carter on trumpet and electronics, Coat and the boys got into some deep groove. It was aided and abetted by Coat's compositional skills, which lifted the group above merely chugging over some twisted riff, something which bores me to tears. These guys are forming into a fairly badass unit.

Next up on March 5 is LSB 21 and The Microscopic. Check out www.noworchestra.com for details.

Relativity

I've had my head down somewhat since the Kiwanis festival ended, though when I say it ended, that's technically not true. The balance of the festival continues on through April, with the concert band segment starting up on Monday.

I am no fan of concert band music. Never liked it when I played it as a kid, and it hasn't grown on me with the passage of time. Saxophone parts are uniformly dreary, usually doubling another instrument, save for the odd "jazzy" outburst that could only swing if the arranger was hung by the neck from a tree.

I've been told that it's that way in concert band because saxophones get so much of the spotlight in stage band. The only repertoire that I heard and liked in this genre was played by the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and arguably a professional outfit of that calibre was playing music that transcended the traditional fare of retooled light classics and Broadway medlies. Not that I could be proven wrong, but I really don't have the inclination to expand my tastes in this particlar direction.

I only harp on this because I feel pressured to continue volunteering a considerable amount of my time for the balance of the Festival. But aside from a few minor shifts of door-tending, I'm sticking to jazz.

Which brings me up to this current weekend, another busy one. Last night was the first evening of the NOW Orchestra/VICO collaboration at The Cultch. I'm working behind the scenes for NOW as the production manager. Essentially my duties are to liase between all of the various aspects of the event - Cultch staff, sound and recording engineers, stage manager, the volunteers at the front of house, etc. Typically Coat did all of this stuff himself, and drove himself to distraction rather than focussing on the music he was supposed to be creating that evening. Ron Samworth did the same in his time as artistic co-director of NOW.

I used to see them running in circles before the show, and often the music would suffer. I got involved as a way for them to concentrate on doing what they were really there to do, to make music.

This is an interesting event as both groups aim to blur boundaries as far a challenging conventions for large ensembles. Concert band this ain't. I believe that VICO comes from a much more staid academic approach, as opposed to NOW's bohemian jazzers. Of course, this is a dumb generalization as they both have highly talented musicians, some of whom have played in both groups. I do see less of an element of risk in VICO's performances, as opposed to some of NOW's more adventuresome outings. This is not lessening one group in favour of the other, just a matter of style. I just happen to like risk.

The initial show went well, a very good thing indeed, given the complexity of some of the compositions and also the tech aspect of micing and recording a raft of exotic instruments in a live concert situation. Other than a bit of persistent feedback from Gord Grdina's oud mic in the first number, things flowed quite nicely. I'm expecting an even better performance tonight.

As soon as the Cultch show ended, I hightailed it over to 1067, where I was playing with the Robin Jessome Creative Ensemble. Robin and I met last year at Banff and we hit it off. He was in the composition program in UVic and his experience at Banff inspired him to set up his own improvising ensemble, exactly as Paul Rucker did two years previously. Last night was the first show and it featured a number of Robin's compositions plus one of my own. He also wanted me to do some conduction.

The members of the group were an even split of Victoria and Vancouver folks, all good musicians, many relative newcomers to improvised music. They were GGG as Dan Savage would put it. In the end I lead at least 4 conductions, and I was quite stretched to make them as varied as possible, without having the benefit of much prior rehearsal. Without that, they weren't familiar with many of the hand signals that could be used, or without much of the necessary group discussion of the processes involved in large ensemble improvisation.

During one of the last conductions, midstream, I had the idea of setting Darren and Jonathan (of the abovementioned cleftpallet) off on a verbal rant. This put them on the spot and they initially stumbled for a moment, then went off on a hilarious tangent. They broke everyone in the room up, especially the band. I just sat down for a few minutes and let them go.

Robin wanted me to top this off with one final conduction. I decided we had to end pretty, so I had everyone play a snippet of a different standard ballad, but only when I pointed at them, sort of a perverted Charles Ives affair. Robin started off with that old Chuck Mangione nugget, another good laugh, but then everybody got on board with the ballad thing and it ended quite nicely indeed.

The evening was very raw and full of risk, given that some of these guys had their free improv deflowering that night. Their musicianship showed through and made for a good performance. I have to say I enjoyed myself very thoroughly. I got to blow my head off in one chart which had a screaming tenor solo from start to finish, something I would never, ever consider doing. And I did a lot of conducting on the night, something that left me buzzing for a couple of hours, at the expense of a good night's sleep. This is something that I certainly want to do more of, be it with this group, or a large ensemble of my own.

It definitely was the most stimulating of my musical experiences of the last few weeks. I was so far from my high school days of concert band drudgery, creating music that the conductors of those groups literally could not have conceived. It certainly would have shocked them to the core. But who am I to say that they could not have been equally as jazzed up about leading their band through some symphonic overture and having a great performance?

It's all relative.