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Sunday, February 5, 2012 - 6 to 8 p.m.
No cover
- John Haysom - trumpet
- Howard Tweddle - bass
and guests - Rob Martin - guitar (sitting in for Bert Waslander)
- Floyd Hutchinson - vocals
Mellow, accessible jazz consisting of jazz standards, popular standards and original compositions.
Glebop is now playing at the Arrow and the Loon on the first Sunday of every month. There’s plenty of underground parking which is free weekends and is wheelchair accessible. Good food, great beer and a warm and inviting atmosphere.
More info: 563-7044.
The Arrow and the Loon Pub
Fifth Avenue Court
Bank Street at Fifth Avenue, NE corner
Ottawa
613- 237-0448
Sunday, February 5 - 7 to 9 p.m.
Cover: $5 / pay what you can
Sounds Like Poetry
- Gillian Kirkland – accordion, voice
- Brandon Wint – spoken word
- Rebecca Danard - clarinet
- Philippe Charbonneau – bass
- Michel Delage – drums
Brandon Wint is an Ottawa based writer and performer of spoken word poetry. Since discovering his aptitude for spoken word in March of 2008, Brandon has dedicated his life to uncovering the inherently beautiful and poetic elements that exist in every part of life. As a poet, he is also deeply influenced by the stories and images that explore the human condition. He is therefore often compelled to investigate the themes of mortality, confusion, love and fear in his writing. Brandon has been a member of two National Championship winning poetry slam teams, and has toured the country extensively as a performer.
Gillian Kirkland is a singer, composer and accordionist. Her music is sometimes described as Neo-Cabaret with influences ranging from classical European to American folk and jazz traditions. Before moving to Ottawa in 2009, she lived for many years in Montreal where she was a member of the experimental vocal ensemble Mruta Mertsi. She has been involved in collaborations with musicians of various persuasions as well as storytellers, poets, dancers and playwrights. She performs regularly across Ontario and Quebec and is very exited to exchange with other Ottawa area improvisers in this unscripted event. Find Gillian online at www.gilliankirkland.net
Performer, educator, scholar and entrepreneur, Rebecca Danard holds a doctorate in clarinet performance at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. She is currently Artistic Director of the Ottawa New Music Creators: a collective of professional composers and performers dedicated to bringing contemporary music to Canada’s capital. Rebecca’s performance career centres on new and experimental music, including interdisciplinary collaborations, working with new technology, organizing events, and commissioning composers.
Michel Delage is an Ottawa based freelance percussionist. He has played with a number of area bands including funk/pop band Old Stereo, Deacon Blues Band and the Steve Bilodeau Jazz Trio. He is also a member of the Semara Winangun Balinese Gamelan and the newly created IMOO Orchestra. Michel has instigated several creative projects including the Diabolik Quartet which explores film music as a vehicle for improvisation.
Presented by: Improvising Musicians of Ottawa/Outaouais (IMOO)
IMOO are group of musicians who, drawing on jazz, classical, folk and rock traditions, are dedicated to the exploration of contemporary practice in improvisation. They are interested in exploring different practices and means of communication, including, but not limited to, verbal, visual, auditory, gestural, concrete and abstract. They are a platform and resource for emerging artists to present their work and/or collaborate with other artists and exist as a means to community development and networking, bringing artists together, and presenting their work to a broad audience.
An encomium from local jazz radio host Bernard Stepien: "the IMOO series is a resounding success. As some local Jazz ayatollahs would say, avant-garde Jazz in Ottawa usually doesn't attract more than a half-dozen highly mystical listeners. The IMOO people have successfully proved them wrong."
Umi Café
610 Somerset St. West, Ottawa
613-656-1638
www.umicafe.org
Monday, February 6, 2012 - 7:30 p.m.
No cover
- Jesse Stewart - conductor
The IMOO Orchestra (or IMOOO, with an emphasis on the ooooooo...) will be comprised of many artists who have participated in IMOO’s bi-weekly concert series. It will be led by drummer and percussionist Jesse Stewart.
Presented by Ottawa New Music Creators (ONMC) and Café Paradiso. For more information: http://onmc-cmno.ca/ .
Café Paradiso
199 Bank Street
613-565-0657
www.cafeparadiso.ca
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 12 noon to 2 p.m.
Free
Seating is limited, and on a first come first serve basis.
The National Arts Centre's Manhattan on the Rideau masterclasses link leading jazz faculty members of Manhattan School of Music (MSM) with accomplished music students at the NAC. The sessions use the very latest in broadband videoconference technology to connect teachers and students in real time with high fidelity audio and video. The series is produced by NAC New Media as part of the Hexagon Project in association with MSM.
A masterclass is a one-on-one lesson in which a master musician teaches a selected student or ensemble under the watchful eyes of fellow students and members of the public. The audience can learn from the master along with the talented student in the spotlight. Each masterclass involves 2 to 3 students in succession followed by questions-and-answers.
Inspired by his father, a pianist and vibraphonist, Donny McCaslin started playing tenor saxophone at age twelve and progressed quickly, touring Europe and participating in the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival’s California All-Star band while in high school. After attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he joined Berklee professor Gary Burton’s quintet, with whom he toured for four years.
McCaslin moved to New York in 1991, working with bassist Eddie Gomez before joining the group Steps Ahead, with whom he made the 1995 disc Vibe (NYC Records). Around the same time, he collaborated with fellow New York saxophonist David Binney, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wolleson, in the piano-less quartet Lan Xang.
McCaslin really began turning heads with his solo work in larger ensembles – first with Ken Schaphorst’s big band, and subsequently with the acclaimed Maria Schneider Orchestra, where his performance on the album Concert In The Garden garnered McCaslin a Grammy nomination for “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo” in 2004. In 2005, McCaslin joined the quintet led by the widely lionized trumpeter Dave Douglas. Reviewing the Douglas Quintet in Jazz Times, Josef Woodard wrote of McCaslin: “He’s a versatile player who moves easily between inside and outside musical zones… There’s a fluidity and grace to his playing even when he’s pushing at envelopes.”
In 2008 and 2009, McCaslin won the Downbeat Critics poll for ‘Rising Star on the Tenor Saxophone.’ His 2008 release, Recommended Tools, on Greenleaf Music was in many critics’ top ten lists for jazz record of the year, and in 2009, McCaslin released Declaration on Sunnyside, which features a brass quartet. His latest release is Perpetual Motion (2011).
Series info: www.nac-cna.ca/en/education/masterclasses/master_manhattan.cfm
Event info: http://www2.nac-cna.ca/en/community-programming/event/1839/
Artist info: www.donnymccaslin.com
NAC Fourth Stage
53 Elgin Street
Ottawa
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
René Gely came to Ottawa a few years ago, after living in cities around the world. He often plays jazz, but his musical interests are far wider than that – and that's particularly evident with his group Pulse Mondiale, which will be appearing at the NAC Fourth Stage on Thursday, February 2. The show opens the 2012 Ottawa Winter Jazz Festival.
There's a bit of jazz, there's some Brazilian music, there's Hungarian melodies: Pulse Mondiale's sound is an amalgam of many influences, but the overall feel is warm and friendly. It's defined, if anything, by Gely's vocals and guitar and Rob Graves' wide range of percussion, but it also can encompass many other instruments, as you can hear on Pulse Mondiale's most recent album, Testament, released in December, 2010.
OttawaJazzScene.ca editor Alayne McGregor talked with Gely recently about Pulse Mondiale and how it came about, what to expect at the concert, and his future plans. The interview is available as a podcast [mp3, 21 min] , and we've also transcribed it here.
Read more: Pulse Mondiale warms up the Winter 2012 Ottawa Jazz Festival
Monday, 30 January 2012
The debate that defined Ottawa jazz and improvised music in 2011 was about musical boundaries.
It was both positive and negative. On the good side was an increasing permeability among Ottawa music genres, where, for example, the members of the Souljazz Orchestra could team up up with singer Slim Moore and create a whole new side project of soul music with a jazz sensibility. Or Mike Essoudry's Mash Potato Mashers could mash up many genres and come up with their second album of danceable, marchable music which could be called jazz or several other genres as well. Or the Capital Vox Jazz Choir and the Capital Youth Jazz Orchestra could fill Dominion Chalmers United Church with an audience eager to hear jazz versions of Beatles tunes.
Each of those projects brought new listeners and highly listenable music to the scene, even while each of those groups didn't abandon their jazz roots and their jazz projects.
On the more controversial side, there were the three non-jazz headliners at the 2011 Ottawa Jazz Festival. Because the Festival promoted these acts so heavily, and because they all played in the first few days, they became the focus and the face of the Festival – and raised questions among fans and in the media about the Jazz Festival's commitment to jazz.
Read more: Our 2011 recap: jazz and improvisation probe the boundaries in Ottawa
Monday, 30 January 2012
Guitar Wizardry 2:
|
Lucas Haneman |
Tim Bedner |
Ottawa was host to two sets of exhilarating music on the evening of Saturday, January 21, when local guitarists Lucas Haneman and Tim Bedner, along with Montreal drummer Evan Tighe, convened to follow up on the “guitar wizardry” they displayed in December 2010.
Ottawa's newest jazz venue, GigSpace Performance Studio, was host to this concert. Previously a sound design studio, and located within Alcorn Music Studios on Gladstone Avenue, GigSpace has been converted by the team at Alcorn into a wonderful location to perform. While the audience lacked in numbers due to the room's small size, they made up for it with enthusiasm, punctuating the trio's Herculean improvisations with jubilant shouts. The group covered a large range of musical territory, carving out fresh renditions of both jazz standards and more modern hits.
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