Inspired by Anthony Braxton

This past week, I watched the NEA Jazz Masters award ceremony.  Among the other award recipients was Anthony Braxton. Braxton is probably the most unusual choice the NEA organization has ever made for the award, but perhaps one of the most important in the sense that the NEA has sometimes taken a very narrow and 'classical' approach to the idiom, celebrating the mainstream artists whose music can very clearly be called jazz by the public, even if some of the masters themselves might dislike the name. Braxton's composing and saxophone playing have a clear relationship to jazz, but also to just about any other art or folk music. His speech showed an incredible generosity of spirit and deep humility. The fascinating quirks of his eccentric genius were very much in evidence. Of all the music presented during the awards ceremony, the excerpts from Braxton's opera, Trillium J, seemed the most alive and fresh to me. I must admit that his music hasn't always been at the top of my personal playlist, but that really doesn't diminish my admiration for the man. I can think of few other musicians or artists in any genre that have shown such courage, ingenuity, integrity, and such incredible productivity over such a long period. Truly inspiring.

Kristin Fung has transcribed the speech here.

For a while, you can still view all the speeches and the music here.

New Videos

I'm laying low for Christmas and New Year celebrations and taking a much-deserved break.
Here are some new recordings of my sextet on my
Youtube channel.  The video is kind of primitive, but the guys played amazingly well and Lawrence Wu did a great job recording things as usual. Hope you enjoy.

The More the Merrier

With Geoff and Emma (photo by Vincent Lim)

My friend Dave Branter (a great saxophonist and teacher) mentioned in an email how he likes being 'the old guy' in Colin MacDonald's Pocket Orchestra.  I'm not as old as Dave, but I do know how he feels. One of the best things about being a music educator is watching students mature technically and artistically into wonderful musicians with whom I get to perform.  That seems to be happening a lot in the past little while and I have really enjoyed it. Stefan Thordarson (violin) was on the Colin MacDonald Pocket Orchestra gig with me last Friday and I've also been playing with him Lyle Hopkins (bass) Trio.  The week before that I played the music of Jimmy Giuffre at the Tangent Cafe in a trio with Emma Postl (voice) and Geoff Claridge (clarinet).   Two weeks ago Luis Melgar was playing second trombone with the Hard Rubber Orchestra and I see that Jeff Gammon (bass) is playing with Steve Kaldestad at the Cellar this coming week a.  In a few weeks I'll be playing in Bill Clark's band with John Paton (sax).  We've been featuring Capilano U students at Presentation House each week since September and I've heard some really good music from students.  This past week at the BCMEA conference I ran into a whole bunch of my students who have gone on to be really successful school music teachers and players. It just feels good to see people continuing the tradition of bringing beauty into the world.

Stefan with CMPO between two other talented
young players, Elyse Jacobsen and Doug Gorkoff.

CMPO w. Dave, me Stefan and great
 musicians of various generations.

Fraser MacPherson Scholarship Rides Again!

Some of you who read this blog may recall that a year or so ago I made a somewhat panicked call for volunteers for the Fraser MacPherson Scholarship Fund board.  Some members of the old board had retired and my friend and board member, Jeremy Hepner, tragically passed away.  At the time of that call for volunteers, I had very little response or enthusiasm and even as recently as August of this year, it seemed the organization would cease to exist.  Those of you who knew me 'back in the day' know that Fraser MacPherson is one of the main reasons I play music today and I didn't want to see this great memorial to his life and music fade away.  Fred Stride and I decided we'd make one more attempt to keep it going.  

It brings me great pleasure to announce that after taking a year off for restructuring and renewal, the Fraser MacPherson Scholarship Fund is back.   It is great to have so many new people on board who are willing to help including Cory Weeds, James Danderfer, Guy MacPherson, Fred Stride, Dennis Esson, Dave Robbins, Alan Matheson and others. There are lots of exciting plans on the horizon.  In addition to the scholarship, we will be offering a series of free workshops and masterclasses for student musicians. the first of these will happen on Dec. 7, 2013 and will feature legendary drummer, Louis Hayes.  Check out the new website for details on application deadlines, application forms etc. and come back frequently for updates.

http://frasermacphersonjazzfund.ca/

ZAP! CD Release gig Sept 6

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year to my Jewish friends.

I'm back on the blog after a much-needed summer break.  There are lots of new things going on in my life right now, but the most interesting one this week is the release of the Dave Robbins Electric Band CD, "ZAP!", on the Cellar Live label.
I'm really proud of what we have done on this recording and truly feel honoured to be in the company of such fine musicians. The CD release gig is at the Cellar Jazz Club on Sept. 6 - a great way to end your Rosh Hashanah holiday!
To reserve a table at the club, call 604-738-1959

You can order the CD or purchase a digital download here:
http://www.cellarlive.com/discography.php?section=Discography&page=94

If you can't make it to this one, we'll be at Pat's Pub on Sept 14 and Presentation House Studio on Sept. 25.

Good Friends and Good Music

Last night was my 40th Birthday Concert.  It was really great to have so many friends there to play music and to listen, to eat and to talk.  I am so grateful to have such loyal, generous, and talented friends and family that fill my life with music, joy, and meaning.

The band: Al, Evan Stan, Lorne, Brad, Curtis, Dennis, Len, Me, Clyde

The music was a real variety show including my Quartet with Len and curtis as guests, the Quartet with Dennis and Brad in various trombone duels, a duo with Stan, quintet with Evan, Stan, Clyde and Brad, and a rousing version of "Footprints" to end the night.  The feeling in the room was truly uplifting and beautiful all evening.  Thanks everyone!

Next up is Pat's Pub on Saturday with Dave Robbins Electric, opening for Scofield on Tuesday with that same band, then Len Aruliah Sextet at Place Des Arts on the 29th, my sextet at Granville Island on Canada Day, then on to the South Delta jazz festival from July 2-6 and, finally, a gig with len's sextet at El Barrio on July 11.

I'm really looking forward to this intense period of music making.
Please come out to the gigs and say hello!

Here's a short except from the final tune of the concert:

June and July Gigs

Hi All

June and July are looking amazing with a lot of fun gigs to play.  I'll be celebrating my 40th birthday, then Vancouver Jazz Fest time will be upon us, followed immediately by South Delta Jazz Festival, my musical BFFs, Len Aruliah  and Rob Kohler will be in town....I'm positively buzzing with excitement about every one of these events.  Life is good!  Hope to see some of you blog readers out at these shows.

• June 6 Lyle Hopkins String Trio. Propohouse Café, 8-10pm
• June 8 Lyle Hopkins String Trio.  X-Cite Grill (El Barrio) 9:30- late
• June 19 Jared’s 40^th Birthday Party – Jared Burrows Quartet plus many guest musicians.  Presentation House Studio 8:00-10:30pm. $10 at the door.
• June 22 Dave Robbins’ Electric Band.  Pat’s Pub. 3-7pm.
• June 25 Dave Robbins Electric Band. (opening for John Scofield!!!) Vancouver Jazz Fest event at Vogue Theatre.  See http://www.coastaljazz.ca/ for details
• June 29 Len Aruliah Sextet at Place Des Arts, Coquitlam. 7pm.
• July 1 Jared Burrows Sextet – Vancouver Jazz Fest. Event at  Ron Basford Park  at Granville Island. 5:30pm  See http://www.coastaljazz.ca/ for details
• July 2-5 South Delta Jazz Festival – performances at noon every day with various bands.  Ladner Community Centre. See www.southdeltajazzfestival.com for details
• July 5 Jazz Workshop Faculty Octet. St. John's Anglican Church, Ladner. 8pm. See www.southdeltajazzfestival.com for details
• July 11 Len Aruliah Sextet at X-Cite Grill (El Barrio) 9:30- late

The Simulacrum: My Blog Post About a Blog

I spent the long weekend on holiday away from telephones and internet.  Mostly I paddled a canoe, chopped wood, and sat by a campfire. Coming back to 'civilization' was especially difficult this time for some reason.

In post-modern cultural theory, the term simulacrum refers to a copy of a copy where the relationship to the authentic and original has been lost or disconnected.   The distorted, disconnected copy becomes its own reality.  Is the internet the great simulacrum?  Are we living in it? It seems so to me at times, especially when I spend so much time updating websites, blogs, youtube channels, facebook etc.  It seems so much energy is poured into the virtual world that we often have little left for the real world, whatever that is.  What would Jean Baudrillard say if he were here?

Of course, all this talk is just an excuse to draw you deeper into the simulacrum of the blogosphere and invite you to visit the new Capilano U Jazz Studies Blog.  In my new gig as co-ordinator of the Jazz Studies Dept. at Capilano U, I am making an attempt to toot our horn (pun intended!) a little louder on social media and spread the word about the cool people who study and work at our school and the amazing (and very real and authentic) things they do.

And, in the event that you have not spent enough time in the simulacrum today, you can also visit our Cap Jazz youtube channel  or our facebook group.   Baudrillard does have a page on facebook and I did invite him to join, but he hasn't responded yet.  Don't worry, I hear facebook is working on a way to get status updates from the Great Beyond so I expect to hear from him any day now.

Meanwhile, I will hold on to what is left of my real life by drawing the line at tweeting or owning a cell phone.........

Hari

In early 2005 I got a phone call from Hari Pal, a tabla player who had just moved to town.  He asked if I was interested in playing music in an Indian classical style.  I was immediately interested as I had always been intrigued by Indian classical music, though I had no understanding of how it worked.  We had a short try-out session at SFU where I was a PhD student in Education at the time.  We played for about 30 minutes and Hari said, "You are very strong in rhythm.  This will work."  Very shortly after that, Hari contacted me to say he had found a sarode player by the name of Ken Wells and that we should try to make some music.  We hit it off very well and both Ken and Hari started showing me the rudiments of raga and tala - just enough to get me into real trouble!

Hari is a real go-getter and soon after that one rehearsal he set up a concert for us.  I have always been wont to jump in at the deep end. We quickly put together some traditional tunes by Ali Akbar Khan (Ken's guru), and I wrote a couple of original things.  The concert went extremely well and luckily someone had a video camera and some kind of audio recorder.  This video has been languishing in an outmoded file format on a broken DVD-R disc until today when I figured out how to extract the data and put the old video together with the audio from another source.  There are a few glitches in the video which have been filled in with still images, but the music is pretty good.  I must say that I am surprised listening to this eight years later at the fact that I did so well on my first time out. 

This show was the start of a long and very fruitful relationship with Hari and Ken in the band Ta Ki Ta and also the beginning (and I'm still just at the beginning 8 years later) of my study of Indian classical music and further collaborations with other musicians from the Hindustani and Karnatic traditions.

More video from this concert to follow if I can salvage it....

New Video - Lyle Hopkins String Trio

One of the really great things about teaching in the Jazz Studies Department at Capilano University is that I get to meet young students with outrageous amounts of talent and musicality.  Lyle Hopkins (bass) and Stefan Thordarson (violin) are two of those wonderful musicians.  Lyle graduated from our program last year and Stefan should graduate next year.  I have watched them develop from quite raw beginnings into mature players with a lot of depth, confidence, and vision.  While teaching Lyle in an ensemble class a few years ago, I had the pleasure of introducing him to the music of the Jimmy Giuffre Trio and showing him some notational ideas I had developed for structuring improvisations.  Based on his interest in the Giuffre material, Lyle wrote some new music and invited me to join his trio.

Fortunately, I was able to record the performance at Presentation House Studio last Wednesday with video and audio.  Unfortunately, a helicopter kept hovering over the venue and spoiling the sound.....you might hear a bit of that at the end of this clip.  At any rate, it was a fun gig and so much fun to play with these fine fellows.  Here we are playing Stef's tune, "You're Wearing My Shirt".

I am finally learning to edit video a little better these days. I am doing this because young people seem to be more interested in accessing music through youtube than by buying CDs.  That used to distress me to some degree, but I think I am getting used to it.  The video is just fine as is, but I do wish you could hear the sound as it was recorded in 24bit 96khz resolution. Here is Lyle's tune, "Little Bit".

South Delta Jazz Workshop 10th Anniversary Edition

The South Delta Jazz Festival and Jazz Workshop celebrates its 10th anniversary this year!  This year's event runs July 2-6.

The Workshop is a summer music program focused on jazz improvisation and small ensemble playing. The Festival provides a variety of jazz concerts and events centred around and easily accessible to the community that supports us. Students learn to play jazz through intensive small ensemble rehearsals, daily faculty concerts, masterclasses, ear training and improvisation classes in a fun and friendly environment that nurtures our student’s unique talents and abilities. Both audience members and students get a chance to develop relationships with our amazing group of teachers and performers from Vancouver, the US and the UK. The teaching component of SDJW and many of our concert events take place in and around the very relaxed riverside community of Ladner Village.

The Workshop is open to players of any instrument and singers age 12 and up, but jazz camp isn’t just for kids! Adults are very welcome at SDJW and we always have a strong contingent of mature and semi-pro players around. For many of our students, SDJW is a great opportunity to take a week off from their regular jobs and just focus on music. Musicians of all levels from beginner through college and university are welcome. We provide a fun and friendly environment that nurtures each student’s unique talents and abilities. 

Registration is open now and early-bird discounts are available no until May 30.

DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION FORM HERE. 

In addition to our usual amazing international faculty, this year we will have percussionist Curtis Andrews as a special guest faculty member.  Curtis will be teaching us West African music on a daily basis and we will incorporate what we learn into our jazz playing.  I'm really looking forward to playing with and learning from Curtis.

I must say that there were many times when I never thought we'd never get here.  It has been a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. The best thing about staying around for 10 years is the community of friends, students, faculty, and audience that has developed.