Volume 21 Issue 2 - October 2015

STUART BROOMER
With each successive CD, Darren Sigesmund
has become a more distinctive and accomplished
composer and bandleader. His
previous one, Strands III, made brilliant use of
Eliana Cuevas’ wordless vocals on ensemble
passages and here he employs two New
Yorkers, violinist Mark Feldman and pianist/
accordionist Gary Versace, to create dramatically
different instrumental textures in company with his own trombone.
While that last CD had a certain Brazilian feel to it, New Quintet
(darrensigesmund.ca) sometimes has a distinctly French quality,
Feldman’s dramatic and impassioned violin combine with the reediness
of Versace’s accordion to suggest an ancient café ambience. Much
of the music has a limpid lyricism but it moves with an underlying
rhythmic power, propelled by bassist Jim Vivian and drummer Ethan
Ardelli. Sigesmund is as tuneful an improviser as he is a composer,
bringing a special, slightly muffled warmth and subtle inflections to
his every solo.
When Ross Taggart passed away at 45 in
January of 2013, he was among Vancouver’s
most prominent musicians, an accomplished
saxophonist, pianist and composer who
inspired the love and respect of his community.
Several recordings have been dedicated to
Taggart since his death, but two new releases
highlight the breadth of that community.
Legacy, The Music Of Ross Taggart (Cellar Live
CL122914480, cellarlive.com) by the Jill Townsend Big Band is a
substantial document of his work by a band in which he had played
saxophone for a decade. It’s a crisp, precise big band with some
outstanding soloists, including special guest Campbell Ryga who plays
soprano sax on three tunes. Townsend and guitarist Bill Coon have
done a fine job of arranging Taggart’s small-group music (and even a
piano solo) for big band, ranging from fairly conventional, hardswinging
fare like Don’t Call Before 10 to the CD’s finest work, Light at
the End of the Tunnel, on which Coon expands Taggart’s imaginative
harmonies into a lustrous orchestral gem. Reminiscent of Kenny
Wheeler’s work, it’s highlighted by Brad Turner’s flugelhorn solo.
A very different work is also dedicated
to Taggart: A Bowl of Sixty Taxidermists
(Songlines SGL 1611-2, songlines.com) by
Waxwing, a trio that seems to create its own
genre, a kind of jazz suffused with folk music.
Much of the music is composed by saxophonist
(and over-dubbed multi-instrumentalist) Jon
Bentley, who played in Taggart’s quartet and
possesses a gorgeous tone from the school of Stan Getz. The mood is
reflective, at times playful, rather than somber, with cellist Peggy Lee
and guitarist Tony Wilson contributing strongly melodic compositions
and improvisations to this often spare and resonant music. Taking
its title from a phrase of Taggart’s, the work is less about loss than
passage, a gentle trip into the unknown. Lee’s contributions include a
distinctive arrangement of the traditional Clementine while Wilson’s
tunes commemorate both Taggart (For Ross) and drummer Claude
Ranger (For Claude), who disappeared in 2000.
Canada has had few sustained specialist jazz labels and nothing
else like Toronto’s Sackville, running from its launch in 1968 by
John Norris and Bill Smith until Norris’ death in 2010, recording
music from stride piano to the avant-garde. Chicago’s Delmark has
now revived the label, and many of Canada’s
best jazz recordings are back in circulation,
like guitarist Reg Schwager and bassist Don
Thompson’s Live at Mezzetta (Sackville 2057,
delmark.com). The two craft intimate,
masterful versions of a series of standards,
bringing fresh perspectives to In a Sentimental
Mood and Willow Weep For Me.
One unusual item from the catalogue is
Humphrey Lyttelton in Canada (Sackville
SK3033, delmark.com) which matches the
English trumpeter with a stellar Toronto
supporting cast, including Scottish transplant
Jim Galloway on saxophones and the highly
flexible rhythm section of guitarist Ed Bickert,
drummer Terry Clarke and bassist Neil
Swainson, here tempering their more
modernist bent. While Lyttelton gained fame
in the English trad revival, here he blends a Louis Armstrong influence
with a swing style rooted in Basie and Ellington. The music is lively,
joyous and consistently well-played, its happiest moments coming on
the West Indies-flavoured Caribana Queen.
Guitarist Ken Aldcroft and trombonist Scott
Thomson present a series of four freely improvised
duets on Red & Blue (Trio Records
TRP-D503-021, kenaldcroft.com/triorecords.
asp). The music is continually shifting and
evolving, moving from rapid-fire runs to pointillist
exchanges and dialogues in which one
offers empathetic support to the other. Aldcroft
stays close to the traditional timbre of a lightly
amplified jazz guitar, while expanding the vocabulary with percussive
effects and skittering chord runs that move in and out of tonal expectations;
Thomson’s explorations of the trombone include barnyard
noises, extreme upper register effects and very rapid tonguing.
However, it’s what they have in common that’s most significant: a
willingness to reduce their sounds to whispers and to listen to one
another intently and creatively. This is subtle, challenging music that
responds best to the same kind of close listening that the musicians
bring to it.
Scott Thomson also appears on another
recent recording that may be the least abstract
CD of the year. Led by drummer Dave Clark,
the Woodshed Orchestra is a joyous musical
free-for-all, part brass band and part parody
thereof. On Brass Bandit (Independent,
thewoodshedorchestra.com), the 11-member
group includes other distinguished improvisers
like bassist Michael Herring and saxophonist Karen Ng. Here
you might think of it as a New Orleans funeral parade that keeps
getting lost. A couple of times it wanders into streets that lead to
the Balkans and the Adriatic, while at others it appears to get the
sequence confused, celebrating first (Love Letter to New Orleans with
a great blatting solo from Thomson) and mourning later (Prayer) with
funk in between (The Griff). Everybody in the band sings, including
Susanna Hood, though her vocal talents aren’t required for group recitatives
like Pennie + Mousie’s Antidotal Lullabye and A Politician. The
CD lasts a brief 26 minutes, but it has energy and spirit to spare.
Don’t forget to check out the Listening Room at TheWholeNote.com/listening
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