BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edtion - June 2016

letters from winnipeg
TD WINNIPEG INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL
features fresh bill of jazz giants, newcomers and a few surprises
by Julijana Capone
Soul revivalist Andra Day is performing at this year’s festival.
Winnipeg is gearing up for 10 days of tunes as part of the
2016 TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival—from
genre-bridging jazz and blues to revivalist soul and
brass-brimming funk, along with acts that fall under none of those
descriptors.
This year’s lineup brings to the stage jazz saxophonist Kamasi
Washington, neo-soul singer-songwriter Andra Day, as well as
indie-pop Swedes Peter Bjorn and John, and influential post-rockers
Tortoise.
Like other festivals across the country, the Winnipeg Jazz Fest is
feeling the affects of the low Canadian dollar. Some of the big name
international acts that would ordinarily perform as part of the Club
Series at Union Sound Hall are fewer in number, and thus have been
dispersed to different venues.
Rather than programming five to six nights at Union, Nolin has,
instead, programmed three like-minded shows in what would traditionally
be Theatre Series venues, like the West End Cultural Centre
and the Burton Cummings Theatre. “I wanted to try something a
little bit safer and a little bit different,” says Nolin.
Even still, a convoy of Canadian and homegrown Manitoba
acts are ready to fill the void. Sets are scheduled from 81-year-old
Montreal jazz pianist Oliver Jones, who will be performing as part of
his final retirement run; The Legendary Downchild Blues Band; and
Saskatoon’s Close Talker; along with Winnipeggers Mariachi Ghost,
Micah Visser; and Begonia, the latest project of powerhouse vocalist
Alexa Dirks (also of Chic Gamine).
With the event’s 27th year around the corner, we asked Nolin to
offer up 5 Best Bets for the 2016 installment of the Winnipeg Jazz
Fest in no particular order.
Kamasi Washington
Tuesday, June 21 at the Burton Cummings Theatre, 7:30 p.m.
The L.A.-born instrumentalist whose ambitious 2015 release, The
Epic, has been hailed for expanding the boundaries of jazz, is known
as much for his own musical chops as he is for his hip hop affiliations,
having also been part of the studio band for Kendrick Lamar’s To
Pimp A Butterfly, and a touring sideman for Snoop Dogg.
“I’m always looking for fresh and exciting,” says Nolin. “I’m always
looking for something new. Kamasi is sort of the epitome of that.
He’s such a bright star right now that’s bridging generations and
genres.”
Andra Day
Thursday, June 23 at the Burton Cummings Theatre, 7:30 p.m.
Andra Day is still a relative newcomer, yet the San Diego native’s
retro brand of jazzy soul has been striking a chord. “Her star is just
beginning to blast off,” Nolin says.
Peter Bjorn and John
Friday, June 24 at the Burton Cummings Theatre, 7:30 p.m.
You probably still haven’t gotten their 2006 hit “Young Folks” out of
your head, but Nolin says their forthcoming new album is yet another
one for the books. “It’s so good,” he says.
Tia Fuller Quartet
Saturday, June 25 at the West End Cultural Centre, 8:00 p.m.
While her name may not be as widely known as the aforementioned
acts, Nolin says Tia Fuller is someone we need to be talking about
more: “She’s toured the world with Beyoncé, she’s a huge jazz artist
that plays with some heavy jazz cats, but like Kamasi she also has a
foot planted in that other world.”
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Sunday, June 26 at the Burton Cummings Theatre, 7:30 p.m.
Finally, Nolin says to expect the unexpected during Trombone
Shorty’s set. “It’s a rock-funk show, more than sort of a classic jazz
show, but it’s so entertaining,” he says.
The TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival runs June 16-26 in Winnipeg.
For more information on tickets, passes and wristbands, head to jazzwinnipeg.com.
YES WE MYSTIC
purveyors of hopeful melancholy
The creative impulses of art-pop transformers Yes We
Mystic are shaped and shifted into luminous form on
debut full-length, Forgiver, or what the band has been
referring to as their “sonic ‘Rosetta Stone.’”
The inventive collection of tracks are a culmination, and
expansion, of 2013’s Floods and Fires EP and last year’s remix
effort, Vestige. “When we say ‘sonic Rosetta Stone,’ all of the
different things that we’ve tried and done, we try to unpack
in this album. It’s kind of the whole map of what we want to
accomplish and all of the different things that we want to
touch on emotionally, sonically and lyrically,” says lead vocalist
Adam Fuhr.
Merging dramatic orchestral indie-pop instrumentation
with audacious experimental flourishes, Forgiver marks an early
high-water mark in the group’s still-germinating catalogue.
Working with producer Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes, Patrick
Watson, Wolf Parade) at his Breakglass Studios in Montreal, the
five-piece brought bold ideas to the table and executed them
with remarkable skill. A warped-pop aesthetic is exemplified with
cuts such as “No Harm,” featuring electronic mandolin sounds
awash in reverb, or the “Contest of Wit,” on which droning flutes
are processed and distorted, before building into an unexpectedly
dance-y crescendo.
While recording, Lasek’s wife and Besnard Lakes bandmate
Olga Goreas was also in the studio. “We found out
that Olga used to play the flute, so we begged her to bring
it out for us,” says Fuhr. “That was the base from which we
built the rest of the ‘Contest of Wit.’”
And a big part of how the band continues to distinguish their
music is a careful focus on the structure of their songs, allowing
ROCKPILE
them to go to “new and interesting places.”
While the band’s desire to push creative boundaries is audible
on Forgiver, the album’s namesake was also a central theme.
As Fuhr has previously noted in a press release, “It explores the
different manifestations of forgiveness, and asks whether we can
reconcile our capacity to forgive with our own self-respect.”
In the lead-up to the release, the band teased the album with a
poster campaign, where they asked fans to text their replies to the
question: ‘What have you been unable to forgive?’
“We received something like 130 different texts from across
the country,” says Fuhr. “Trying to find connections between
other people’s baggage and our own was very interesting…
We found that the major strand that connected most people
was someone had committed an act that changed how they
viewed people…But there was a lot of instances of people recognizing
that forgiveness was something they wanted to work
on, or saying ‘This happened to me, but I was able to forgive.’”
That sort of hopeful melancholy is something that is certainly
becoming a hallmark of YWM’s musical makeup.
“There are bands that we like that have done happy albums
and we’ve liked them less,” jokes YWM’s chief lyrical contributor
Keegan Steele (vocals, mandolin, synth). “I don’t necessarily
believe in that cliché that you have to be miserable to make
good art… I have written happy songs, but they haven’t felt right
for the group.”
Yes We Mystic tour Western Canada this June and July. Select dates
include June 25th at Local 510 in Calgary, July 1st at the Biltmore
in Vancouver, July 7th at the Mercury Room in Edmonton and July
9th at Capitol Music Club in Saskatoon.
Yes We Mystic have just released their “Sonic ‘Rosetta Stone’”
by Julijana Capone
BEATROUTE • JUNE 2016 | 45