Volume 23 Issue 7 - April 2018

crisis. Coming through has meant everything
to Granite and this is reflected not only in the
CD’s quieter, more contemplative moments,
but also in the jagged, bittersweet works such
as Undo Process and When the View Became
the Way. Together, these 11 pieces represent
the work of a thoughtful composer with
exceptional resourcefulness and imagination.
Raul da Gama
Octet Vol. 2
Dave Young/Terry Promane Octet
Modica Music (daveyoung.ca)
!!
Following the
success of their first
album, Octet Vol.
1, the Dave Young/
Terry Promane
Octet is back with
Vol. 2, a collection
of ten songs
arranged by group
co-leaders Young (bass) and Promane (trombone).
A standard bearer for the Canadian
large ensemble tradition of Phil Nimmons and
Rob McConnell, the DYTP 8 features some of
Toronto’s most prominent and well-established
musicians, including Kevin Turcotte
(trumpet/flugelhorn), Vern Dorge (alto saxophone),
Mike Murley (tenor saxophone),
Perry White (baritone saxophone), Dave
Restivo (piano) and Terry Clarke (drums),
all of whom deliver memorable, top-tier
performances.
For the uninitiated, the DYTP 8 functions
more like a big band than it does as a traditional
combo-style group. Listeners can
expect to hear clear melodic statements,
thoughtfully voiced horn backgrounds, and
punchy rhythm section playing, all of which
are present on the Promane-arranged Oh,
What A Beautiful Morning, the album’s first
track. Young’s evocative arrangement of Duke
Ellington’s Sound of Love is another winning
moment, as is the Murley original Can’t You
See, a bouncy, medium-up-tempo bebop tune
that features solos from Young, Promane and
Murley, in addition to athletic contributions
from the whole band, with special mention to
drummer Clarke on Promane’s solo.
Highly recommended both to largeensemble
aficionados and newcomers to
the genre, Octet Vol. 2 is engaging from start
to finish, with a strong performance from
an experienced band that sounds bigger
and more exciting than many groups twice
its size.
Colin Story
Out of Silence
François Carrier; Michel Lambert
FMR Records FMRCD455
(francoiscarrier.com)
!!
Two of Canada’s foremost jazz artists, saxophonist
François Carrier and drummer Michel
Lambert, have come together to create and
record a spontaneous, symbiotic expression
of skilled, improvisational,
musical
possibilities. All of
the pieces on this
remarkable project
are improvised
creations of Carrier
and Lambert, who
by travelling along the tones and beats of
mankind’s most elemental musical impulses
have morphed into inter-dimensional space/
time travellers – soaring seamlessly between
conscious and subconscious thought, in
and around their own memories and egos,
through deep emotional subtext, cultural
precepts and to the very soul itself.
This CD was beautifully recorded as a live
concert at Ryan’s Bar in London, UK, and
Carrier wears several hats here: producer,
sound designer and artist. There are seven
odysseys on the recording – and each one
is evocative and stirring in its own nuanced
way, with its own dual-narrative. The opening
salvo is the title track – crisp, arrogant, and at
the same time, strangely melancholic – like a
lost youth from West Side Story questioning
every boundary. This is an urban landscape,
and Lambert’s intricate and skilled brushwork,
propels the action, while Carrier is
the virtual voice in the Gotham-like wilderness.
Ancient DNA engrams vibrate into this
reality, with the addition of Carrier’s Chinese
oboe. As the piece progresses, perspective and
overview – both musically and emotionally –
begin to percolate and coalesce; eventually, a
new perspective is birthed by Lambert, whose
playing feels as though it could be the sacred
heartbeat of Mother Earth herself.
Out of Silence (both the track and the disc
as a whole) is brave, audacious and sometimes
uncomfortably exposing – but it is also
joyous and freeing at a deeply profound level.
Only two artists at the peak of their talent,
insight and skill could produce a project of
such gravitas and complexity.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
The River
John Roney; Tevet Sela
Effendi Records FND149
(effendirecords.com)
!!“It’s all kind
of going in a big
cultural pot.” Those
are some of the
essence-capturing
words Montrealbased
jazz pianist
John Roney uses to
describe The River,
his collaborative project with Israeli-born,
Montreal-based, alto saxophonist Tevet Sela,
in a September 2017 YouTube video introducing
the project, which was released the
following month. The “it’s” he refers to is the
amalgam of their diverse musical influences
permeating – or perhaps more apt, flowing
through – The River: Middle Eastern, jazz,
klezmer, classical chamber music and North
African rhythms.
The album is a most engaging collaboration.
Roney and Sela are highly skilled and
innovative players and composers; this is
apparent from The River’s ten original tracks.
After listening to the entire CD several times
(it warrants an uninterrupted session), these
are some of the words that came to mind:
lyrical, poignant, probing, driving, intimate,
hypnotic, expansive, compelling, moving and
mellifluous.
From the CD’s cover art to each evocatively
named composition – in addition
to the title track are such monikers as
Watershed, Always Too Far, Gentle Shifts,
Dream in Blue, Closer Horizon, Calm Flat
Sea – Sela and Roney have created a singular
musical journey that does indeed flow with a
river’s momentum.
I conclude, as I began, with some words
by Roney from the YouTube video: “The river
is really a metaphor for the overwhelming
power of inspiration, improvisation and
really being spontaneous in the moment, and
allow[ing] the music to carry you forward.”
May your spirit be inspired and buoyed up by
The River.
Sharna Searle
Concert Notes: The Tevet Sela Quartet
performs May 4 at The Rex (Toronto) and
May 5 at The Jazz Room (Waterloo).
Dr. Quixotic’s Traveling Exotics
Jon Irabagon Quartet with Tim Hagans
Irabbagist Records 010 (jonirabagon.com)
! ! Saxophonist
Jon Irabagon rose
to prominence in
Mostly Other People
Do the Killing, the
eclectic, ironic,
virtuosic band that
has redefined the
parameters of jazz with post-modern pastiche
since 2003. His current projects stretch from
the modern mainstream to solo sopranino
concerts. This quartet is rooted in post-bop
(the 60s Jazz Messengers and tenor saxophonists
Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson:
riffs, vamps, ostinatos, modes) but has its
own approach, with a breadth that extends
comfortably forward.
Irabagon sticks to his tenor here, and his
big sound and hard-edged authority are
apparent from his introduction to The Demon
Barber of Fleet Week (the CD has a medicine/freak
show theme), focusing the coiled
energy of a working band, recorded while on
tour in Buenos Aires. Pianist Luis Perdomo,
bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Rudy
Royston all exude the same intense command
of a complex language.
Veteran trumpeter Tim Hagans (he first
recorded in 1974) joins the group on several
tracks, a restrained complement to the leader’s
bustle. He’s at his finest on Pretty like
thewholenote.com April 2018 | 77