Volume 25 Issue 5 - February 2020

Creation – such as The Nomad and Ma
Lumière – to name but two. Bassist Michael
Manring makes In Lak’Ech truly atmospheric;
Antoine Dufour does likewise on Absolution.
Meanwhile Graham emerges as the preeminent
artist-technician.
Raul da Gama
The Hockey Sweater/Le Chandail de
hockey
Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra; Gemma
New; Roch Carrier
Centrediscs CMCCD 26619
(cmccanada.org)
!!
Who would
we Canadians
be without our
favourite winter
sport, hockey?
And how about
those Team
Canada Juniors! …
Countless intense
discussions have taken place about the
rivalry between the Montreal Canadiens
and the Toronto Maple Leafs. No wonder
Roch Carrier’s popular 1979 short story
The Hockey Sweater is such a hit. Set in
1946 Saint-Justine Quebec, life revolves
around school, church and most importantly
boys playing hockey, each wearing
the Montreal Canadiens Maurice Richard
Number 9 hockey sweater. But the story’s
young hero needs a new one so his mother
orders it from the Mr. Eaton, who sends
him a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey instead.
Aargh, intrigue…
Commissioned by the Toronto Symphony,
National Arts Centre and Calgary
Philharmonic orchestras, composer Abigail
Richardson-Schulte worked for a year
composing The Hockey Sweater before its
2012 premiere. Her musical storytelling is
immaculate and supports, yet never overpowers,
the spoken story, here dramatically
and clearly narrated by Carrier himself in
separate English and French tracks.
Many musical styles surface throughout,
from the opening quasi-traditional Québécois
fiddle tune to the use of organ in the church,
school and, of course, hockey rink fanfare!
Dramatic writing emphasizes story moments,
like string slides with the hair glue story (the
boys would use “glue, lots of glue” to emulate
their idol Richard’s hair style), softer sadder
music with the Leafs sweater arrival, horn
and string interludes, and a final string reel
with closing horn note and percussion hit.
Intermittent audience cheering (and booing)
throughout adds to the musical imagery.
Richardson-Schulte is currently composerin-residence
with the Hamilton Philharmonic
Orchestra, and serves as artistic director of
the HPO’s What Next Festival. Under the
direction of Gemma New, the HPO come
together in a well-balanced and joyous team
effort in what has become an annual highlight
of the orchestra’s winter season. The
Hockey Sweater shoots and scores!!
Tiina Kiik
Jackson’s initial stateside notice came when
he spent time as pianist in saxophonist David
Murray’s group. For the past decade and
a half, Baltimore’s Lafayette Gilchrist has
filled that chair and Dark Matter (CDcds 005
lafayettegilchristmusic.com) is an 11-track
live showcase of his playing and compositional
skills. Although Gilchrist apprenticed
playing a Washington, D.C, hip-hop variant
called go-go, what this did was strengthened his vernacular soloing.
For example, For the Go-Go, which opens this set, is an out-and-out
swinger with downward key splatters and single-note variables. But the
showy rhythms expressed owe as much to stride strategies as the go-go
beat. Likewise And You Know This, which supposedly merges Jamaican
ska with New Orleans funk, ingeniously highlights both genres’ blues
roots with the common Spanish tinge by intensifying the backbeat
through left-handed pressure, key fanning and theme variations. While
some tracks may be showy, the keyboard sleight of hands is never
gratuitous and his playing is buttery and affectionate as well as tough
and steely. Gilchrist also creates quiet themes that wouldn’t be out of
place on an Errol Garner date and logically interpolates song fragments
into his sequences. Could that be It Ain’t Necessarily So within Dark
Matter? He’s also capable of updating a traditional blues, as on Blues for
Our Marches to End by adding a Black Lives Matter-suggestive title to
the tune’s expected walking-bass line, which is more broadly amplified
by the end. Meantime, Spontaneous Combustion showcases shifting
time signatures and pitches with detours into ragtime-like flourishes
and built-up hip-hop allusions. High-frequency rollicking, splintered
tones and dissected patterns connect by the finale.
If the one criticism levelled at Dark Matter is that it needs more of an
edge, that sentiment couldn’t be applied to the next disc. Using a
prepared upright piano, France’s Eve Risser explores all the crannies
and parameters of her composition Après un rêve (Clean Feed CF 524
CD cleanfeedrecords.com) during its nearly 25-minute duration.
Stopping and exciting the internal strings so that they vibrate guitarlike
and create a clanking percussive continuum, she adds keyboard
patterning to devise a distinctive quasi-impressionistic exposition.
After the narrative picks up Latin inflections,
the occasional single note fill that
sneaks out is examined every which way
before returning to the assemblage. Echoes
and variables connect so well that by the
three-quarter mark two-handed
manoeuvres create an intense performance
that is sometimes so percussive it could be
the sounds of a keyboardist and a drummer.
After adding top-side chording and internal rumbles, swift glissandi
finally mark a descending individual key-plinking ending.
Creating an equally atonal program at
more than twice the length as Risser’s
is British pianist John Tilbury, who on
The Tiger’s Mind (Cubus Records CR 372
cubus-records.ch), presents an improvisation
based on parts of Cornelius Cardew’s
notated score. A longtime Cardew associate
and his biographer, Tilbury’s familiarity
with the material allows him to add snatches
of clamour and cries from pre-recorded fire, water and bird sounds to
the performance, as well as utilize the spatial properties of the cathedral
in which he recorded. Initially using the pedals to emphasize
the piano’s stentorian tones, Tilbury’s aleatory variations soon move
to higher pitches. These include singular string plucks and pauses,
as well as patterns which subtly incorporate bell-pealing and aviary
caws. As the interpretation strengthens, lapping water suggestions
and sea lion-like yelps briefly disrupt the cascading narrative. After a
strident whistle signals the midway point, the narrative continues to
unroll fluidly with thematic material sharing space with wood echoes
from the piano’s bottom board and sides, plus vibrations along tightly
wound strings. Just when it seems as if the piece will evaporate into
silence, a final sequence unleashes jangling metallic string preparations
that presage horizontal passages that establish a defining finale.
Combining inspiration with their own skills, each pianist shows
how impressively and distinctively the multi-keyed mini-orchestra
can be used to create a memorable program.
thewholenote.com February 2020 | 81