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Volume 27 Issue 4 - February 2022

Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.

Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.

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on top of keyboard rumbles. However, no<br />

matter how experimental the brass-keyboard<br />

duets appear to be, during the set of Sequoia<br />

tunes and elsewhere, a feeling of joyous<br />

balance remains. With her clarion peeps<br />

sounding as if they’re from a piccolo trumpet,<br />

it seems a riff based on Largo al Factotum is<br />

being sounded.<br />

Zephyr may be a gentle breeze but the<br />

blowing here offers a lot more than that.<br />

Ken Waxman<br />

What Is There To Say<br />

Cory Weeds with Strings<br />

Cellar Music CM110620 (cellarlive.com)<br />

! So much classical<br />

and contemporary<br />

music<br />

features strings in<br />

orchestras, quartets<br />

and many<br />

other formats.<br />

When added<br />

into other genres the “string sound” can<br />

become a delicious addition to a country,<br />

pop or jazz recording (think of Frank Sinatra<br />

performing arrangements by Nelson Riddle<br />

or Gordon Jenkins). The Charlie Parker with<br />

Strings recordings are a milestone in jazz and<br />

were his best-selling albums.<br />

Cory Weeds’ What is There to<br />

Say continues this tradition by pairing a jazz<br />

quartet with an 11-piece string section playing<br />

standards and three Weeds originals (Waltz<br />

for Someone Special, Alana Marie and Love<br />

is Wild). The overall sound and performances<br />

here are exquisite. Phil Dwyer must be<br />

commended for creating such engaging and<br />

articulate arrangements and playing some<br />

great piano as well. Weeds is well known as a<br />

producer and all round jazz entrepreneur (his<br />

good work includes founding and managing<br />

Cellar Live) but primarily he is an excellent<br />

saxophone player with many albums to his<br />

credit as leader.<br />

Throughout What is There to Say? Weeds<br />

illustrates how playing the melody, with<br />

his full and assured tone, is perfect in some<br />

spots while in others (like the moderately<br />

up-tempo There’s A Boat Leavin’ Soon for<br />

New York, or trading fours with Dwyer at the<br />

end of Love Is Wild), some great bop lines<br />

add zest to the proceedings. So really, What<br />

is There to Say? except, listen to this album<br />

for its elegance, fine performances and<br />

solid groove.<br />

Ted Parkinson<br />

Lorraine’s Lullabye<br />

Anthony Wonsey<br />

Cellar Music CM012421 (cellarlive.com)<br />

! Pianist Anthony<br />

Wonsey’s style<br />

consists equally<br />

of tastefulness<br />

and invention.<br />

His renditions of<br />

Richard Rodgers’ I<br />

Didn’t Know What<br />

Time It Was and<br />

It Might as Well be Spring are full of tunefulness<br />

and clarity, while still maintaining<br />

a distinctive group sound. In particular, the<br />

way in which he plays around with groove<br />

and contour alongside drummer Chris Beck<br />

gives these classics a reinvigoration seldom<br />

seen elsewhere. The central fulcrum of this<br />

album, however, is Wonsey’s own composing,<br />

in which he establishes his abilities as both a<br />

consummate songwriter and attentive facilitator<br />

of his rhythm section. The harmony<br />

itself is shimmering with assuring familiarity<br />

and yet there is an element of unpredictability<br />

that entices the listener.<br />

Rhythmically, the penmanship and improvisation<br />

seem to inform one another. On<br />

Blacker Black’s Revenge, Wonsey and bassist<br />

Dmitri Kolesnik’s phrasings are conversational<br />

yet serpentine, starting as abruptly as<br />

they finish, while seamlessly leading back<br />

to the primary motif. Wonsey’s own playing<br />

possesses key characteristics of control and<br />

range. More often than not his solos have the<br />

feeling of ease, leaving enough room to punctuate<br />

lines and accentuating the rhythmic<br />

pocket. His undying commitment to the<br />

cohesiveness of his ensemble makes those<br />

rare moments when he takes flight (see: Do<br />

You Remember Me) notably more impactful.<br />

Every track on here is golden.<br />

Yoshi Maclear Wall<br />

Equanimity – A Futuristic Jazz Tale<br />

Viktor Haraszti (ViO)<br />

ViO Music VM-0001-CD (viomusic.art)<br />

! ViO is the alter<br />

ego project of multiinstrumentalist<br />

Viktor Haraszti,<br />

in which he seeks<br />

complete creative<br />

liberation from jazz<br />

conventions. On<br />

ViO’s latest album,<br />

which self-categorizes as a “futuristic jazz<br />

tale,” it is safe to say that Haraszti realizes<br />

his vision, both in ambition and execution.<br />

Unlike ViO’s prior work, this is undeniably<br />

a Haraszti solo effort. With the exception of<br />

three spoken word passages courtesy of Lisa<br />

Marie Simmons, and occasional percussion<br />

courtesy of Dave King and Marshall Curtly,<br />

every single aspect of this music is dictated<br />

by Haraszti. He plays every instrument (one<br />

of his favourite moves being layering multiple<br />

reed instruments to create harmonic lattices),<br />

is responsible for the rich production, and<br />

composes/arranges each second of music.<br />

The stylistic qualities of Equanimity vary<br />

from enveloping ambient passages to solemn<br />

contemplations that soundtrack Simmons’<br />

words while also giving them context.<br />

Between the heavier moments of the suite lie<br />

surprising instances of levity. Chapter Five is<br />

a change in pace and mood that I hadn’t realized<br />

the music needed. It retains the compelling<br />

spectacle of prior tracks, but creates an<br />

atmosphere of hopefulness by taking a turn<br />

into danceable territory. Haraszti introduces<br />

elements one by one throughout this masterfully<br />

paced experience, including successful<br />

flirtations with electronics, giving the overall<br />

sonic palette a new, unexpected dimension.<br />

The climactic Chapter Seven even borders on<br />

electro-pop at times.<br />

Yoshi Maclear Wall<br />

Architecture of Storms<br />

Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly of Shadows<br />

Soundspore Records SS202101<br />

(remyleboeuf.com)<br />

! I’ve been a fan<br />

of the Le Boeuf<br />

brothers (Remy<br />

and Pascal) since<br />

their concert at<br />

the Kitchener/<br />

Waterloo Jazz Room<br />

in 2017. Their music<br />

combines composed<br />

and improvised sections where the orchestration<br />

is as compelling as individual soloists.<br />

In 2019 Remy Le Boeuf released Assembly<br />

of Shadows which contained seven of his<br />

compositions for a big band. In 2021 Le<br />

Boeuf released Architecture of Storms billed<br />

(slightly confusingly) as Remy Le Boeuf’s<br />

Assembly of Shadows, signifying the connection<br />

between the two albums and the<br />

importance of the ensemble. In fact, four of<br />

these tracks were recorded in 2019 during<br />

the Assembly of Shadows sessions and three<br />

were recorded in 2021.<br />

Architecture of Storms is, again, an exciting<br />

contemporary big band album. Le Boeuf’s<br />

compositions are complex and utilize the full<br />

palette offered by almost 30 excellent musicians.<br />

Repeated listenings are rewarded by the<br />

mood changes, shifting melodies and invigorating<br />

solos over ostinatos and nuanced brass<br />

and woodwind orchestrations. This album<br />

includes an expansive arrangement of the Bon<br />

Iver song Minnesota, WI and The Melancholy<br />

Architecture of Storms is sung by Julia<br />

Easterlin with lyrics by the poet Sara Pirkle.<br />

With both Assembly of Shadows and The<br />

Architecture of Storms Le Boeuf has shown<br />

imaginative composition skills and should<br />

be commended for producing such a large<br />

collaborative work during a pandemic.<br />

Ted Parkinson<br />

thewholenote.com <strong>February</strong> <strong>2022</strong> | 53

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