This year’s Toronto Jazz Festival played host to two legendary groups in two awe-inspiring and sold-out venues: The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Koerner Hall on Tuesday and The Keith Jarrett Trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette at The Four Seasons Opera Centre on Wednesday. The Dave Brubeck Quartet gave a solid performance but one that has become somewhat less of a novelty since it was nearly identical to his concert last year and the year before. The Keith Jarrett Trio, on the other hand, gave a concert of sheer ingenuity and brilliance from start to finish, though I’d expect nothing less from this group of masters.

Dave Brubeck Quartet

On Tuesday, the current rendition of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Bobby Millitello on saxophone, Michael Moore on bass, and Randy Jones on drums, took the stage at Koerner Hall for one set of standards and one set of what Brubeck does best: his own pieces in odd time signatures. In the first set, they played, among others, “Gone with the Wind”, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “On the Sunny Side of the Street”, and a medley of Duke Ellington Songs: “C Jam Blues”, “Mood Indigo” and “Take the A Train”. The interpretations were competent and fun to listen to, but this really isn’t where Brubeck shines and there are other pianists who have better renditions of these pieces. Nevertheless, it was nice to hear a few pieces that weren’t performed in the last couple of years.

But things got going in the second set, with Dave Brubeck’s son Matthew Brubeck on cello, as they dug into Brubeck’s trademark pieces, which are incredibly hard not to get lost in when counting is done by mere mortals. They played “Three to get ready, Four to go”, which has two bars in 3/4 time followed by two bars in 4/4 time, and then improvisation in a totally different time signature altogether and they kept time. When they played “Unsquare Dance”, a real earworm, in 7/4, they encouraged the audience to clap along with the drums: some people tried and many waited way too long to stop their out-of-time embarrassing clapping efforts. The group, however, had no trouble keeping time. “Blue Rondo a la Turk” was a wonderful foot-tapping experience, of which Brubeck said “this is one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever written for myself. I don’t know why I did that to myself. Every time I go to play it I’m always worried I won’t be able to. But Mathew is here to help me out”. They played a couple of pieces in 5/4, one that we didn’t all know, and one that we did (“Take Five”) and “The Sermon on the Mount” which is perfectly suited for having a cello in the ensemble.

When he takes a solo, Dave Brubeck does a lovely job, with great technique and jive. Mathew Brubeck also brings a beautiful edge to the pieces with his cello, adding an unexpected but perfectly agreeable layer of detail. But their bandmates can’t keep up, except in their ability to literally keep time. Michael Moore is a perfectly satisfactory bassist when he’s playing the bassline but he’s not Stanley Clarke or Charlie Haden or Gary Peacock so his solos aren’t that exciting. Randy Jones is your average run-of-the-mill jazz drummer, though he may have a slightly heightened awareness of time, and Bobby Millitello’s playing rubs me the wrong way: he croons too much without enough definition or character. But there’s something perfunctory about the way these folks trade off solos and play in a style from year’s past without the expected modernity of a solo. There’s little interplay between the group to keep the music charged and so while the individual parts, well the Brubeck parts anyway, are a joy to listen to, the rest falls a bit flat.

This year’s Brubeck concert, the fifth year running at the festival (and the third one I’ve been at), was perhaps the best executed concert. The quartet format, with the addition of the cello, is the right format for Brubeck to be playing at and Koerner Hall is a perfect venue for this group. The acoustics and the seating sure beat the hell out of the Nathan Phillips Square tent from last year, and the music itself was at a higher level.

Seeing Dave Brubeck in Toronto is an essential for every jazz fan. He is, after all, a jazz great for good reason, and no one else has replicated what he has done in weird time signatures. “Time Out” and “Time Further Out” sit satisfactorily in every serious jazz lover’s collection. But there are only so many pieces from each of these albums, and Brubeck seems to only like to play a few of those, albeit the better ones, so if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all. Just make sure you go when it’s at an excellent venue.

Keith Jarrett Trio

The Keith Jarrett Trio, on the other hand, is a revelation every time they play. As a soloist, Keith Jarrett would easily sell out the Four Seasons Centre where his trio performed, but there’s an exciting additional dimension when he plays with the best jazz drummer, Jack DeJohnette, and the great bassist Gary Peacock. First of all, there isn’t a single low point to the concert: each moment can only be characterized as fantastic or more fantastic. I might even go so far as to say they reach perfection. In their extremely able hands, the music coruscates and they create an experience of immense beauty.

It is possible to listen to each of these magnificent players independently, focussing in on one in particular, and then rotating. But to do that would be to miss the richness of the texture they provide, the way in which they each carefully support one another yet find their own sound and complexity at the same time. When these masters improvise, they do it collaboratively without ever drowning out anything important. Keith Jarrett on piano, of course, leads the show, takes the melody and leads the improvisation. But listen to how Jack DeJohnette deviates from the norm, the subtle changes he makes, how he mimicks and supports what Jarrett does without copying him. And on bass, Peacock holds down the fort with a supportive but complex baseline that tends towards the melodic. The group played a variety of standards, including “My Funny Valentine”, “God Bless the Child”, and “Bye Bye Blackbird”. When they slow it down, it becomes so beautiful that it almost brought me to tears.

Keith Jarrett is probably the best jazz pianist alive right now and Jack DeJohnette is unquestionably the best living jazz drummer of any fame. So it’s no surprise that when they team up it’s dynamite. DeJohnette finds melody in his drumming and can actually make a beautiful line of the piano sound even more melodious rather than wrecking it with some banging. DeJohnette plays notes, not just rhythm. There is nothing run-of-the-mill about either of these two.

Halfway through the first set, Jarrett stopped in the middle of a piece because a note was out of tune on the piano. He asked the audience if “it sounds OK out there?”, and one clever-mouth chimed in “it sounds great, but our ears might not be as good as yours”. Jarrett proceeded to play the note in question repeatedly, commenting that it “sounded like ‘help!’” and that he owed Steinway a phone call to complain about their piano. He decided to go on but switched keys in order to evade the offensive sound.

At intermission, a brand new Steinway was rolled out on stage and fastidiously tuned: good thing they happened to have an extra Steinway Grand just lying around. This seemed to be to the satisfaction of Jarrett, who, after playing an even more amazing second set wowed the audience with not just one or two encores, but three encores. Thank goodness he liked the new piano and the hall. When he was here three years ago, we were treated to two fabulous encores because Jarrett liked the hall. And what’s not to like? The Four Seasons Opera House is a fantastic venue, a beautiful hall with outstanding acoustics: the perfect venue for these jazz masters. When I saw the trio three years ago, their last performance in Toronto, I wrote that it was the best concert I’d ever seen in my life. Well, I’d say their most recent concert on June 30th was exactly on par with the 2007 show: tied for the best concerts I’ve ever seen.

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Photo: Keith Jarrett performing at Carnegie Hall, September 26, 2005, Photo by Richard Termine, ECM Records

On Monday night, I squeezed into a horribly uncomfortable, plastic seat down at Nathan Phillips Square to enjoy what can only be described as a fabulous evening of jazz music, albeit with lame acoustics. The Dave Young Quartet opened the evening with local jazz piano virtuoso Robi Botos, Botos’s brother Frank on drums, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, and band leader Dave Young on bass. The group played a solid set which included “Me and the Boys” by Coleman Hawkins, “Mean What You Say”, Cole Porter’s “Dream Dancing”, and a very beautiful Danish folksong. The band was at its best when Dave Young and Robi Botos took centre stage, either with the melody or their melodious solos. These two are very talented Canadian musicians, staples of the Toronto jazz scene and for good reason.

After intermission, the high energy Stanley Clarke Band featuring Hiromi took the stage by storm with Clarke on electric and acoustic bass, Hiromi on a Yamaha grand piano, Ruslan Sirota on keyboards, and Ronald Bruner Jr on drums. Clarke started out the evening with some electric bass, which proves that if he were a less serious musician he could have been a seriously big-time rock star: he’s cool, he’s assured, and he’s incredibly good. Clarke took good advantage of the portability of the electric bass to move around the stage and play some great call and response music with each of his musicians, standing up close to them, one by one, and jamming.

At the end of the first piece, an audience member shouted out “You’re the king, Stanley” and Clarke responded “I’m just a bass player, that’s all”. But he is the king, not because he can be a rock star, but because of his incredible talent and skill on the bass. He is a one-of-a-kind bass player who can take the melody and have it work, who can play at the top and the bottom of the piece, and who can make melodic music with just a few notes. Of course, his mastery is best show-cased on what is thankfully his preferred instrument, the acoustic bass. After the first piece, much to my surprise and glee, Clarke set aside his electric bass in favour of the acoustic bass, and moved us into some middle ground between jazz and jazz fusion, but far enough away from pure fusion that I was happy. It was especially a treat to hear some pieces from the “Jazz in the Garden” album such as Clarke’s “Paradigm Shift (Election Day)”.

The group then went on to play a Return to Forever piece, which was even better than the first piece and featured a truly memorable drum solo by Bruner. When he lost his first drum stick during the solo, Clarke turned to him and said “you lost your drumstick! WOW!”. And then the comedy routine began: in the middle of his solo he starts beating the drum with his foot so that his hands are free to take a drink and wipe his face. Once he’s using both hands again, with a new soon-to-be-lost drumstick, he starts beating the drums in a regular pattern. As the pattern becomes familiar, Bruner encourages the audience to clap along, when he decides to mischeviously skip a beat as though to say to us “hah! got you! didn’t play that note!”.

There were some sound troubles involving painful feedback which deafened the keyboardist and was really annoying Mr Clarke, so we took a break to fix the sound.

When the music got going again it was at its peak. Clarke and Hiromi are the real stars of the band and we really see them shine when they play together and each take their own solos.  These musicians are so in tune with each other that every note fits, every rhythm jives, and every second is musical.

Every time Clarke took a solo it was breathtaking. As I was watching him really slap that bass in a way I’ve never seen anyone play the bass before, I would glance back and forth at his band members and what I saw was sheer joy on Hiromi and Sirota’s face: they were just as blown away by Clarke as the audience was. And their smiles were infectious. Watching these musicians enjoy themselves onstage while they made music just made the already good music that much more engaging.

Stanley Clarke is the master of tension and release which makes it hard to do anything but get engaged and concentrate on the music. His music always melodic, in a way I’ve never heard the bass be melodic, and it’s infused with life and urgency. When I interviewed Joshua Redman, he commented that “jazz has a built in modernity and relevance through improvisation”, and the full meaning of that statement comes to light when watching Clarke solo and do joint solos with his bandmates.

The other star of the concert was Hiromi, an incredibly talented pianist whose well-refined jazz piano has such melodic force: it’s hard to believe she’s only thirty and can only just reach an octave. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen fingers move that quickly on a piano. As Hiromi told me in an interview before the festival “It requires a lot of practicing to be able to play the right notes, but I want to hear the sound and so I work hard to hear the sound.”  Her technique is impeccable but praising that alone would hardly do this musician credit. Hearing Hiromi play is like hearing a young, modern-day Oscar Peterson, but with her own personal and wonderful flare.

Clarke closed the concert by returning to the electric bass, which seemed to be a real audience pleaser. Don’t get me wrong, he’s wonderful on the electric bass, but sometimes the electric bass is about making noise. Clarke can make noise perfectly well but what makes him a standout bassist is his ability to turn the bass-line into melody and into music. When they finished their last piece and left the stage, someone came promptly onto the stage to remove Clarke’s bass, which seemed a clear signal that no encore was to be had. But a well-deserved prolonged standing ovation amazingly coaxed him back on stage for a solid encore. Overall, it was a great concert with enough jazz to please the real jazz fans, and enough rock-like flare to appease the fusion-obsessed.

Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking what a shame it is that these great musicians were put in such a terrible venue. The sound was loud and muddled making it often impossible to make out notes being played on the keyboard or hear Hiromi at all when she wasn’t solo-ing or duet-ing with Clarke. I was wearing drummers ear plugs the  whole time to fend off deafness while those with less tailored ear plugs were feeling their ears ringing. Great music deserves great acoustics. Toronto has so many fabulous venues that it seems a waste not to use them on this group for an already expensive concert ($40-50). But don’t let me being a curmudgeon deter you from seeing the Stanley Clarke Band featuring Hiromi live at the next opportunity, or for checking out “Jazz in the Garden” or the “Stanley Clarke Band”’s new album: the music speaks for itself and it has nothing but wonderful things to say.

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Image from Stanley Clarke’s flickr stream.

K-os @ Yonge & Dundas Square

8:30 pm on the sunny Friday evening found me hitting up one of the free NXNE shows at Y&D Square. Arriving just on time I valiantly dove into the beyond packed crowd of fans, random wanderers, and broke music lovers to get a better look at the Toronto emcee who strode onto the stage with a full sense of ownership. The crowd was diverse reflecting his appeal and his increasing mainstream status. K-os has a quick, rapid, and smooth delivery, that was backed by a full live band plus DJ/producer. Not bothering with intro stage banter, he launched right into his first song and then quickly blew through a couple of old hits like “Superstarr” and “Man I Used to Be” which prompted cheers. Like any good emcee K-os repeatedly engaged the crowd and by the time he launched into “Crabbuckit”, probably his most well known song, a significant number of the crowd were dancing as much as possible given the extremely tight confines.

DD/MM/YYYY @ The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

It took until 11 pm for me to make it back into The Gladstone because Timber Timbre, a band that had topped multiple “best of” lists last year and which I definitely wanted to see, had previously played at 10 causing a massive overflow of people. Earlier the place had not only been over capacity, but was also endowed with a huge winding line of people outside that had stupidly arrived far too late.  After Timer Timbre’s set there was a sizable exodus, and only then was I able to make it in. Fortunately all was not lost as the next band was hometown heroes DD/MM/YYYY who play loud, jerky, fast, 80’s video game synthesizer drenched, rhythm and percussion driven math rock.

The 5 piece band produced a primal and guitar heavy trance inducing onslaught that was overlaid by brief, simple, and repetitive lyrics that are more embellishment and emphasis than content. Often the vocals are not even words, being yelps, grunts, and cries fractured into repeated beats. At their best the band has layered vocals and rhythms that play off of each other and can go from cacophony to order and back again repeatedly,  always with hard beats, high energy, and incredible stamina. There were barely noticeable stops between most of the songs with the band launching into the next one immediately after the last ended. In the rare moments of pause, the band engaged the audience by screaming phrases like, “You wanna dance? Please dance with us!”. Despite the sometimes sudden momentum and time signature changes mid-song, DD/MM/YYYY still play strangely and vividly danceable music that the crowd took full advantage of. The band is definitely, in my opinion, one that would be perfect to orchestrate a futuristic post-apocalyptic action chase scene.

C’mon @ The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

At midnight the veteran band C’mon came on stage to a rowdy crowd ready to tear the place apart/ This was fitting since the band’s give’em f*#% reputation definitely preceded them, testified by a slightly drunk fan who had randomly accosted me during DD/MM/YYYY’s set to enthusiastically gush about the last C’mon show he was at. The 3 member band play very hard, basically metal rock with intense riffs. They are true performers with showmanship to spare and tons of in-your-face attitude. Ian Blurton (lead guitarist and main vocals) wasted no time to launch into theatrics and midway through the first song jumped right into the crowd and stumbled around like a slow drunk while still perfectly shredding his guitar before falling backwards onto the crowd. Katie Lynn Campbell (lead bass and vocals) spent the second song taunting the crowd exclaiming that the band and the rowdy crowd were “Not from Toronto, that’s why we’re partying”, despite the fact that the band definitely, and the crowd presumably, actually were. Not deterred, Campbell shouted out Sudbury and Sue Saint Marie and the crowd went wild, which Blurton responded to by accusing the crowd of lying. Finally the drummer Dean Dallas Bentley was barefoot and throughout the set seemed like a man possessed, wailing at his drum set with crazy energy while the crowd almost universally head banged to the beat. Near the end Campbell screamed out once again to the crowd, accusing them of “fading” while yelling out expletives. During the last song, Blurton, again the consulate performer, jumped into the crowd once more and tilted the mic stand downwards to finish the song by sharing vocals with a member of the crowd. After the raucous show I was prepared to call it a night and as I made my way out the door I noticed that C’mon was the first band to have managed to fill the ballroom all the way,  which was unsurprising and well deserved.

Mountains & The Trees @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

As I got there it was barely 9 pm and the Gladstone ballroom was practically empty despite the show and first band having started at 8 pm. The thin crowd was mostly media by the looks of the plentiful amount of expensive professional DSLR cameras in sight. The Mountains & The Trees, a friendly looking guy/girl duo was introduced refreshingly in an honestly enthusiastic way by a CBC Radio 2 personality. Fronted by Jon Janes, fittingly and perhaps purposely dressed in a classic logo CBC sweater, on acoustic guitar and Jillian Freeman on a rotating everything else, The Mountains are a likable folk band from the Maritimes that exude earnest rustic charm. Their music is light and sprightly, simple and sparing, consisting of personal story/narratives that have a small town nostalgia mixed with a yearning for bigger and greater things. They’re at their strongest with their more energetic songs and when they sing duet. Janes has an easy and welcoming style which he paired with humorous soft spoken but interesting banter. On another song named “Carry On” he prefaces it with the fact that everywhere they played it in Europe, people mentioned how Canadian it was…joking that it most likely was due to the fact that it fondly recalls snow mitts, trees, and the outdoors. Freeman is an able accompanist switching easily from xylophone to harmonium, bells, and various percussion instruments while also doing backup vocals. The band wrapped up their set with Janes doing a song, “Letters to a friend”, a classic folk parable, solo in an even more intimate form in front of the stage amongst the now slightly bigger crowd. With its steady beats and dreamy storytelling vibe, The Mountains & The Trees is a band I would imagine would be the perfect soundtrack to be listening on a sunny long distance car trip across the Canadian landscape.

Women @ The Great Hall

10 pm found me a couple of blocks east in the supposedly newly renovated but apparently unchanged venue of The Great Hall for the Calgary band Women. They played to a third capacity crowd beginning their set with a song steeped in heavy distortion with a sustained whine in time to epileptic neon blue lights flashing, which was entirely too jarring a transition for me from the folk pop of the last band. The band themselves didn’t seem to really hit their pace themselves until the third song as well. Musically experimental, the band is a four piece with multiple vocals interweaving cacophony, drone, and tight instrumentation to produce a visceral and trance inducing screeching rock that is intense and driving in momentum. The appreciative crowd grew quickly to fill about half the venue as the band ripped through their set. I left early however to make it back for at The Gladstone.

Olenka and The Autumn Lovers @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

10:45ish I was back at the Gladstone with folk music to catch the end of Olenka and The Autumn Lovers set. O&AL is a sprawling band of 7 members, 3 women and 4 guys, but definitely girl fronted and led with the guys composing the rhythm section. The band features a really diverse collection of instrumentation from trumpet, violin, sax, harmonica, and cello to the more typical guitar and percussion. The ballroom at this point is now about half full and the crowd is enthusiastic. O&AL’s music is more country at some points than The Mountaintops & The Trees and at others much more rock with very tight vocal harmonies which are definitely one of the band’s strength. One of their last songs was referred to as “another communist song” and featured soft harmonies with vaguely Asian tinged melody and timing that exemplifies the mix of genres and styles that the band easily flows through. At their best the band is full, powerful, superficially rough but extremely tight and shine during the louder, quick, and energetic songs that allow them to truly rock out.

Rock Plaza Central @ Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

By 11:15ish the ballroom is much fuller with a rowdy crowd anxious for the critically acclaimed home town band, Rock Plaza Central to begin continuing the folk to rock progression at the Gladstone. Their first song is, as expected, dramatic and chaotic like a storm gathering with militant thunder, as the deep resonant percussion drives it forward impressively but unfortunately drowns out the low vocals that need adjusting. RPC’s songs are overwhelming and enveloping with grand orchestral movements and sometimes frantic energy. By the second song, ”How Shall I To Heaven Aspire?”, the vocal levels have been fixed which makes for a much more satisfying experience. The crowd of obvious hard core fans often sing along loudly when the band reaches appropriately worded chorus like “I wanna be a shining example” and both the atmosphere and songs are joyous with the crowd starting to dance. All in all the vibe at the Gladstone was familial and warm. Its evident that this folk-rock band have the energy to be able to perhaps one day pull off an arena sized venue.

Little Girls @ The Drake Underground

Way past midnight, I was at The Drake Underground to hear the end of Toronto punk band Little Girls‘ set. Their songs all had a high energy  endless and insistent forward momentum that had the dense crowd swaying with a mosh pit which reached all the way to the front. The band ended their set with destruction as the lead singer tossing his synth onto the ground while flailing around and the crowd going wild.

Glass Candy @ Wrongbar

By 1 am I had made my way west under the CN railway bridge into Parkdale to get to Glass Candy’s 1 am set at Wrongbar. The place was fairly packed and smoky with an evident media presence. After some audio difficulties, the vocals and producer girl/guy duo Idano and Johnny Jewel started their set with a low airplane liftoff sound that flowed into atmospheric synth and deep base beats. Idano swayed and danced before purring and singing in a nasal and sharp voice “This is yellow, this is yellow, this is yellow” repeatedly as she launched into “Digital Versicolor”. Both Idano and Johhny Jewel have a cool confidence and their music oozes slow heavy electro disco funk pierced periodically by Idano’s reverberated screams in punk sized 3 minute songs. They had the crowd right bobbing right away and by song two, everyone was full out dancing and partying. Glass Candy knows how to rev up a crowd and Idano projects a stage presence that is half diva and half rap emcee.

Joshua Redman is one of the best jazz saxophonists and composers in the jazz scene today, so it was a great honour to interview him for BlogUT last week; he’ll be coming to Toronto on June 30th with his new collaborative project, James Farm. With clear influences ranging from his father, Dewey Redman, to saxophonist Sonny Rollins, Joshua Redman has developed his own unique style. It is a style that is very inventive and innovative, which so often makes you want to tap your feet, dance, and listen very closely. His albums have only gotten better and better. He is a very cerebral musician, articulate both in his performance and in his discussion of music, with a great sense of humour. Luckily for the music world, after completing his undergraduate degree at Harvard University in Social Studies, he turned down his offer at Yale Law School to pursue music, instead, in the early 1990s.

Joshua Redman is an amazing musician but also sincerely humble, thoughtful, and self-deprecating (“I have this book of études that are really kicking my ass, actually.”), which was clear throughout the interview and through the wonderful material he has compiled on his website talking about music. “To me, jazz has a built in modernity and relevance through improvisation”, he said, which is perhaps why even his recent rendition of “Surrey with a Fringe on Top”, on his 2007 album Back East, is my favourite rendition of the piece. On a personal note, I’ve been a fan and audience member since age 5.

Of his music, he says, “My goal as a jazz musician has been always to just try to play as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can: that’s what jazz is about to me. I’ve always believed that if you do that then your music will reach people, on an intellectual, and more importantly, an emotional level.” Read on to hear Mr Redman’s many other interesting insights.

Alex: How did you decide to play the saxophone?
Joshua Redman: It was just always the instrument that spoke to me. I was always intrigued by and loved the sound of it. I saw a connection to it, I guess, hearing great saxophonists like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, my father Dewey Redman, and Dexter Gordon. All these saxophonists had incredible sound. It was the depth of feeling the instrument can produce, the emotional range, the power of the instrument, and the poignancy of the sound. Of course, you don’t think in those terms when you’re 10 years old. Maybe I just thought it was cool. I played the clarinet for a couple of years before I started playing the saxophone and was interested in the clarinet but I always wanted to play the saxophone. Besides, the clarinet is too hard.

Alex: What projects are you working on at the moment?
Joshua Redman: I’ve been largely doing trio work and double-trio stuff. I’ve been touring with my main band for the past 5 or 6 years, which is a trio with sax, bass, and drums. We made “Compass” last year, which is a double-trio concept, where there are two trios: a sax, two drums, and two basses. This summer, I’m going to be doing my first major tour with the double-trio. I’ve also been doing a lot of stuff with Brad Mehldau, the pianist: we’ve been doing some duo gigs and I’m going to be playing with his group – an orchestral project – at the end of the year. And finally, there’s this new band that I’m a part of called James Farm.

Alex: How is James Farm different from your other bands?
Joshua Redman: One of the main ways in which it’s different is that it’s not my band. It’s truly a collaborative band; each of us has an equal voice in the musical shape of the band, the direction, and the material that we play. Each of us is a composer and each one of us writes songs for this band. All musical decisions are made collaboratively, like a true band. Each of us is a very distinct musician, with a unique perspective on music, and a really strong musical personality. So it’s four very strong, unique personalities that have come together, and we share a lot of values in common and through those shared values we are finding ways to really produce some interesting and hopefully inspiring music.

Alex: Where does the name James Farm come from?
Joshua Redman: Everyone always wants to know that. It’s just a name. It has some significance. There’s a story behind its derivation but that we prefer not be told, so for all intents and purposes, it’s just the name of the group.

Alex: What is on your active playlist right now? What music are you listening to?
Joshua Redman: Not so much right now because I have a newborn. My daughter was born a week and a half ago; I also have a son who is four. So there’s diapers on my playlist right now. A lot of them.

There’s this band called Pomplamoose that I’ve been listening to that you can check out on youtube. They are a duo: there’s a singer who also plays bass and the other guy plays every other instrument under the sun. They’re really really cool.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of classical recently, in particular a lot of string quartets, especially Shostakovitch’s string quartets. I’m also listening to Brahms and Beethoven. I never listened to much classical for a lot of my life. Classical music is something I’ve always appreciated but always been a little intimidated by. Maybe I didn’t have the patience and concentration to listen to it the way that it needed to be listened to until recently.

I’m also listening to Ornette Coleman, and Flying Lotus, an electronic hip hop DJ out of LA. I’m also listening to a lot of Radiohead’s “Hail to The Thief” album.

Alex: I understand you were working on a pretty interesting and challenging project to learn the Bach Cello Suites by ear on the saxophone.
Joshua Redman: Well, I only did two of them, but that was a lot. It was a little project a while ago. I chose it because it’s beautiful music, music that is written for a solo instrument and I can only play one note at a time on the saxophone. I wasn’t trying to learn classical repertoire for the sake of playing it with someone else. I just wanted to get into the language a little bit. I knew there was just a wealth of harmonic and melodic information in there, written for a solo instrument. Also the tenor sax and the cello, though the cello has a much broader range, do overlap in some places, so it just seemed appropriate. And I just loved the music and found it beautiful.

Alex: Are you still playing any classical music now?
Joshua Redman: I play études. I have this book of études that are really kicking my ass, actually. I have no classical background, no training in classical music, and I don’t have any plans to be performing as a classical saxophonist. It’s just a way for me to develop my technique, my ears, and my resources as a musician.

Alex: Some people are saying that jazz is becoming music for older people. Some jazz musicians have a younger audience but a lot of them have an older audience. How do you make jazz compelling to a younger audience?
Joshua Redman: I don’t know, and I don’t mean to sound, well, I’m not sure what I don’t mean to sound like, but I guess I don’t really care. The reason I say that is not because I don’t think jazz can appeal to younger audiences or that I don’t care about younger audiences. But but my job and my goal as a jazz musician aren’t specifically to appeal to any audiences, older or younger.

My goal as a jazz musician has been always to just try to play as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can: that’s what jazz is about to me. I’ve always believed that if you do that then your music will reach people, on an intellectual, and more importantly, an emotional level. I think if you really put your heart and soul and creativity into your music, and it comes from an honest and genuine place, it will have the potential to reach many different sorts of people at many different stages in their lives.

I was fortunate when I was in my 20s in the early 1990s, the average age of my audience was in their 30s, but there were people of my generation coming to my shows. I do see a lot of people in my generation and also younger people at the shows. It would be great if a there were a little more balance demographically in jazz and I think the potential exists. But it’s not something that I really focus on. I focus on the music and the rest will take care or not take care, as the case may be, of itself.

Alex: Do you do any teaching?
Joshua Redman: Every once in a while I do master classes. I sometimes teach workshops. I did some teaching at Stanford jazz this year. I don’t consider myself much of a teacher or educator. I don’t have any formal training through music, and I don’t really feel like I’m an expert. I don’t know what I have to offer as a teacher so it’s not a main focus.

Alex: I understand you have used some computer software sometimes when you’re composing, such as Sibelius. Are you still using that?
Joshua Redman: I do use Sibelius as a tool, but with something like that you’ve got to be careful. The computer can’t write music for you. Computers are very powerful now; the software is powerful. At the click of a button you can harmonize and transpose things and rearrange things. But music isn’t going to sound good or truthful or have depth like that. I do use the software but the content comes from my ears and my ideas. The computer is a tool but I can’t use it as a source of creativity. I, generally, a lot of times will start at the piano and move to the computer at some point.

Alex: When can we expect to see a new disk from you? “Compass”, with the double-trio, came out in 2009, so what are you working on now? What are your recording plans?
Joshua Redman: I’ve done a lot of recordings with the trio, and then there was the double-trio on “Compass”. I’ve also recorded with Brad Mehldau on his last record, “Highway Rider”. And with James Farm, we’re going to record at the end of the summer at the end of August, so the James Farm album should be out by next year.

Alex: Where do you see jazz going in the future?
Joshua Redman: Jazz is creative music that is continuing to grow and expand. One of the wonderful things about jazz is that jazz is a music that really allows you to express your ideas and feelings and thoughts of the moment since it’s music based on improvisation. Through improvisation, jazz musicians are able to incorporate everything that they are listening to and that they are experiencing into their music. To me, jazz has a built in modernity and relevance through improvisation. I think jazz is in an interesting time and an exciting time. Jazz musicians now are very fluent in music: they are knowledgeable in the history and vocabulary of music. I think it’s a very open-minded, open-eared period in jazz right now. Jazz musicians are really finding ways to bring all their influences to bear in the music and to not be trapped in any one sort of idiom or style.

In my desperate plea to see Redman and Mehldau together in Toronto (please come!):

Alex: Will you be performing with Brad Mehldau in Toronto anytime soon? We have a lot of great concert halls!
Joshua Redman: Not to Toronto with Brad Mehldau any time soon. The only concert this year in Toronto will be with James Farm. But there’s nothing with Brad planned soon.

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I would also recommend taking a look at the FAQ section and blog on Joshua Redman’s website where he very articulately discusses his creative process, how he perfects his technique, and many other elements of his music.

What:

On Wednesday, I caught up with the great jazz pianist, Hiromi, for a telephone interview, before her performance in Toronto at the Jazz Festival with Stanley Clarke on June 28th at Nathan Phillips Square. Hiromi recently recorded the wonderful jazz trio album “Jazz in the Garden” with Stanley Clarke, one of the best albums of 2009, and now they are touring together over the summer.

When you hear Hiromi playing impressive stride piano, you would never guess that her small hands can only stretch an octave: it certainly doesn’t sound like it! How does she do it? “It requires a lot of practicing to be able to play the right notes but I want to hear the sound and so I work hard to hear the sound.”

Hiromi has studied under Ahmad Jamal and Richard Evans, and had performed with both the Czech Philharmonic and Chick Corea at age 17. She has distinguished herself on the jazz scene with her impressively high energy, fast-paced, and always musical piano playing. When talking about her performing, she says “Whenever I have a great performance, my brain is so tired and that’s a good sign.”

Alex (BlogUT): When did you start playing the piano and what got you interested in the piano, in particular?
Hiromi: I was six years old and my mother took me to a piano lesson. None of my family are musical; they’re just regular people. My mom just thought music brings joy to life so she wanted me to play something but she never thought I would do it professionally! She just wanted me to have fun and I just fell in love with it.

Alex (BlogUT): Are you classically trained? How did you make the transition from classical to jazz?
Hiromi: I went to classical piano lessons but my very first piano teacher that I studied with happened to be a big jazz fan. She always had jazz LPs playing and so I was always listening to it. She had me listening to Errol Garner and Oscar Peterson, and I thought what is this? She explained how they improvise. I couldn’t really understand the music at the time but it just made me so happy. It was my first experience of dancing to music. I felt a swing somehow and was just jumping around – I was 8 – and it brought a lot of joy. So I started to imitate what they were doing and started to improvise on classical music.

Alex: Who are your influences?
Hiromi: It’s not only pianists that have influenced me. I’ve been influenced by so many different type of musicians. One of my favourites is Frank Zappa. I love King Crimson, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Ahmad Jamal, and Jeff Beck. I like everything that Bach wrote. I just think it’s so beautiful. When I play his pieces, I feel that all my ten fingers have to wake up, and I really have to understand that I have ten fingers to play the piano.

Alex: A lot of professional pianists have experienced repetitive strain injury from their playing. What, if anything, do you do to avoid injury when playing?
Hiromi: I do a lot of stretches and I do yoga. Whenever I have a show I always take a long bath after the show so that the muscles that I used get healed from the day and from the performance. I do a lot of things to maintain my body.

Alex: How do you play stride piano with such small hands?
Hiromi: People are always surprised by how small my hands are. I can’t reach a tenth. I can play an octave but that’s the widest I can play. It is hard. It requires a lot of practicing to be able to play the right notes, but I want to hear the sound and so I work hard to hear the sound.

Alex: What is it like playing with a bassist like Stanley Clarke, who is often more of a melodic or harmonic force than just at the bottom of the piece playing the bass line?
Hiromi: He is so unique and original. It’s amazing to play with somebody who has had such a huge personality in his playing for many many decades. It’s like the best school I can be at. I’m learning many things just playing with him. I have a lot of respect for him and it’s amazing. I don’t know how he found me. He just called me up and said he was making a trio record and wanted me to be part of it. I was so honoured and thrilled and I said I would love to; I had no reason to say no and it happened. I thought “wow, experience!”. So we did the trio record a year ago with Lenny White on drums. He wanted me to be part of another album again so I felt honoured again and we did it again with the Stanley Clarke Band.

Alex: What are your top five desert island albums?
Hiromi: That’s impossible to answer! Music is such an interesting thing. It depends on your mood every day every week or every month. I don’t know. I think I’d just be cheeky and bring my iPod.

Alex: How do you make jazz accessible for young people?
Hiromi: I’m still young (born in 1979)! When you see somebody playing that’s your age, I think it’s easier to get interested. But Stanley still attracts young people because he’s still young inside; he stays young. The important thing is always trying to explore something new and just be adventurous with your music because that’s what you’re all about when you’re young. And Ahmad Jamal, he’s, I think, 80 years old now, and he never stopped pushing the edge and that’s amazing. He’s still like a really young boy in his playing: always adventurous, looking for things, and that’s the attitude I want to have. When I’m 70 or 80, I want to be as young at heart as he is, always trying to be edgy and trying to find something risky and adventurous, at least in my music.

Alex: How do you go about arranging pieces? I really liked your arrangement of “I’ve Got Rhythm”.
Hiromi: When I arrange, I just keep playing the pieces over and over just trying to find a home for myself in it, and find that this is how I want to play this piece. I just try to find it and so I play it over and over again for years.

Alex: Can you talk a bit about improvising?
Hiromi: When i improvise, it requires the maximum focus of the day, trying to think about what it is that I really want to say. It’s just like having a conversation. In a conversation, you have to choose the right words; in music, you have to choose the right notes, the right phrase. It’s about looking for a perfect way of saying, telling and expressing what you’re feeling. It’s so easy to say something meaningless and so important to tell something that you really mean. So it requires so much focus to try to express yourself and what you have in your mind.

It is a lot of work and it really tires my brain! Whenever I have a great performance, my brain is so tired and that’s a good sign. It’s just like having a great conversation with people: you get into it and are so focussed. You feel like “wow, that was a good chat” and you feel so exhausted when you get off the phone or when you leave the person. That’s how I want to feel when i finish playing: exhausted.

This year also marks another expansion of the festival’s mandate with the premiere of its first interactive media conference, NXNEi. The conference kicked off the festival ahead of both the film and music schedules on Monday the 14th, though unlike the other two components which are far-reaching, it was restricted entirely to the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

NXNEi can safely be called a success and seemingly much-needed, considering it sold out, despite a limited mainstream media push, and included web luminaries such as the creative and audacious Ze Frank. With NXNEi, the festival in general took another step towards perhaps one day matching its venerable sister festival, South By Southwest, which has become unmissable both for indie music and new media followers.

This year, NXNE’s music lineup features 650 bands over five days and 50 venues with an increasingly kick-ass and extensive free lineup at Yonge and Dundas Square which includes not only The Raveonettes (8 pm on Sat. 19th),  Iggy and the Stooges (9:30 pm on Sat. 19th), and De La Soul (9 pm on Sun. 20th) but also 21 other great bands over four days (Thurs. 18th – Sun. 20th). In addition, there will be free shows all over the city from Union Station to Bellevue Park in Kensington with less established (and unspecified on the website at least) bands throughout the day. Single showcase tickets are available at the door of the venues, and the other two ticket options are 5 day festival ($50) or 1 day festival ($25) wristbands.

Check out some media show recommendations for further intel.

• Now Magazine
• Eye Weekly
• Torontoist
• blogTO

June 25th - 3PM, The Hogtown Syncopators @ The Rex (no cover); 5PM,  Alex Pangman & Her Alleycats @ Nathan Phillips Square (FREE)

The Hogtown Syncopators specialize in that old 1930s/1940s swing sound and they are darn good at it. But the real reason to check them out is to see the amazing virtuoso violinist, saxophonist, and singer, Drew Jurecka, one of Toronto’s most treasured musicians. I saw him perform with Alex Pangman & Her Alleycats in early June and was floored by his talent. His best instrument is the violin, but if you had only heard him play sax, it would be nothing to complain about. The Hogtown Syncopator’s lead singer can also belt it out and is worth a see. You can check them out on YouTube. Check out Alex Pangman & Her Alleycats at Nathan Phillips Square at 5PM for a free concert, and be transported back to the 1920s-40s for a wonderful good time. Keep your eyes peeled for our BlogUT interview with Alex Pangman.

June 26th – 8PM, Herbie Hancock and Brandi Disterheft @ Nathan Phillips Square ($60)

This should be an all-star show with the great jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. Check out our interview with Brandi Disterheft from the 2009 festival. You can buy your tickets online at Ticketmaster

June 28th 8PM Stanley Clarke Band featuring Hiromi @ Nathan Phillips Square ($40); or Hilario Duran Big Band at the Enwave Theatre @ 7PM ($35)

You can buy your tickets at Ticketmaster or at the door if you arrive early. Head to Nathan Phillips Square for an evening of world-class musical talent, which is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Stanley Clarke is an amazing virtuoso jazz and jazz fusion bassist, equally comfortable on the electric bass, the acoustic bass, and playing with a bow. Jazz pianist Hiromi is an amazing young pianist to hit the jazz scene with extraordinary technique and musicality. Check back at BlogUT for our interview with Hiromi and review of her album “Jazz in the Garden” with the Stanley Clarke Trio. Or you can catch Toronto resident jazz pianist, Hilario Duran and his Big Band at the Enwave Theatre, for some latin jazz, which should be a good show, also.

June 28th @ 9:45PM Sophia Perlman and the Vipers @ the Reservoir Lounge (no cover)

Local jazz singer Sophia Perlman plays every Monday night at the Reservoir Lounge at 9:45PM, and the jazz festival will be no exception. Sofia Perlman has a wonderful raspy voice that’s sure to please with her repertoire of jazz standards. This is certainly a cheaper option and the music will still be most excellent.

June 29th – Dave Brubeck at Koerner Hall @ 8PM ($50-75)

Check out jazz pianist Dave Brubeck at Koerner Hall; the price is a bit steep but it’s worth it to see this master at work. Check out my reviews of his shows at the 2008 and 2009 jazz festivals. Advanced tickets are available through the RCM website

June 30th – James Farm Band at the Enwave Theatre @ 7PM ($40); Keith Jarrett Trio at the Four Seasons Opera Centre ($50-120) @ 8PM.

The best bet on the 30th is to check out the James Farm Band featuring Joshua Redman at the Enwave theatre @ 7PM, for $40. Keep your eyes peeled for an interview with Joshua Redman on BlogUT. For those of you with a bit more money to spend, and believe me, it’s worth it, you can check out the amazing Keith Jarrett Trio for an unforgettable concert (tickets $50-$120) at the Four Seasons Centre; read the review of the Trio’s 2007 concert on BlogUT.

July 1st  - Roy Hargrove Big Band at Koerner Hall @ 8PM ($40-60); Quarrington, Taft, Murata at the Dominion on Queen @ 8PM ($10 cover)

Jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove is always fun to see and you can see him in the beautiful Koerner Hall for a reasonable price, too! Check out BlogUT’s review of Hargrove’s last performance at the jazz festival in 2008 and head to the RCM Website for advanced tickets . Or check out our very own local jazz musicians, singer Beverly Taft, violinist San Murata, and the great guitarist Tony Quarrington for a nice blend of standards at the Dominion on Queen. They play regularly throughout the year and are definitely worth checking out.

July 2nd – Terry Clarke Trio with Phil Dwyer and Don Thomson at Trane Studio @ 8PM ($15)

I’ve seen Clarke, Dwyer, and Thomson perform several times before, back when the Top of the Senator was still around, and it’s always a treat to watch them jam. They are a talented, high energy group that will surely have you tapping your feet. Support local artists and see this great show! Check them out on MySpace and get your tickets through Ticketmaster.

July 3rd – Saturday Night Swing at Dovercourt House ($9-13 for students) @ 7PM

Check out the swing music and learn how to swing dance with a lesson for a very reasonable price.

July 4th – Jane Bunnett at Shops at Don Mills @ 12:30PM (Free)

Check out Torontonian Jazz soprano saxophonist and flutist Jane Bunnett, one of Toronto’s best, who will entertain you with a bit of a latin flare.

It would seem strange that anyone would want to see a documentary about a parking lot, but director Meghan Eckman has been able to craft in The Parking Lot Movie an interesting, funny, and revealing film. It is not so much about the physical space of the parking lot, but the people, culture, and life revelations and lessons that can be gained from minimum wage labour at a very peculiar parking lot in Charlottesville, named the Corner Parking Lot. Run by a laid back, hands on employee-centered owner, the Corner Parking Lot in the university town of Charlottesville acts as a counter-cultural counterpoint to the mostly straitlaced conservative rich town and its inhabitants. Its attendants are, as a group, almost entirely over-educated, many being PhD candidates, masters or bachelor students in anthropology, philosophy and other such contemplative disciplines in social science and humanities, and/or artistic leaning, consisting of many band members and solo artists both musical and visual. All are young men who, while being outcasts in the town, have found solace in mindless employment in the seemingly socially and culturally detached, but centrally located nexus of the triangular parking lot. The movie embraces the humour and banality of the work at the parking lot while fully exploring the philosophical conundrums of too much brain power and plenty of time that prompts many in depth often grandiose, yet earnest ponderings from the attendants on the meaning of life, society and class conflict. In a stark criticism of our society and culture, the film shows how little respect many people pay to minimum wage workers who have little recourse other than moral judgment of their customers, at least amongst themselves. It  also shows the ridiculous sense of entitlement and arrogance that is imbued in people who are simultaneously willing to pay ridiculous prices for Hummers and Land Rovers but harp and complain about paying 50 cents to park their car. The main characters are all intriguing underdogs who are all somewhat socially maladjusted but have, from their job in the parking lot, gained a core group of friends, camaraderie, and perspective. Many begin initially aimless but through the course of the film slowly discover who and what is important to them and by the end, most have moved on from their parking lot job back into “real life” with a better understanding of themselves. The film ends with, out of the dozen or so featured attendants, 5 becoming university professors, several being active and variously successful musicians, and others in less vaunted positions in academia. Filled with hilarious one liners, megalomaniacal posturing, and subtle clever insights, The Parking Lot Movie is definitely a film worth seeing that emphasizes that minimum wage doesn’t mean worthless, in jobs or people.4

1991 The Year Punk Broke (D:David Markey; USA)

1991 The Year That Punk Broke is an archival documentary that is rarely seen and unavailable in DVD. Through the use of performance footage and behind the scenes footage, it chronicles the  Sonic Youths 1991 European tour with Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr., among other bands. Filmed by Markey, a close friend of Sonic Youth, the film shows a very raw, casual, often whimsical snapshot of a specific point in time for the aforementioned artists that shows the jovial, mutual affections and  interactions between the various members that includes everything from Kurt Cobain having lipstick put on him by Kim Gordon to Dave Grohl talking to fruit. A especially revealing and candid scene has Thurston Moore waxing poetic about the difference between early tours where Sonic Youth played to mostly empty rooms to their film present tour headlining filled arenas. The centerpiece of the documentary is definitely the myriad of excellent quality and full song performances by all the bands, sandwiched between the revealing behind the scenes stuff, that captures a live almost-there quality with fantastic professional video editing and sound quality. Giving a vivid context for the meaning and impact of the doc, Hot Docs wisely had Damian Abraham of Toronto hardcore band Fucked Up give a short, but impassioned intro where he related how the film had changed his life when he saw it at 13. He explained how its direct energy and rawness convinced him to give up the “hippy music” of The Grateful Dead and others and embrace punk and hardcore full on. It is indeed in my opinion this visceral, honest and non-pretentious quality of the film that is its greatest strength. Between the hi-jinks and blissful performances, the film captures and distills a moment in punk.

The People Vs. George Lucas (D:Alexandre Philippe; USA)

The highly anticipated  The People Vs. George Lucas is ultimately, and perhaps unfortunately in the opinion of some, a friendly and loving expose into fan reaction to the second half of the Lucas legacy, including the Special Edition versions of the original Star Wars trilogy and the umm… disappointing quality of the Star Wars’ prequels. It explores the issue of cultural ownership and whether or not something so embraced, integral, and absorbed into pop culture and popular consciousness such as Star Wars becomes in a way owned by the fans and should not be tampered with even by the creator and legal owner of the intellectual property. Featuring candid interviews of fans, cultural pundits, and other filmmakers and Lucas mentors’ like Francis Ford Coppola, interspersed with tons of great clips from fan made videos, homages and remakes, Philippe creates a film that reveals the extraordinary alive and endlessly detailed debate and embrace of the Star Wars franchise by members of the public.

The bulk of the film centers around the impact the franchise had on fans and the rapid ascent of Lucas to the status of god after the original trilogy and his increasingly dramatic fall to become the devil in response to his unilateral “adjustments” to the original trilogy and the critical disaster of the prequels. The film effectively and passionately through interviews, recreates an oral history of the sense of the anger, outrage and confusion the fans had and continue to hold of Lucas’ unilateral changes to the original trilogy and his decision to discontinue and remove all availability of to the original versions. The latter move is seen by almost all as tantamount to rewriting history and an arrogant crime against those who had loved and supported Star Wars as it was. The film emphasizes that in today’s participatory culture, any art is a dynamic relationship between the creator and the fans, where everyone perhaps should have certain rights, rather than a static product subject to the complete whims of the creator. The film also equally aptly depicts the massive anticipation, eagerness, and expectation that the prequels were met with and the slow sad admission of their ultimate, in the opinion of many, horrible quality. Through such a recounting, the documentary explores the debate on whether the legacy of a creation can be damaged by that which follows, or whether it is possible, in the words of fans, that “George Lucas raped their childhood”.

What arises most dramatically from the documentary is a portrait of a complicated and conflicting person in Lucas that, on one hand is a militant creator and business man all about control, ownership and profit, but also on the other hand a completely open, embracing and daring true artist willing to push the boundaries of what is possible in special effects. This dichotomy is especially epitomized in his harsh totalitarian obliteration of the original version of the classic trilogy, contrasted by his vigorous encouragement of fan creations derived from Star Wars that lesser people may have prosecuted. Most poignantly is that in either case, the documentary reveals a person who has been trapped by the success of Star Wars and by the endless pressure from fans for more.