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Hockey stories for voice(s) and jazz ensemble
Last February, at the Prix Opus gala, double bassist and composer Hugo Blouin was awarded the prize for best jazz concert of the year by the Conseil québécois de la musique for his project Sport national.
Most music lovers first encountered Blouin in 2018 with Charbonneau ou les valeurs à’ bonne place, his tour de force musical adaptation of the famous public inquiry into corruption vis-à-vis contracts in the construction business. In it, the bassist transformed some of the most memorable (and often hilarious) quotes from testimonies into some remarkably challenging, refreshing and unclassifiable music. After two volumes of Charbonneau, Hugo Blouin turned his attention to another colourful subject: the world of hockey.
Released in April 2023, the album Sport national continued the humorous, virtuosic approach that characterized Charbonneau, but also its subtle socio-political critique. “I want people to laugh, but I also want them to think—so there is undoubtedly a political aspect to the whole thing, even if I can’t say it’s really a protest album,” says Blouin. Hockey might seem a less likely place from which to send a message than did the topic of political corruption. The composer, however, chose events from the sport’s history that certainly underline the social significance of the game, such as the 1955 Richard Riot at the Montreal Forum and the 1972 Summit Series final game between Canada and the Soviet Union. But don’t expect a new song about Connor McDavid’s winning goal at the recent 4 Nations Face-Off any time soon. “It’s a slow process,” says Blouin, “I can’t really keep up!”
Words and songs
Like Pierre Perrault or René Lussier before him, Blouin has long been fascinated by words and their musicality. Many years before the inception of the Charbonneau project, he incorporated a variety of concrete sounds— including voices—into Les palabres de Madeleine and a piece for a collective exhibition about the French dialect spoken in the Magdalen Islands. The work of René Lussier for Le trésor de la langue (1989) is an undeniable influence on Blouin’s compositions. Like Lussier’s, Blouin’s process was progressive, beginning with singing quotations from the corruption commission, accompanying himself on the bass. “Both the subject and the use of the voice fascinated me,” he says.
The composer is aware of the difficulty of his music, both for the Charbonneau project and for Sport national. But he found two formidable and contrasting interpreters in Kathryn Samman and Julie Hamelin, the main singers for Charbonneau and Sport national, respectively. “At first, before Kathryn came on board for Charbonneau, nobody wanted to sing it! It really was a challenge,” he says, “and I’m grateful she accepted. With Julie it was just the same, really.” Hamelin also proved an undeniable asset when the time came to take Blouin’s hockey tales to the stage. “She has a strong expressive quality, which was a nice departure from the more restrained, jazzy character of the music,” says Blouin. Being able to strike a certain emotional chord is, after all, almost a prerequisite if one is to evoke some great moments in sport. “I have the luxury to write for specific performers. That’s quite a privilege,” says the composer.
Using sung and/or spoken material, Blouin inevitably has to be very precise, and indeed his music sounds very organized. He is also interested in more open structures, however, and tries to leave space for the unexpected when he can. On the second volume of Charbonneau, for example, he lets loose with an improvised vocal quartet composed of Sarah Albu, Elizabeth Lima, Gabriel Dharmoo and David Cronkite (all four are members of the Phth group) on the song “Bien dans ma peau” (a title borrowed from a quote by the ineffable Gerald Tremblay).
Hugo Blouin, composer and sometimes singer of “Sport national”. Photo: Vitor Munoz
From the archives to the present moment
Another characteristic of Blouin’s music is the use of sound archives, a major challenge to integrate with a jazz band. “Playing with a tape is really tedious; there’s less room for musical interpretation; it becomes a challenge of virtuosity. When the lyrics are sung, there’s less of that evocative character, but there’s more music that can happen and that interests me more.” Sometimes, the undeniable rhythm of the sound document takes over. “In Sport national, I put in a few pieces where you follow the recording because it was so good!” While the composer admits that the archive research aspect takes up a lot of time, he insists on the necessity of the process. “For me, the words and the content are very important,” he says. After a long gestation period (his first “hockey project,” which never came to fruition, dates back to 2018) and almost two years of concerts with Sport national, Blouin is looking to other horizons. His next album will be based more on intimate interviews, but he will continue to explore the musicality of the voice. “There are still things that surprise me—that thwart my expectations and my will as a composer. That’s really a luxury!” For Le buffet (due out in November), Blouin has called on a new voice—that of Eugénie Jobin. What’s more, after several years with what he calls his “jazz friends,” Blouin also wanted to call on a new group featuring John Hollenbeck, Marianne Trudel and Aurélien Tomasi, as well as other guests. “First of all, it’s amazing to hear them,” he says, “and they have the vocabulary to make connections,” particularly between musical genres.
After a run at Quebec City’s Petit Champlain on March 27, Sport national is due to be presented (perhaps for the last time) at Montreal’s Maison de la culture Mercier on Oct. 19.
Translation: Gianmarco Segato
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
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