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Darius Jones (Photo: Kholood Eid)
GUELPH AT THE CROSSROADS
This year, the Guelph Jazz Festival organization is in transition, after its former director, Scott Thomson, was appointed artistic and general director of FIMAV (the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville) last year. The Guelph festival’s Interim Artistic Director Karen Ng and Interim General Manager Alex Ricci and their team have nevertheless assembled a promising lineup featuring a range of creative groups from Ontario, Quebec and the U.S. They’ve retained a strong focus on improvised music, in keeping with the Guelph Jazz Festival’s distinctive flavour, while also adding some world and electronic musics in the mix.
Headliners for the 2024 edition include New York saxophonist Darius Jones, who continues his work initiated in 2009 with the album Man’ish Boy with two recent projects: last year’s fLuXkit Vancouver (with Gerald Cleaver and an impeccable quartet of string players from B.C.—Josh and Jesse Zubot, Peggy Lee and James Meger) and an upcoming album with his trio, Legend of e’Boi. Also in the festival lineup is pianist Angelica Sanchez, appearing twice: in a duet with drummer Chad Taylor, and in a trio with saxophonist Tony Malaby and veteran Toronto drummer Nick Fraser. Chicago Underground and Exploding Star Orchestra frontman Rob Mazurek will also be giving two shows at Guelph, including a set with New Future City Radio, his multimedia outing with singer/electro artist Damon Locks, while bassist Luke Stewart (of Irreversible Entanglements) will be featured with his Silt Trio (with Chad Taylor and saxophonist Brian Settles). In addition to these U.S. guests, Canadian artists make up a big part of Guelph’s schedule this year, with collectives such as Glass Elephant, The Labyrinth Ensemble and SHEBAD, as well as Quebec quartet Splendide Abysse. From the Toronto area, improvising cellist Matt Brubeck (yes, son of Dave) will appear in a duet with singer/songwriter Caylie Staples. But Guelph isn’t all
experimental music and weird sounds: this year, there will be a “bal folk” with the band Vinta, the poetic songs of Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band, and even a bhangra workshop and an Afro-Brazilian batucada percussion group! And finally, Montreal-based psych/punk rock band TEKE::TEKE will undoubtedly deliver some Japanese-infused madness into the proceedings! This year’s edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival runs Sept. 13-15.
Check the complete schedule of the 2024 Guelph Jazz Festival here.
Marie Goudy
GREY SKIES & FREE SPIRITS
A visit to trumpeter/vocalist Marie Goudy’s YouTube channel gives a good idea of the young Toronto musician’s range of activities, from the funk of Alma Soul and a tribute to Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool to multi-tracked covers of pop songs and even—a mariachi band! Goudy doesn’t seem to shy away from any of it. There were even a few (sometimes startling) hints of Mexican brass voicings on her debut album with her 12tet, The Bitter Suite, released in 2018—but the recording also showed that the trumpeter was a strong writer at the helm of a luxurious band that could evoke both the classic big-band era and the later, cool West Coast style in a resolutely modern blend. Now at the head of a quintet christened Paloma Sky, Goudy continues her fruitful collaboration with singer Jocelyn Barth, already a strong asset on the 12tet album. The quintet will release its first album, Hold On to Me, on Sept. 13—a series of 10 original songs that effortlessly bridge jazz and pop, the new outing is a solid demonstration of Goudy’s writing skills which, by her own account, are influenced by Stevie Wonder as well as Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler. While some might miss the rich orchestrations of The Bitter Suite, Goudy’s new opus more than makes up for it with strong playing (the trumpeter frequently shines here) and also with some fine background vocals, as four of the five musicians are accomplished singers as well as players. Goudy, Barth and Paloma Sky will appear at The Jazz Bistro on Oct. 2 for the album’s release party.
To follow Marie Goudy’s projects, find her webpage here.
Teri Parker
Like Goudy, pianist Teri Parker is a U of T alumna with a lot of compositional ideas, although there doesn’t seem to be any mariachi band on her resumé. A sensitive player and writer, the former student of Fred Hersch and Enrico Pieranunzi already has two strong albums under her belt: 2017’s In the Past (a collection of pieces written mostly during her time in New York) and 2023’s Shaping the Invisible. In 2018, the pianist founded a new, all-female group, Free Spirits, notably dedicated to the music of two of jazz’s most creative women pianists—the late Geri Allen (1957-2017) and pioneer arranger/composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981), whose version of the John Stubblefield song gave Parker’s band its name. After completing an MA in Composition from York University in 2021, Teri Parker was the recipient of a Toronto Arts Council Grant that permitted her to write extensively, notably her Peaks and Valleys suite that now forms the core of her new album by the same name, out Oct. 4. For the launch, Free Spirits will appear for four nights at The Rex, Oct. 9-12.
For more information about Teri Parker and Free Spirits, follow this link.
ALSO, IN BRIEF:
Released in 2022, nominated for a Juno Award, drummer Ernesto Cervini’s album Joy was probably a surprise for the fans of mystery writer Louise Penny—a subtle suite of jazz pieces based on Penny’s celebrated Chief Inspector Gamache novels, set in Three Pines, an imaginary Eastern Townships locale. With the release of Penny’s new book, The Grey Wolf, on Oct. 29, Cervini will take the stage once again at Aeolian Hall in London, Ont., on Nov. 2.
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