Post Festival Record Roundup

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The Nimmons Tribute — Vol. 1 To the Nth / Vol. 2 Generational — Artist Produced

Composer and educator Phil Nimmons, featured as the cover story of the previous issue, was celebrated for his centenary at the Toronto Jazz Festival on July 2, his music heard outdoors in spite of a steady drizzle. For those who did not make it, there are a pair of hour-long studio recordings of the pieces played on that occasion and much more to listen to, the first disc issued three years ago, its follow-up launched at the show. Given the dedicatee’s prolific output over his long lifetime, the formidable task of putting together a repertoire was taken up by his grandson Sean Nimmons-Paterson, acting as the project’s bandleader, pianist and arranger. Spearheading an octet of five horns and three rhythm, the ringleader selected 14 pieces from his elder´s oeuvre and chipped in two of his own on Volume 2, with vocalist Heather Bambrick guesting on its final track Night Night Smiley. While the initial release of the set is rather subdued and tame, ending on something of an easy-listening arrangement with added strings, the companion disc offers more variety in terms of tempos and dynamics. With one exception, the baritone sax chair, the personnel is intact throughout, of which tenorman Mike Murley and trumpeter Kevin Turcotte are its most prominent names, the latter making the best of his solo features. Mr Nimmons should be all the more proud of this pair of tribute albums, not only by the spot-on performances of his works in new attires, but also by the musicians themselves, all pupils of his.

Listen to soundbytes of the album here

Swirl — François Bourassa Quartet — Effendi FN 169

At first glance of the cover, one might mistake the title to be ʽwirl’, when the blocks preceding those letters are actually an ʽs’, so overly-stylized as to hardly look like one. This small quibble aside, there is much to dig about this new offering by pianist François Bourassa’s stellar quartet. As always, the sidemen are up to the task of meeting the leader’s challenges head on and respond in kind as team players who tally a sum greater than its parts. The pianist pens all six pieces of this hour-long side, but they are conceived in ways where the written parts so seamlessly meld into the purely improvised ones that the listener is left guessing. This is what contemporary jazz should be about, the “sound of surprise” as critic Whitney Balliett once said when defining what jazz was to him. Of the many highlights, the finale to the second track, Prologue, stands out for the arresting soundscape achieved by the pianist and André Leroux on flute in the upper registers of their instruments. This recording also has the best of both worlds in it, the ideal environment of the studio resulting in optimal sound quality, and the presence of a small audience egging the players on, its applause between tracks somewhat breaking up the intensity of the session. In jazz, you have stylists who live by their own devices and never waver; then you have a handful who keep on evolving, to a point where they have taken a quantum leap over the course of several albums. Such is the case of François Bourassa, and it puts him in a class of his own, on the Montreal scene for sure, and in need of wider recognition on the world stage.

Listen to soundbytes of the album here

Of What Remains — Melissa Pipe Sextet — OddSound ODS 028

Melissa Pipe is a musician who stands out in a couple of ways within the Montreal jazz community. First, she is one of the very few women specialists of the baritone saxophone anywhere in the business, not just locally but on the international stage. More significant though is Ms Pipe’s double, the even more rarely heard bassoon, an oddity in the jazz world to say the least. Speaking of odd, this bring us to the label OddSound started by trumpeter Jacques Kuba Séguin that issued earlier this year the debut album of this saxophonist as a leader, after some 20 years of playing under the radar. The group she leads, a sextet with three rhythm (Geoff Lapp, Solon McDade and Mili Hong on piano, bass and drums respectively) and two other horns, Lex French (trumpet) and Philippe Côté (tenor sax and bass clarinet) is bolstered on three of the nine tracks with the even more lumbering contrabassoon, played by Michael Sundell. The album’s title, Of What Remains, hints at the general tone of the music, introspective, yet with a thread of quiet intensity running through its 48-minute playing time. The leader establishes the mood in the opening track (La complainte du vent—Lament of the Wind), an unaccompanied bassoon solo barely a minute-long—reprised later on in a full group setting. In Due Time (track 3) is the most sprightly tune of the set, but at three and a half minutes it comes across more as a momentary diversion than a sudden turn in the proceeedings. Coming full circle, the album winds down with the intriguingly-titled Puudutus, the leader intoning yet another mournful song on her main axe. This very mature sounding album is the result of a nurturing process with the view of producing a statement of lasting value and well worth repeated listenings.

Listen to soundbytes of the album here

Sun Ra’s Journey — Tyler Mitchell Octet — Cellar Live CMSLF 001

Jazz, like all other genres for that matter, harbors its share of eccentrics, some more outlandish than others, of which Sun Ra certainly fits the bill. Hailing from distant planets of the solar system, Mister Re (as he punningly called himself) regaled in his own fantasies of the netherworlds, serving listeners a mixed bag of musical treats ranging from tongue-and-cheek swing-era romps to bracing free jazz blowouts. Thirty years after his final lift-off to another dimension, his musical spaceship, the Arkestra, has yet to give up the ghost, thanks in no small part to his most enduring henchman, altoist Marshall Allen, as rambunctious as ever at age 99! While not a recording of that band, the ensemble here sports several current Arkestra members like bassist Tyler Mitchell, the designated leader of this tribute album. Also on board for this 55-minute program of predominantly hard-swinging numbers is the aforementioned saxman, who, true to form, delivers his assorted shrieks and moans. Divided evenly between pieces by the departed leader, six in total, a pair by Allen, one cover (Monk’s Skippy), the remainder by the band members, the music of this band is not as over-the-top as what the Arkestra was known for in its heyday, yet it offers a most tantalizing introduction to the uninitiated into a sonic universe unlike any other.