Experimental Jazz - my/maSCENA

Joane Hétu

Jazz: On Stage this Winter

By Marc Chénard on 1 February 2017 Experimental Jazz, Mainstream Jazz

In February: DAME Struts her Stuff at the Gesù Any listener familiar with Montreal’s experimental music scene is aware of DAME. If you don’t, it is the moniker of the distributor of albums filed under musique actuelle, the company’s name short for Distribution Ambiances Magnétiques etcetera. Last year, its 25th anniversary went by unnoticed, but an event celebrating this was not discounted, simply put off to this year. The party is now set for the 16th of February at the Centre Gesù. And a party it will be, according to the company’s head Joane Hétu, for it will run from 7…

Annette Peacock, Photo : Alistair Thain

Review – Annette Peacock: Nothing Ever Was Anyway

By Marc Chénard on 27 September 2016 Concert Reviews, Experimental Jazz, Popular Music, Scena Jazz

Annette Peacock Nothing Ever Was Anyway Pop Montreal Music Fest September 25, 2016 Between two numbers heard in the recent solo performance of singer-songwriter-pianist Annette Peacock, two people slipped away from their aisle seat. A short pause ensued to which the artist laconically interjected: “Only the brave stick it out to the end.” Adding: “It only gets deeper from here.” And “slower” may we add. Few musicians are as offbeat as this songstress. Nee Coleman, she has kept the name of her first partner, bassist Gary Peacock (of Keith Jarrett trio fame), their marriage lasting six years. In 1966, she…

Félix Mailloux et Cordâme

Rentrée Jazz: Fall Preview

By Marc Chénard on 1 September 2016 Experimental Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, Scena Jazz, Vocal Jazz

On Stage By the looks of it, there is plenty of live jazz at the Maisons de la Culture this season, and the following listings merely scratch the surface. In what might be one of his final appearances, Oliver Jones will play on November 18 at Maisonneuve. Bassist Michel Donato, for his part, hasn’t called it a day yet; on December 2, he’ll perform on a double bill at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, first by improvising in and around the Bach Cello Suites, backed by drummer Pierre Tanguay, then join forces with two other veterans, pianist Pierre Leduc and…

LoFi Octet, Photo: Marie Valade

Take the Eight Train

By Marc Chénard on 1 September 2016 Experimental Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, Scena Jazz

With its eight pieces, the octet is an intermediate size group: larger than a jazz combo but falling short of a big band. For the composer, however, it gives him the chance to write more intricate arrangements in which each instrument can still be heard. Two such groups will be performing in town in the upcoming weeks, to whit in the city’s Maisons de la culture circuit. Pianist Felix Stüssi will premiere late this month an expanded version of his trio Les Malcommodes at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur. Throughout October, bassist Olivier Hébert will present his Lofi Octet on…

Bozzini Quartet, Photo: Michael Slobodian

La Rentrée Musicale: Contemporary Music

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 September 2016 Chamber Music, Contemporary, Experimental Jazz, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral, Scena Jazz

As always, the new season in Montreal offers a rich array of concerts as well as new and contemporary musical experiences. Whether you love digital art or sound installations, instrumental or mixed music, the creative community has concerts and festivals to satisfy everyone. Have your calendars ready! This year the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) celebrates its 50th season with the kind of programming that has been its hallmark since its foundation. The 2016-17 season begins with a free concert on September 30. Entitled Broadway Boogie-Woogie, it’s a tribute to the Mondrian painting of the same name, which…

Xenia Rubinos

Video of the Day – NPR Tiny Desk Concert: Xenia Rubinos

By Weiyu Dang on 26 July 2016 Experimental Jazz, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Video of the day, Vocal Jazz

For her widespread influences, Xenia Rubinos’s music defies neatly bound classifications. Now living in Brooklyn, Rubinos draws heavily on her Cuban and Pueto Rican heritage to create a personal brand of experimental soul that explores ideas of race and economic strata. The Afro-Latino jazz grooves are evident as well as indelible inspiration from neo-soul potentate Erykah Badu. Her most recent offering, Black Terry Cat, riffs off hiphop influences and the current political surround to create an exploration of how coloured women fit. The sonic texture finds its roots in the forceful pop hits of Beyonce to the cross-over success of…

A Festival of 1001 emotions! 37th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal

By Newswire on 11 July 2016 Experimental Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, Newswire, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, Vocal Jazz, World Music

Montreal, Saturday, 9 July 2016 – When it comes to musical pleasure, nothing delivered like this 37th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, presented by TD in collaboration with Rio Tinto! For 11 days and nights, from June 29 to July 9, 2016, jazz unfolded in all its sounds, shapes and styles… a Festival of effervescence and serenity, full of raw, passionate, challenging, inspiring, impressive musical moments! With a program this eclectic and packed with options, with young newcomers and veterans, Montréalers welcoming tourists, and fans of jazz, electronica, blues, hip-hop, etc. rubbing shoulders under the stars of our…

CD Review – The Claudia Quintet: Super Petite (Cuneiform Records)

By Weiyu Dang on 7 July 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Experimental Jazz, Scena Jazz

Named after a term used to describe a friend of the band, Super Petite from Cuneiform Records’ Claudia Quintet fuses dense, eclectic, and complex ideas into a ten-track CD with the length of a built-for-radio pop album. With compact organization, drummer-composer John Hollenbeck undertakes the challenge of building a worthy offering that can simultaneously attract shorter millennial attention spans and present a work of grand scale. Competing ideas of clutter and cohesion come to the fore with the opener “Nightbreak,” the title itself a portmanteau of the seminal Charlie Parker break on “A Night in Tunisia.” Immediately, the listener comes…

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

Video of the Day – Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – “K.K.P.D.”

By Weiyu Dang on 7 July 2016 Experimental Jazz, Scena Jazz, Video of the day

New Orleans trumpet player Christian Scott is the driving force behind Stretch Music, a genre that aims to “stretch” jazz’s structural foundations to coalesce various forms of cultures and experiences into a new, comprehensive emotional complex. On “K.K.P.D (Ku Klux Police Department),” Scott and his band transform Scott’s emotions and thoughts after being assaulted and harassed by New Orleans police into a sprawling display, bursting at the seams with power. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – “K.K.P.D.”

Photo credit: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

“When you sing, I can’t die, I live forever” Lila Downs at the FIJM

By Camilo Lanfranco on 6 July 2016 Concert Reviews, Experimental Jazz, Folk, Popular Music, Scena Jazz, World Music

Lila Downs performed last Saturday night at the Métropolis theatre for the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Close to 2,000 fans gathered to see the singer-songwriter and her band perform a repertoire of Mexican rhythms fused with jazz instruments and players. It was precisely because of this capacity for mixing styles, while remaining true to her cultural roots, that she received the 2016 Antonio Carlos Jobim award as “an artist distinguished in the field of world music whose influence on the evolution of jazz and cultural crossover is widely recognized.” These cultural and musical crossovers are an important part of Lila Downs’s…

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