Recording: Newman/Constant/Arulanandam

Artist: Kurt Newman/Sara Constant/Amahl Arulanandam

Songs: [excerpt, in two parts]

Recorded at Bar Orwell, October 22, 2023.

Kurt Newman/Sara Constant/Amahl Arulanandam - [excerpt, part 1]

Kurt Newman/Sara Constant/Amahl Arulanandam - [excerpt, part 2]

An intriguing improvising trio here, especially as two of its members (Sara Constant, flutes; Amahl Arulanandam, cello + effects) are more often heard performing in the strictly-notated realm. Alongside guitarist Kurt Newman (who travels down many highways, musically speaking) this set was all rustles and plinks — evoking quieter, ghostly spaces.

Recording: Naomi McCarroll-Butler

Artist: Naomi McCarroll-Butler

Songs: Chrysalis [two sections]^*

Recorded at Toronto Jazz Festival, [corporate brand name] Main Stage – [corporate brand name] Grove, July 2, 2022.

Naomi McCarroll-Butler - Chrysalis [section 4]

Naomi McCarroll-Butler - Chrysalis [section 10]

The local jazz festival doesn't tend to get a tonne of favourable glances from this direction, but they should be praised when they do something cool and ambitious. Named as the inaugural "Jazz Festival Immersive Artist-in-Residence", Naomi McCarroll-Butler was given some resources to put together a programme of new work to present at the festival, which emerged as Chrysalis, "a project born out of my first years of transitioning: songs of hope for holding on, cries of joy and grief for the love of a suffering community, trance tapestries of woven sound accompanying the alignment of the physical body with the luminant body."

This live presentation (played in the pleasant Festival zone in the Victoria College quad) saw McCarroll-Butler backed by a dozen musicians, segueing from spiritual jazz blastoffs to modern compositional latticeworks — and including some sounds on DIY microtonal pipes along the way, as well as plenty individual spotlights for the members of the group. The band sounded lush and lively (despite playing with a fairly minimal soundcheck) and one can hope that this music gets a chance to live on beyond this performance.

The ensemble at this show was:

• Anh Phung: flutes
• Kae Murphy: trumpet, sousaphone
• Nebyu Yohannes: trombone
• Colin Fisher: tenor saxophone, drums
• Naomi McCarroll-Butler: alto saxophone, bass clarinet
• Aysel Taghi-Zada: violin
• Aline Homzy: violin
• Amahl Arulanandam: cello
• Adrian Russouw: double bass
• Roa Lee: gayageum
• Yang Chen: percussion, tubulum
• Racha Moukalled: piano
• Stefan Hegerat: drums, percussion

^* I'm not sure if the individual pieces within the suite have separate titles or noy; please leave a comment if you have info!

Recording: Thin Edge New Music Collective

Artist: Thin Edge New Music Collective

Piece: Fothem [composer: Mick Barr]

Recorded at Jam Factory (Intersection – Day 1/The Music Gallery's Departures Series), August 31, 2017.

Thin Edge New Music Collective - Fothem

In recent years, the Intersection Festival would normally consist of a paid concert, usually the night before the day-long extravaganza in Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, however, under the continued guidance of Burn Down The Capital's Tad Michalak the festival expanded to four events, including a pair of concerts at The Jam Factory. In an echo of last year, this opening night was once more a co-presentation with the Music Gallery's Departures Series, mixing Thin Edge's chamber styles with a visiting composer/musician.

After a panel discussion teasing out the common threads between metal and "classical" music (including a mutual affinity for virtuosity and technical perfection), Thin Edge tackled a trio of pieces from visitor Mick Barr, who certainly keeps his feet planted in both of those worlds. Besides an affinity for some intense sawing, his chamber works weren't over-the-top "metal" in their execution. Operating just as a string trio/quartet (with piano from Cheryl Duvall in the middle piece) this final selection just had strings from Ilana Waniuk, Suhashini Arulanandam, and Amahl Arulanandam.

[You can see some footage from this set over at Brandon Caswell Douglas' Intersection playlist.]

[Thin Edge's seventh season opens on October 10th with "Speaking", featuring Chicago-based pianist Shi-An Costello.]