Recording: The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 7

Artist: The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 7

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Music By Harry and Furlong Season 2 Spectacular!), September 25, 2019.

The Search For Eternal Happiness Pt. 7 - [excerpt]

This self-declared spectacle — which came complete with celebratory cupcakes — was an anniversary party for Andrew Furlong and Harry Vetro's Tranzac residency. As usual, each of them put together an ensemble to play a set. Vetro's shifting ensembles are regularly dubbed a part of his "Search For Eternal Happiness", and this large group brought together most of the players who came together at the series' first outing. This part of the search was less "composed" than some, but there was still the strong shared sense of a game plan, with the crew managing to hold onto a reasonably-layered structure and not just pile sounds on top of other sounds, raising up to a swell worthy of a birthday party.

The full ensemble was:

• Harrison Argatoff (sax)
• Madeleine Ertel (trumpet)
• Ben Frost (flugelhorn)
• Kaelin Murphy (bass trumpet)
• Patrick Smith (sax)
• Meghan Gilhespy (vocals)
• Nick Donovan (drums)
• Patrick O'Reilly (guit)
• Harry Bartlett (guit)
• Caleb Klager (double bass)
• Harrison Vetro (drums)

[Music By Harry and Furlong will continue at The Tranzac on Wednesday, November 27th, with sets from Harry Vetro's Drum Trio (Harry Vetro, Nick Donovan, and Miles Fuller) as well as a duo of Andrew Furlong and Kurt Newman.]

Recording: Furlong/Gee/Argatoff/Zurawinski

Artist: Andrew Furlong/Solon Gee/Harrison Argatoff/Mark Zurawinski

Song: O'nette [composer: Ken Aldcroft]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Music By & For Ken Aldcroft XXII), October 10, 2018.

Andrew Furlong/Solon Gee/Harrison Argatoff/Mark Zurawinski - O'nette

Bringing some "music by" Ken Aldcroft to the night, this quartet not only pushed into some different corners of the K.A. songbook (tackling the seldom-heard "In The Kitchen", for example) but also essayed tunes from some Aldcroft-adjacent composers, such as John Coltrane and Emily Denison. There was birthday cake, and it wasn't even anyone's birthday.

[Music By & For Ken Aldcroft will be back in the Southern Cross on Tuesday, December 12th, 2018.]

Recording: Harrison Argatoff

Artist: Harrison Argatoff

Song: [first improvisation]

Recorded at Array Space (Rooted, Somewhere There, and Mechanical Forest Sound present), July 9, 2017.

Harrison Argatoff - [first improvisation]

Normally the night of its monthly Second Sunday series, Somewhere There instead decided to open things up, inviting a couple co-conspirators to each bring an act to this show. This first set was presented by Rooted, which seeks to grow community and explore new musical ideas by curating, recording, and releasing live concerts.

Saxophonist Anthony Argatoff, who has been making a name for himself in local creative music circles over the past couple years, has recently headed out of the city — so perhaps it's rather fitting to see his younger brother (also a product of the U of T music program) starting to step up as a more prominent player. This solo set saw him exploring some ideas for tenor saxophone, mixing improvisations with composed work and sax licks with some other vocalisations.

[Somewhere There's Second Sunday series continues this weekend (August 13th) with a set from Québec's Sonia Paço-Rocchia offering realtime electroacoustic manipulations for bassoon and visuals, plus a quartet encounter with the SWT organizing team.]

Recording: Adolescence

Artist: Adolescence

Songs: Why Do People Smoke Outside of Hospitals? + Which Way is Up?

Recorded at Array Space (Somewhere There's Second Sunday Series), March 12, 2017.

Adolescence - Why Do People Smoke Outside of Hospitals?

Adolescence - Which Way is Up?

Once again, Somewhere There was supporting and amplifying the voices of emerging composers + performers with their Second Sunday of the month series. This group (with some familiar faces from the younger cadre and a few that were new to me) was assembled by percussionist Harry Vetro and included Emily Denison (trumpet), Harrison Argatoff (sax), Meghan Gilhespy (vox), Dan Pitt (guitar), and Jacob Thompson (synth + piano). Vetro's scores contained both notated lines as well as pictures, giving the musicians a basic musical framework plus room to explore based on the moods the images evoked. That meant the pieces were more "atmospheres" than "tunes", but they were rather agreeable spaces to range around in.