Recording: Sick Boss & Co.

Artist: Sick Boss with Peggy Lee, Josh Zubot & JP Carter

Song: Useless Genius 2

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (TONE Festival), June 16, 2022.

Sick Boss with Peggy Lee, Josh Zubot & JP Carter - Useless Genius 2

This superb evening at the TONE Festival saw Sick Boss expanded from its core trio (Cole Schmidt, guitar; James Meger, bass; and Dan Gaucher, percussion) to include friends Peggy Lee (viola), Josh Zubot (violin), and JP Carter (trumpet) — a true Vancouver all-star troupe. The extra hands allowed the group to explore a lot of new terrain over a bunch of new music (including the three-part suite heard in part here) that moved from shifty prog-rock rhythms to sweeping GYBE-esque swells. Big band, big sounds.

Recording: Schmidt/Meger/Gill/Hall

Artist: Cole Schmidt/James Meger/Tania Gill/Samuel Hall

Song: [2nd section]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (TONE Festival), June 16, 2022.

Cole Schmidt/James Meger/Tania Gill/Samuel Hall - [2nd section]

This superb evening at the TONE Festival saw Vancouver's expanded Sick Boss joined by locals Tania Gill and SlowPitchSound as well as Berlin-based percussionist Samuel Hall. In lieu if an opening act, the latter were scattered amongst redistributed members of the band for two sets of improvised encounters. The first of these saw Sick Boss' Cole Schmidt (guitar) and James Meger (bass) alongside Gill (piano, melodica) and Hall, mutating from weird grooves to shimmering spatter.

Recording: Meger/Pencer/Ng/Davidson

Artist: James Meger/Ted Crosby/Karen Ng/Michael Davidson

Song: unknown Misha Mengelberg piece + unknown^*

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), January 20, 2019.

James Meger/Ted Crosby/Karen Ng/Michael Davidson - unknown Misha Mengelberg piece

James Meger/Ted Crosby/Karen Ng/Michael Davidson - unknown

Staying warm during a deep, deep freeze (and ushering the Super Wolf Blood Moon mega-frenzy), locals Ted Crosby (tenor sax/bass clarinet), Karen Ng (alto sax) and Michael Davidson (vibes) welcomed Vancouver's James Meger (double bass) for a couple sets of compositions, surveying works from Mengelberg and Paul Motian as well as some of their own material.

^* Does anyone know the titles to these? Please leave a comment!

Recording: The Revival Ensemble

Artist: The Revival Ensemble

Songs: Amad + Blue Pepper (Far East of the Blues) [composers: Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (TONE Festival), June 17, 2018.

The Revival Ensemble - Amad

The Revival Ensemble - Blue Pepper (Far East of the Blues)

One of TONE Festival's more ambitious undertakings, this event saw reedist Ted Crosby wrangling a stage full of local improvisers (and incorporating the members of openers Sick Boss Löve) to form a thirteen-member orchestra interpreting (and bursting outward from) Duke Ellington's The Far East Suite. Organized into three "days", these mini-suites stretched out the original themes, deepened the grooves and gave plenty of chances for individual members to shine with solos.

As far as I could tell, the ensemble was:

• Ted Crosby - reeds
• Lisen Rylander Löve - reeds
• Karen Ng - reeds
• Alan Mackie - violin
• Lina Allemano - trumpet
• Rebecca Hennessy - trumpet
• Ryan Brouwer - trumpet
• Michael Davidson - vibraphone
• Scott Thomson - trombone
• Harley Card - guitar
• Cole Schmidt - guitar
• James Meger - bass
• Dan Gaucher - drums

Recording: Sick Boss Löve

Artist: Sick Boss Löve

Song: [second section]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (TONE Festival), June 17, 2018.

Sick Boss Löve - [second section]

Before enfolding into an even larger ensemble later in the evening, this quartet already represented a pooling of resources. Vancouver's Cole Schmidt (guit), James Meger (bass) and Dan Gaucher (drums/synth) have been exploring together as Sick Boss for a while now (joined by many West Coast/Drip Audio all-stars from time to time) and on this tour were augmented by Gothenburg's Lisen Rylander Löve (sax/vox/electronics). At the outset, the group were striking glancing blows off each other before burrowing into some shared sonic spaces, with Löve adding textures + manipulated sounds to deepen the mind-meld.