Recording: The Trouble With Billionaires

Artist: The Trouble With Billionaires

Song: Bonhoeffer^*

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival – Night 4), November 5, 2016.

The Trouble With Billionaires - Bonhoeffer

Under the nominal leadership of keyboardist David Story (who provided most of the compositions on this night), this jazz quintet sizzled with veteran savvy, pulling together the efforts of Glen Hall (woodwinds), Bruce Cassidy (EWI, flugelhorn), Terry Clarke (percussion) and Keiran Overs (double bass). Cassidy's work on the under-appreciated EWI was maybe my favourite thing here, especially on this track, where the it doesn't seem to be trying to approximate any existing acoustic instrument — the tonality could be described as MIDI-ish.

^* This song's title was called out before it was played, so this educated phonetic guess could be incorrect? Please leave a comment if you know it for sure!

Recording: Rub Out The Word Ensemble

Artist: Rub Out The Word Ensemble

Song: Nova Express^* [words: William S. Burroughs / composition/conceptualization: Glen Hall]

Recorded at The Music Gallery, November 7, 2014.

Rub Out The Word Ensemble - Nova Express

Opening the 416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival (the other events would take place at The Tranzac) was this ambitious music suite celebrating William Burroughs' centenary. The event was conceived by Burroughs scholar Glen Hall, who played and conducted as the piece's several parts worked off each other. Not only was there an eight-piece band (Bruce Cassidy, Jim Sexton, Chris Cawthray, Rakesh Tewari, Tom Richards, Heather Segger, John Gzowski, David Story), a pair of laptop soundscapists (Ted Phillips, Matt Miller) and live-processed visuals (John Creson, Adam Rosen) at the edge of things (behind a typewriter) sat Ron Gaskin in a rumpled fedora, reading/narrating parts of the proceedings with Burroughs' own words. There was a nice ebb and flow to it such that there was never too much going on at once, even as it built to a fever dream of warped reality.

^* I'm not sure of the formal structure of this piece, so I have named this extract after the Burroughs text that is read/invoked during it.