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: Hobson's Choice

Artist: Hobson's Choice

Song: Oh Beauty

Recorded at Holy Oak Café (Wavelength 519), May 15, 2011.

Hobson's Choice - Oh Beauty

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Wavelength 519

Wavelength 519: Idus Maia (feat. Betty Burke / Hobson's Choice)

Holy Oak Café. Sunday May 15, 2011.

It was a rainy night that felt more like xmas in Vancouver than mid-may in T.O. That made it feel all the more cozy inside Holy Oak Café, where the window normally overlooking the street was covered by a sheet for General Chaos' swirling projections. And it seemed like I wasn't the only one casting my mind westward, as host Doc Pickles — filled with post-election malaise — was in a mood to fulminate on Canadian history, settling in somewhere around the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. With one of the scheduled bands cancelling at the last minute, there was some extra time to kill, which was filled in a lengthy discourse on Louis Riel, Bloody Saturday and "grid thinking": "the reason it's flooding — it has nothing to do with bad planning. It's like bad ideological memories. [...] Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, Louis Riel isn't dead, he's just part of the memory that doesn't end yet."¹

All of which was a pretty good lead-in to Betty Burke, a band with its own share of true stories and whispered secret history lessons. Leading off with the jaunty trouble-with-capitalism ground-level reportage of "New Job", vocalist Maggie MacDonald led the band through a non-stop ride down the Trans-Canada, with a special radio that only picks up broadcasts from the nearby mythical past.

The venue's low-tech sound system was getting some on-the-fly adjustments while the band got going, with musical confederate Magali Meagher hopping up to make the adjustments. In performance, Betty Burke's beatbox folksongs bring goofy joyousness into the service of truth, and when, for example, the band managed to break each other up during "When the Wind Blows" it felt like an enhancement, not a flaw.

Waving to some passers-by peering in through the venue's front door, there was also the usual amount of improvised interactivity that MacDonald brings to a gig, this time out including queef jokes (including some on-the-fly lyrical rewrites to "Hazel Eyes"). In theory, every song begins when the new drum track is selected on the ipod, but there's always a discursive overlap, with the bandmembers commenting on the last song's performance and MacDonald informing the audience of the next song's true story status.

But under that, there's a whole bunch of good songs as well as the musical flexibility to adjust on the fly. Guitarist Jo Snyder is often the one holding things together, keeping MacDonald's lyrical train on the rails as well as adding some excellent backing vox for "River of Need". And after slowing down for a brief seance, the set went out with a rambunctious "El Dorado", Sheila Sampath channelling her inner John Paul Jones on the keybs.

The band's Dirty Mouth of The St Lawrence River EP shows off their musical and songwriting strengths (you should get yourself a copy!) but live, they never step into the same river twice, and all the minor indeterminacies make for a fun time.²

Listen to a track from this set here.

I didn't really know anything about Hobson's Choice, but I recognized a couple of the folks that were in the band, first and foremost including Felicity Williams, who has one of the most beautiful voices in town. I also recognized Michael Davidson on vibes — his presence, plus Rebecca Hennessy on trumpet, implied that this would be a textured sort of music, even if the only other instrumentation was Harley Card's acoustic guitar. And indeed, as they began with "Oh Beauty", there was a spare loveliness to the sound. It'd be conceptually easy to fit this into the new wave of soft rock alongside, say, THOMAS, with whom Williams also sings, though Hobson's Choice brings more of a jazzy edge to it — enough so that Joni came to mind in a few spots.

Card sang lead on some of the material and was certainly a capable vocalist, but less distinctive than Williams' ethereal tone, which is so lovely that it's very expressive even when she's singing wordless phrases. But the vocal arrangements, including Hennessy's harmonies, were top notch. Even with an album and a couple EP's under their belt³, the band was working on new material, including "Watcher", a song about the Gulf oil spill ("is this the cost of more?").

Beautiful music, perfect for a candlelit café. Kudos to Wavelength for bringing a show into into a space that always has a good atmosphere — in fact, it's always worth checking out what's coming up at Holy Oak.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Louis Riel surrendered on a May 15th, and the murderous force of the police fell upon the assembled citizens of Winnipeg on a different May 15th, making the "Ides of May" a unique signifier in the annals of resistance to the status quo in Canada.

² There's no word of any upcoming activity from the Betty Burke camp, but Maggie MacDonald will be examining that dirty 'ol river from another perspective when her musical play Paper Laced with Gold debuts at Harbourfront's Hatch Festival on April 28, 2012.

³ The band is giving away one of those EP's on their website.

Recording: Stop Time

Artist: Stop Time

Song: Dredge

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), January 21, 2011.

Stop Time - Dredge

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Canaille

Canaille (Stop Time)

The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge). Friday, January 21, 2011.

With some time to kill before a gig down at The Silver Dollar, I was well-pleased to catch word on the social networks that Canaille were playing a last-minute evening gig at The Tranzac. That also made it a convenient chance to check out Stop Time, a group with a couple familiar faces, including Michael Davidson (one of the primary go-to guys for local rock groups wanting to add a vibraphone, as well as playing in a number of his own more improvisatory groups) and drummer Dan Gaucher (seen in more projects than I could count, and doing double-duty on this evening). The group was rounded out by Harley Card (guitar) and Dan Fortin (bass) and worked as more of a composers' workshop than jam session.

"Dredge", the first song, was pleasantly mellow but could be slotted in as Tortoise-y post-rock, with gentle melodic pushes from vibes and guit pushed along by the rhythm section. Perhaps unsurprisingly for any band named after a musical concept, some of the compositions gave the impression that they were little experiments, playing with texture here and rhythm there, and the music was more subtle, often on the quieter side. They focused more on the interplay than on a musical attack or out-front solos — that meant there were a couple places where this edged a little bit more towards "smooth" than I'd prefer. But on the whole, pleasingly understated stuff. The set closed with a couple from the band's Twice album (available on their bandcamp), including "Bail" and "Permanent Bad Move", the latter the more extended of the set, with a slow build that simmered nicely against Fortin's bassline.

Listen to a track from this set here.

At early-evening shows like this in the Tranzac's front room, audience-members sometimes have to get used to the idea that the musicians are often playing mostly for each other — in the early going, besides the members of both bands and a couple friends, the "crowd" was pretty much me. As as usually the way, though, during the set a few more people drifted in — some more casually than others just to hang out for a bit near the back, some grabbing a seat to take this in. So there were a few more bodies on hand as Canaille set up.

Although the most striking element of the band's lineup is the horns, with saxman/leader Jeremy Strachan joined by Jay Hay on tenor and Nick Buligan on trumpet, the biggest change since I had last seen them has been the addition of Jesse Levine on keybs. Adding both texture and mildly disruptive colours, his superb work was nimble and complementary in a way that really buoyed up the sound. His efforts definitely tied together "Angeer" — a new one that Strachan mentioned will be the lead-off to the band's forthcoming sophomore release.¹

That one moved with some straight-up swing, ending on a march beat, and after that, the band zeroed in on Canaille's stock-in-trade, a sound that sounds like a collision between ethiogroove and an old spy movie. As if the material from the yet-unreleased album wasn't fresh enough, Strachan unveiled a brand-new composition that he'd composed that afternoon, a slinky prelude that segued nicely into "Pillows". Despite working from brand-new arrangements on unfamiliar material, the band handled it well, especially Mike Smith's nimble bass guiding it along.

The set closed with Sun Ra's "Watusa" (which will also be featured on the album), and it definitely left me glad I had come down. Potential Things, the band's first album, was pretty tasty stuff, but they've clearly stepped it up a notch — do not miss them when they're playing this fall to support the new album.

Listen to a track from this set here.

After that, it was rather tough to leave the cozy confines of the Southern Cross, especially since the night's later show would be featuring Metal Kites and Gabriel Levine, but I had another show to attend to, so I regretfully moved along.

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¹ Practical Men, forthcoming from the Standard Form imprint, still doesn't have a release date, but I am told that it's done and at the plant now, so it shouldn't be too long before this phenomenal album is going to be unleashed on the world.