Recording: Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio

Artist: Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (TONE Festival), June 24, 2022.

Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio - unknown

Gord Grdina brought his guitar and oud out for some explorations with this trio (though the latter instrument was a bit less present this night, taking a backseat to the guitar — and a little quiet in the mix when it did show up). Touring a brand-new Astral Spirits release, this unit, which sees Grdina joined by Matt Mitchell on piano and Jim Black on drums, brought some spirited interactions and plenty shredding to close out the night.

[Gordon Grdina will be on sideman duty Sunday afternoon at a free/outdoors jazz festival show as a part of François Houle's Quintet, alongside Mark Helias and Gerry Hemingway.]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Peter Evans Ensemble

Artist: Peter Evans Ensemble

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Array Space (Music Gallery's Departures Series), April 16, 2017.

Peter Evans Ensemble - unknown

When Peter Evans was last at the Departures Series a couple years back, it was in an intense solo set with plenty flight-of-the-bumblebee speedshredding. This return saw him at the head of a quintet, spreading out the musical labour somewhat, and adding a variety of textures, easing from drum-burst explosions (courtesy of Jim Black) to mellower mantras. There were also some pleasing electroacoustic elements, courtesy of Levy Lorenzo's electronics and percussion as well as Ron Stabinsky's synth work. Playing a continuous suite segueing between scored pieces, this ebbed and flowed in a rather satisfactory way.

[The Music Gallery's Departures Series closes out its season on Thursday, June 15th at Burdock, with a night featuring DKV (Hamid Drake, Kent Kessler and Ken Vandermark), Icepick (a new trio of Nate Wooley, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten and Chris Corsano), plus locals Invisible Out (Xuan Ye and Jason Doell). This show is also part of the TONE series' excellent ain't-a-jazz-festival programming.]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Endangered Blood

Artist: Endangered Blood

Songs: unknown^* + Faces and Places [composer: Ornette Coleman]

Recorded at Burdock Music Hall (The Music Gallery's Departures Series), June 28, 2016.

Endangered Blood - unknown

Endangered Blood - Faces and Places

This group (Chris Speed, tenor sax/clarinet; Oscar Noriega, alto sax/bass clarinet; Jim Black, percussion; Trevor Dunn, double bass) is a quartet of noteworthy American underground players with plenty of time served in weird-rock groups like Mr. Bungle and Melvins Lite. The vibe here is more straight-ahead jazz, but their whole set was filled with punk-inspired verve. But even their moments of frenzied shredding couldn't obscure the locked-in top-notch interplay that tied together everything they did. Original pieces from their pair of albums were joined by some dips into the standards, from a fairly reverent take on Monk's "Epistrophy" to the blazing Ornette tune they closed with, complete with Black's drum'n'bass blast beats.