Full Victoriaville line-up announced

[michaelr]

THURSDAY 5/15
RENÉ LUSSIER ET SON ORCHESTRE
With François Chauvette, Guillaume Dostaler, Lori Freedman, Fred Frith, Maxime Lepage, Liette Remon, Jean René, Tom Walsh and René Lussier

SYLVIE COURVOISIER / SUSIE IBARRA / IKUE MORI « Mephista »

JEAN-PIERRE GAUTHIER / MIRKO SABATINI / VINCENZO VASI «Bassa Fedeltà »

FRIDAY 5/16
LAURA KAVANAUGH / IAN BIRSE

OREN AMBARCHI / TIM HECKER

JAAP BLONK / PAUL DUTTON / KOICHI MAKIGAMI / PHIL MINTON / DAVID MOSS

JOHN ZORN'S COBRA
With Marc Ribot, Cyro Baptista, Susie Ibarra, Trevor Dunn,
John Medeski, Jamie Saft, Ikue Mori, Dylan Van Der Schyff,
Ron Samworth, René Lussier, Diane Labrosse, John Oswald,
Sylvie Courvoisier and John Zorn

SUE GARNER
With Ted Reichman, Doug Wieselman, Rick Brown

SATURDAY 5/17
JOANE HÉTU / JEAN DEROME

XAVIER CHARLES / DIANE LABROSSE / KRISTOFF K. ROLL / MARTIN TÉTREAULT

THE REMOTE VIEWERS
With Louise Petts, David Petts and Adrian Northover

KAZUE SAWAÏ / MICHEL DONEDA / KAZUO IMAI / LÊ QUAN NINH / TETSU SAÏTOH

JOHN ZORN ELECTRIC MASADA
With Marc Ribot, Cyro Baptista, Ben Perowsky,
Trevor Dunn, John Medeski, Jamie Saft and John Zorn

KID606

SUNDAY 5/18
ANNETTE KREBS / ANDREA NEUMANN

ROVA SAXOPHONE QUARTET

RON ANDERSON / OLIVIER PAQUOTTE / CAMEL ZEKRI « The Infusion »

JOËLLE LÉANDRE / BARRY GUY/ WILLIAM PARKER / BARRE PHILLIPS

FRED FRITH & NOUVEL ENSEMBLE MODERNE

PEACHES / PAN SONIC

MONDAY 5/19
URS LEIMGRUBER / JACQUES DEMIERRE / BARRE PHILLIPS

PETER BRÖTZMANN TRIO & EVAN PARKER TRIO

JOËLLE LÉANDRE / JOEL RYAN

FANTÔMAS / MELVINS BIG BAND

[Frisco]

I wonder if this means that Barry Guy will try to make the trip for this weekend at Victo only, or if the folks at Victo just haven't updated that part of the schedule.

[michaelr]

I just checked Barry Guy's site and it looks like the Victo gigs are canceled as well. My guess is that von Schlippenbach will fill in for the Brotzmann/Parker. Not sure if they will just leave the bass group shy one player (which may not necessarily be a bad thing.)

[shrugs]

So who is going?

[shrugs]

I am thinking of doing a Colibri one night package. Get there early on Sunday and leave on Monday after the double trio.

[Frisco]

Originally posted by shrugs
So who is going?

I'll be there from Saturday night's concert with Kazue Sawai through Monday's set with Joelle leandre.

I hope to stop in Buffalo, on my way from Detroit, to catch Dunmall there on Friday.

[Frisco]

Originally posted by David Gitin
Frisco, Catch you at the Colibri?

Yes. Look for the guy with a bald top and some hair hanging a little ways down his neck, round glasses, about 5'6", trying desperately to say a few words in the French language. I should be hanging around the bar fairly early in the night. I think that the Fred Frith show is the only 10:00 I'm attending, and no midnighters.

[Brian Olewnick]

In case anyone didn't see the e-mail FIMAV sent out, Barry Guy won't be making the festival, replaced by Schlippenbach in the Parker trio and Tetsu Saitoh in the bass quartet thing he was to be a part of.

[Nate Dorward]

Be glad to catch up with folks at the FIMAV--will be there from Zorn's Electric Masada, Sat. night, to the Parker/Brotzmann gig on Monday. I'm not at the Colibri but at the Hotel Suzor.

If you're on the lookout: I'm 6 ft 5 in; there's a photo of me at http://tomraworth.com/corksix/images/magnatkei.jpg (I'm the guy in the drab beige jacket on the left; if you're wondering why my hair looks like that it's because the picture was taken in Cork after a day of drizzle).

[Nate Dorward]

Wow, THAT was weird--the reply to my post is coming up prior to my post itself. David: yep, Tom's still going strong, amazingly enough (those past 25 years have been rough in a number of ways). I'd had a bit of comment on Tom in a digression in the "Jazz Reviews" thread but that got zapped in the recent database blip--oh well. Currently I'm doing a volume of essays on Tom's work--actually I'm set to take the master into Coach House Press tomorrow for printing (my wife is in the kitchen doing a final scan of the proofs at the moment....).

(Alas, Ronald Johnson's gone though.....)


Anyway, yes, hope to meet up at Victo!

[Brian Olewnick]

So?

[shrugs]

was it a trainwreck?

[Pete C]

Originally posted by David Gitin
he was pounding away like Ludwig von

David, didn't I see you in "A Clockwork Orange"?

I just might have to go see Mephista at Tonic this Saturday, especially since I was going to pass on Vision that night.

[Nate Dorward]

I'm doing a formal writeup of the slice of the event I caught (7 concerts towards the end) but here's a slightly tidied version of some comments I made in an email to a friend.

*

I was there for just one gig on Saturday, all of Sunday (skipped two unpromising-looking gigs), first two gigs of Monday. Given the limitations of my perspective on the event, I'll risk anyway staying that judging by what I saw it was OK if not an especially memorable occasion. A quick rundown:

Electric Masada--the best 1970s Jewish rock band that never was. Which is good or bad depending on your view of onanistic 1970s spectacle & soloing. As so often at Victo one had a sense that there was a split between the actual festival-goers & the young crew who drove up just for that gig--it was sold out, & the crowd seemed young & enthusiastic, but most of the people I talked to the next day (i.e. people who were there for the long haul) were either indifferent or hated the concert. I suppose the presence of Medeski on organ couldn't have hurt the ticket sales.

Krebs/Neumann--still digesting this one. Smart ultra-minimalist improv; hard to know what one's reaction to it is precisely because it was music that seemed to place very few explicit demands on the listener, in the way that, say, it visually & aurally could resemble an activity that wasn't about producing music at all--say a doctor examining a patient or a technician or repairman working at/on some machine.

ROVA--a very good gig, not explicitly in promotion of the new CD Resistance--only one piece from that disc--but instead a mix of things, about 8-9 pieces. First time I'd seen them live. Funkier than I'd expected, especially Raskin's "Jukebox Detroit" & another piece called "Chuck" built out of a frantic pile-up of a quote from a Mingus canon (I think it was "E's Flat Ah's Flat Too"). Like K/N they performed facing each other in the centre of the room rather than onstage.

four-bass gig (with Tetsu Saitoh in for Guy)--it sounded like what it was: four fine players doing the best they could with a silly situation. I left after an hour as while it wasn't unpleasant I didn't feel I was getting anything out of this

Fred Frith/Montreal new-music ensemble--oh I really don't know, I know nothing about "serious" composition. It seemed OK, I wasn't bored, but nothing especially stood out for me either. Given the dwindling of serious representation of "new music" (composition) at FIMAV to one or two gigs per festival, this seemed kinda contextless, even despite Frith's being one of the festival regulars.

Leimgruber/Demierre/B Phillips--this was sparsely attended, & sucks to the people who missed it: it was pretty strong, & better yet, was not simply more of the same from their CD (which I'd picked as one of the best of 2002, a disc no-one else seems to have heard....!). One thing I liked was that there was an actual sense of risk here, of one musician for instance doing something that might well capsize the music, piss off his colleagues onstage or annoy the audience, & persisting anyway. For instance, in a mostly quiet concert, Demierre's stubbornly prolonged crescendo--it must have been 5-6 minutes long--assaulting the instrument with both arms (not just hands) with the sustain pedal down: loud to begin with, & I was impressed at his control as it kept getting louder, a perfectly controlled increase of volume over a long period. Phillips simply didn't follow along, placidly bowing away at a normal volume level, & I was wondering if one or the other was annoying the other. But, no, it was simply how they worked: not always following the other's gambit (this was precisely what torpedoed the four-bass gig for me: the agonizingly predictable contagiousness of the interplay: one person started rapping on the bass, & then all four started doing it; &c). Same happened when Phillips completely broke the idiomatic parameters that the other two were working in by starting off one piece with a very long Haden-style countryish solo, & persisting in this & returning to it several times. Anyway, this meant there were bits in the concert where I really wondered whether it was going to work out for the best....but it also meant it gave a sense of unpredictability that is (despite claims to the contrary) often quite rare in improv concerts.

Parker trio meets Brotzmann--opened with a brief sextet energy-music blast, then the Brotzmann trio left the stage for a longish EP/AVS/PLyt blow. Then Brotz reentered, Parker exiting simultaneously: I wondered if this was rivalry or friction but Parker seemed simply to need to change his reed. This quickly shrunk back to an oddball lineup of AVS on piano plus Drake & Lytton, which turned out to take up a good deal--maybe 1/4 to 1/3rd of the gig. AVS good as always, with his distinctive way of playing that sounds like he's rotating something over & over again 360 degrees. Lytton & Drake an odd couple: Lytton with a Popeye squint & a kind of "it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it" air to him, Drake an entertaining incurably extrovert showoff (raising his sticks way in the air, making sure the audience follows what he's doing &c). Awkward at first but somehow it came together, Drake usually taking the lead but Lytton obviously really quite intrigued by the situation (he often stayed onstage longer than one expected given the turn & turn about air of the proceedings, as if he wanted to keep pitching back in with Drake in particular?). Then a few more mixes & matches, including a stint by the Brotzmann trio (clarinet & frame drums). PB shaking the instrument like a dog with a chew toy. A melodic bit which may have been precomposed (possibly an Ayler fragment? who knows). End of the main set with PB on tarogato & EP on tenor, pure energy music: in some ways like much of the rest of what I saw at Victo it was a kind of JATP spectacle, but it's worthwhile to see EP in such a situation every so often. There was a repeated unison two-horn riff at the end of the encore I think it was, which sounded vaguely familiar--possibly even some Coltrane or Ayler figure but if so I won't be able to place it. Anyway, there were plenty of awkward spots due to the nature of the weird situation, & I would have liked to have seen the groups separately as well as together, but as spectacular pileups go it had its share of moments.

---

Anyway, so that's my first, casual stab at a response. Any thoughts on those gigs, or those I missed? FWIW the ones I'd heard the most positive things about via conversation with less fly-by-night festivalgoers were: the Doneda/LQN/&c quintet; the Zorn Cobra; &, depending on who you talked to, the vocal quintet (frankly, sounds about as appealing as a four-bass quartet to me, but most of the people I talked to thought it was worthwhile).

[shrugs]

Originally posted by Nate Dorward
Drake an entertaining incurably extrovert showoff (raising his sticks way in the air, making sure the audience follows what he's doing &c).

Hmmm, maybe that's how he plays?

[Frisco]

Contrary to what seemed a popular belief on this website, Brotzmann, Evan, Schlippenbach, William, Hamid, and Lytton can, and did play together. I don't believe it was their idea to play as a sextet, but they made the absolute most of it, mainly because they're all wonderful , professional, and extremely talented improvising musicians. To think that this wouldn't work was way off base. Hamid and Lytton played well together, at one point hooking up with Schlippenbach for a particularly inspired section.

I think that the bass quartet worked out ok. It may have suffered from lack of amplification. Too quiet! But there was one segment where all four played on the low end string in a dirge like piece that had you just visualizing Peter Kowald scraping the low string and chanting into the bass.

Actually, Nate, it was not such a "silly situation". This was done for the memory of Peter Kowald, whom all four of these fine bassists had associations with. For that aspect, it was brilliant just to have them there.

Hey, by the way, has anyone listened to the recording from last year's parker/Kowald bass duo concert? It sounds as brilliant as I remember it sounding there. Despite what two reviewers (in Cadence and Wire were they?) had to say about it.

[Nate Dorward]

Pat: by "silly situation" I meant "silly musical situation". Yes of course it was assembled as a memorial for Kowald (& a similar all-bass concert was actually held shortly after Kowald's death elsewhere--I forget the details but read a review); but the worthiness of the dedicatee isn't going to make any difference to the inherent awkwardness of the setup. "Brilliant just to have them there"? Er, this isn't setting the bar very high, is it?

Yes, Brotzmann, Parker et al are wonderful & talented musicians, fully capable of dealing with any musical situation they're dealt with. This doesn't mean that I enjoy every musical situation they're in equally, though. It was an OK concert, anyway. -- Exactly why is it "way off base" to approach a gig where two trios are thrown together at the instigation of a festival organizer with anything but the greatest confidence it will work out? Expectations can be disappointed or fulfilled, but it's absurd to rule them out in advance, as if they ought to be unthinkable.

I forget what Cadence & The Wire had to say about Parker/Kowald in 2002. Stuart Broomer in Coda, Nov/Dec 2002:

The bass duet of William Parker and Peter Kowald was an uninterrupted performance of over an hour in length in which the two demonstrated the remarkable similarity of their approaches. Both used an almost random array of overtones to create density, whether generated by slaps or buzzes, strumming or animated bowing. An hour of non-specific bass proved wearing.

& Greg Buium in Downbeat:

...two of the more anticipated performances: Peter Kowald and William Parker's bass duo and Gerry Hemingway and Hamid Drake's drum duet. Here, the musicians (and listeners) were challenged to overcome any issues that naturally arise when these instruments are thrown together alone a stage.

The results were, sadly, uneven. Kowald and Parker only seemed to connect in spurts. While they generated an awesome bit of thunder early on -- with Parker establishing a marvelous groundswell -- there were awkward transitions and scant threads tying the 60-minute improvisation together.

I haven't heard the CD myself nor was I present that year in person.

[Frisco]

Originally posted by Nate Dorward
Gary: by "silly situation" I meant "silly musical situation". Yes of course it was assembled as a memorial for Kowald (& a similar all-bass concert was actually held shortly after Kowald's death elsewhere--I forget the details but read a review); but the worthiness of the dedicatee isn't going to make any difference to the inherent awkwardness of the setup. "Brilliant just to have them there"? Er, this isn't setting the bar very high, is it?

Yes, Brotzmann, Parker et al are wonderful & talented musicians, fully capable of dealing with any musical situation they're dealt with. This doesn't mean that I enjoy every musical situation they're in equally, though. It was an OK concert, anyway. -- Exactly why is it "way off base" to approach a gig where two trios are thrown together at the instigation of a festival organizer with anything but the greatest confidence it will work out? Expectations can be disappointed or fulfilled, but it's absurd to rule them out in advance, as if they ought to be unthinkable.

Was the bass quartet awkward? OK, perhaps I'm understating things to say just to have them there is brilliant. But having four bassists close to Peter, coming together to honor him tends to make me accepting and pleased with the situation rather than look at them and try to judge. I tend to sit back and try to enjoy, and that I did. And I think that Peter would have been happy with it.

As for expectations, certainly we all have expectations about a concert. But if I were to have negative expectations about a concert, I probably would not bother to attend. And why in the world would I have negative expectations about these six playing together? I definitely had high expectations.

I had the pleasure to drive Brotzmann down afterwards and we shared some of these ideas about criticism. Good to know that he's well past being bothered.

[Jon Abbey]

was the five vocalist set a memorial show also, or is it safe to describe that as a silly (musical) situation?

any more thoughts on the Neumann/Krebs now that it's sunk in more, Nate? I've never seen these two together, but their duo record on Charhizma's quite good, and I'm a fan of both of them, depending on the context. they were supposed to come to NYC before Victo, but they couldn't get enough US shows to make it monetarily worthwhile, unfortunately.

[Nate Dorward]

I've heard varied reports on the 5-vocalist gig, ranging from enthusiastic to lukewarm, but no pans, which is a good sign. But I gather it was a very different proposition from the 4-bass gig anyway, with actual composed structures involved. (Keep in mind that this kind of group has a venerable tradition in Canada: Dutton was involved for many years with the Four Horsemen sound-poetry ensemble.)

Pat (sorry, "Gary" was an unintended bit of rhyming slang)--well, what gets me going to a gig is curiosity about what will happen there, which isn't always the same thing as "high expectations", though it means that I have expectations of some kind. I would have been very surprised if the double trio gig was a disaster; if I'd expected it to be, or just to be boring, I wouldn't have gone. -- The four-bass gig wasn't one I was really there for & was really only mildly curious about it, but you know, if you're driven all the way to the next province to go to a festival it seems kind of silly to just sit in your hotel & not even give it a chance.....& I'd already agreed to write the festival up. I can assure you I "tried to enjoy" the four-bass gig very hard, given that I'd paid about $20 for it. -- I can revere Peter Kowald's memory fine on my own without feeling it necessary to revere everything done in his name.

Hm: Krebs/Neumann I still don't quite know what I think about. I only knew them before from the Phosphor disc on Potlatch, which I found more "interesting" than genuinely satisfying. I'd actually planned to attend a concert they gave in Toronto on the 20th for a second chance at seeing them--it would have been in a big echoey church & I was especially curious to see if they would just do more or less the same thing as in the cloistered environment of the small CEGEP auditorium or if they'd respond to the church space differently. (This seems to me the hallmark of good improvisation of any kind: I remember being intensely frustrated that the Matt Davis/Mark Wastell duo at Freedom of the City in 2002 insisted on playing much as they would in say All Angels Church....in the completely different environment of Conway Hall: I could barely hear a thing.) But I was too tired after the trip back & didn't go to the Toronto gig. I ended up writing this in the formal report on Victo, which will be posted in about a week or so online at www.paristransatlantic.com:

Next afternoon began at the small CEGEP auditorium with the “Berlin minimalist” duo of Annette Krebs and Andrea Neumann, respectively manipulating – rather than playing – guitar and “inside-piano” (the guts of a small piano) as raw sound sources for amplification and electronic treatment. As seems to be the fashion among sectors of the “reductionist” community and related areas like laptop improv, interaction among the players was also reduced: directly facing each other over two small tables positioned at the centre of the room, they virtually avoided eye contact with each other, barring the very rare exchange of a mutual smile. It was like watching two technicians or computer programmers going about their work, largely in their own little worlds. The music was carefully pieced together from discrete, virtually static sounds: fizzes, crackles, hums, amplified dead air. Even naturally produced sounds were often given the sound of a hard edit, with no graduation of attack or decay: Krebs would begin to bow something while the input from the mic was turned off, then flip it on in medias res. Such massive levels of amplification of tiny sounds (Neumann’s caressing the piano strings or rolling steel wool over them, Krebs’ twisting the soft end of a mallet on a contact mic) began to make me genuinely fearful that someone would screw up and accidentally bump or strike something too hard, frying the speakers and the eardrums of everyone in the room. It didn’t happen, thankfully. Intriguing music – not “compelling” precisely because it kept a distance from anything you might describe as musical rhetoric – and for all its perversity it wasn’t always as austere as my description paints it: there were several loud sci-fi firefights, and the home stretch had a denser, more sustained texture.

That's more descriptive than evaluative, perhaps: I thought this was appropriate, given that it was definitely music that didn't rush to be subsumed in standard musical rhetorics which would give an easy evaluative handle to critics like me.