Home » Jazz Articles » Live Review » Ottawa Jazz Festival, Days 1-3: June 21-23, 2012
Ottawa Jazz Festival, Days 1-3: June 21-23, 2012
TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival
Ottawa, Canada
June 21-Jul 1, 2012
After a paradigm shift in 2011—deserting its largely "pure" approach to programming for one that acknowledged how, in order for it to survive, it needed to (a) attract a larger percentage from the youth demographic, and (b) find ways to bring some big bucks into the coffers, in order to fiscally support the many fine "real" jazz acts it was programming at a number of venues—the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival is back for another year and with another stellar lineup. For those who want to question putting comedian Steve Martin on the main outdoor stage at Confederation Park with a bunch of bluegrass players with whom he has worked since the release of Rare Bird Alert (Rounder, 2011), along with reggae icon Bob Marley's son Ziggy and his Wild and Free (Tuff Gong, 2011) tour opening, why not consider French clarinetist
Francois Houle
clarinet
Branford Marsalis
saxophoneb.1960
Joey Calderazzo
pianob.1965
Chris Tarry
bassb.1970
The truth is, there's more than enough "real" jazz, for those who feel they need to remain untarnished by the "other stuff." There's a one-two punch with vibraphonist
Stefon Harris
vibraphoneb.1973
David Sanchez
saxophone, tenorb.1968
Nicholas Payton
trumpetb.1973
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
trumpetb.1983
Brian Blade
drumsb.1970
Dave Douglas
trumpetb.1963
Joe Lovano
drumsb.1952
Trombone Shorty
tromboneb.1986
Tim Berne
saxophone, altob.1954
Marc Ducret
guitarb.1957
Tom Rainey
drumsb.1957
Drummer
Jack DeJohnette
drumsb.1942
Rudresh Mahanthappa
saxophone, altob.1971
David Fiuczynski
guitarb.1964
George Colligan
multi-instrumentalistb.1969
Jerome Harris
guitar, electricb.1953
Dave Holland
bassb.1946
Kenny Barron
pianob.1943
Anouar Brahem
oudb.1957
John Surman
saxophoneb.1944
Kevin Eubanks
guitarb.1957
Craig Taborn
pianob.1970
Eric Harland
drumsb.1976
Bill Frisell
guitar, electricb.1951
Beyond bringing younger artists like Grammy Award-winner (2011 Best Artist of the Year) bassist/vocalist
Esperanza Spalding
bassb.1984
Mathias Eick
trumpetb.1979
Jaga Jazzist
band / ensemble / orchestra
Eliane Elias
piano and vocalsb.1960
Gretchen Parlato
vocals
Chris Botti
trumpetb.1962
Sounds like plenty of "real" jazz, doesn't it?
Chapter Index
June 21: John Mayall and Robert Cray
But first, to kick the festival off, a programming choice that reflects, perhaps, the festival's decision to marry its purer jazz programming with something not exactly outside the sphere, but certainly tangential. The blues is, after all, a jazz tradition cornerstone, and if the double bill of British legend
John Mayall
harmonica1933 - 2024
Robert Cray
guitar, electricb.1953
Mayall has been around a lot longer than Cray, but if there is one word to connect both acts beyond "blues," it would have to be: class. In Mayall's case, not only was the near-octogenarian (next year, in 2013) showing no signs of slowing down, but in encouraging the audience to give another round of applause for Dwyer and his fine sextet before heading into a set that covered much of the bluesman's 45-year career, Mayall proved both gracious and broad-minded, given there was little to link his music with Dwyer's other than a clearly shared passion for music, period.
Mayall has, of course, helped launch the careers of a number of fine musicians, the most famous being guitarist
Eric Clapton
guitar and vocalsb.1945
Cream
band / ensemble / orchestra
Weather Report
band / ensemble / orchestra
Wayne Shorter
saxophone1933 - 2023
Alphonso Johnson
bassb.1951
It was pretty much a meat-and-potatoes set of blues and blues-centric material, but Mayall's engagement with both the audience and his band—and a set designed with the years of experience by someone who knows how to sequence it—made it a perfect lead-in to Cray's set which, as has been the guitarist/vocalist's strength since hitting it big with the Grammy Award-winning Strong Persuader (Mercury, 1986), combined blues with heaps of soul. Cray didn't engage directly with his audience beyond plenty of "thank you very kindly" and band introductions, but he didn't need to; with two Stratocasters and three amplifiers allowing him to get a variety of tones, from punchy to gritty, his solos said plenty. Cray clearly has chops to spare, but what he proved again and again throughout his 105-minute set, was an unerring instinct to play just what was needed—nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes it was a near-relentless bent string, repeated and repeated the way saxophonist
Kenny Garrett
saxophone, altob.1960
Cray's group was part of the reason why the guitarist could play with such intuition and risk. It's hard to believe, in these times of quick shifts, that some of Cray's band goes right back to the 1980s. Richard Cousins was with Cray from the very start—right back to Cray's debut, Who's Been Talkin (Mercury, 1980)—though the bassist did take a break from the band, returning more recently for This Time (Vanguard, 1990). Cousins didn't indulge in any real soloing, but his lithe yet absolutely rock-solid grooves were delivered with effortless precision and behind-the-beat accuracy. Keyboardist Jim Pugh came to Cray a little later, on Midnight Stroll (Mercury, 1990), but he's remained with the band ever since; a fine keyboardist, his textural command of Hammond organ was what gave the group much of its grease. Tony Braunagel may be a more recent recruit, but the veteran drummer who has spent significant time with Bonnie Raitt,
Taj Mahal
guitar and vocalsb.1942
Keb' Mo'
guitarb.1951
B.B. King
guitar, electric1925 - 2015
The set was well-oiled, with nary a misstep. If it lacked some of the visceral grunge of Mayall's set, it more than made up for it in its own kind of energy, which lit up later in a set that went right back to the up-tempo minor blues "Phonebooth," from Bad Influence (Mercury 1983), through a blistering version of Strong Persuader's title track and a slow, simmering version of "The Things You Do To Me," from Midnight Soul that demonstrated the band's restraint and tasteful use of space. Cray has a new studio set due out later this summer, Nothing But Love (Mascot, 2012), and if the guitarist is showing a little gray around the edges and a hint of thickness around the middle, those are the only signs of a performer who, at nearly 60 years old, was singing as well as he ever has with uncompromised range, and doing instrumental work that is a marvel of technique and feel, as he closed out the Ottawa International Jazz Festival's well-attended first night—an enthusiastic audience screaming for more—with style, soul and grace.
June 22: Joel Miller Quartet, Ninety Miles and The Fellowship Band
If the first night of the festival was only tangential in its relation to jazz, the second night was proof that the Ottawa Jazz Festival is committed to bringing top quality jazz to the big stage at Confederation Park; they couldn't have put together a better triple bill. Still, if Canadian saxophonist
Joel Miller
saxophone
Winner of coveted Grand Prix Jazz Award at the 1997 Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, the city that the Maritime-born saxophonist has called home for nearly two decades, Miller has been releasing his own music since 1996. Since 2004, however, with his folk and African-influenced Mandala (Effendi), and the even more ambitious Tantramar (2008)—Miller's first crack into the American market with release on the co-op-style ArtistShare imprint—he's been slowly building a following and a discography of considerable merit, one that has brought together some of the cream of the Canadian crop, including bassist
Fraser Hollins
bass
Thom Gossage
drums
Christine Jensen
saxophone
Kurt Rosenwinkel
guitarb.1970
Greg Ritchie
drums
Geoffrey Keezer
keyboardsb.1970
Quartets are, of course, much easier and inexpensive to book, though finding a way to get these four busy musicians together must have been no small challenge—nailing down Keezer, in particular, who has been (amongst other things) busy in both the Storms/Nocturnes trio with vibraphonist
Joe Locke
vibraphoneb.1959
Tim Garland
clarinet, bassb.1966
The quartet's Ottawa show comes after a first-night engagement at The Rex in Toronto, and the group was already demonstrating the kind of chemistry that made Swim such an impressive record. Miller focused exclusively on music from the record—all originals, with the exception of the
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
Gil Evans
composer / conductor1912 - 1988
In a quartet with absolutely no weak links—Keezer, an effortless wellspring of ideas, Hollins, a visceral combination of groove and unfailing lyricism, and Ritchie, a fluid player with eyes and ears clearly open to the music around him—Miller's occasional virtuosic flights were impressive, as was his upper register control at the start of his solo on the balladic "Drop Off"—so pure and clean that, with eyes closed, his tenor sounded more like a soprano.
The set came to a close with "Nos étoiles"—a tune that belies Miller's Quebecois home, instead evoking images of Midwestern plains à la guitarist
Pat Metheny
guitarb.1954
It may have started a little later in the evening, but just two days away from the summer equinox, the sun was still pretty high in the sky when Ninety Miles took to the stage. "How are you all doing," asked vibraphonist
Stefon Harris
vibraphoneb.1973
David Sanchez
saxophone, tenorb.1968
Nicholas Payton
trumpetb.1973
Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
trumpetb.1983
Payton's been getting his own press this year, though more for notoriety with his #BAM (Black American Music) campaign than for his recent release, Bitches (In + Out, 2012), but one thing is certain, based on his performance with Ninety Miles: the dude can play—though that will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his career, first as a sideman for luminaries like the late drummer
Elvin Jones
drums1927 - 2004
Luques Curtis
bass, acoustic
Henry Cole
drumsThe rest of the set drew on Ninety Miles, though if the album largely compartmentalized the solo space in the interest of relative brevity in the studio, Ninety Miles live adopted a different tack, with just five tunes in a set that also featured characteristically astute support and carefully developed solos by pianist
Edward Simon
pianob.1969
The sun was below the buildings by the time The Fellowship Band took the stage for a nearly two-hour performance that was the perfect capper to a great evening. What started as a solo project for drummer
Brian Blade
drumsb.1970
Jon Cowherd
pianoMore change came when Rosenwinkel, moving first to Switzerland and then Germany, left the band to focus more on his own work. It's not insignificant that, when people leave Fellowship, they are not replaced, the chemistry and camaraderie of the remaining members more than compensating for the lost of first one, and then two voices. Still, for the first time, the group's 2009 Festival International de Jazz de Montréal performance suggested that Fellowship as a quintet—with just two frontliners (alto saxophonist/bass clarinetist
Myron Walden
saxophone, altob.1972
Melvin Butler
saxophoneA thought completely dispelled by the group's closing performance at the 2011 Oslo International Jazz Festival in the Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, where the quintet demonstrated that it had finally found a way to retain the harmonic approach that so defined the band, but with a leaner lineup that has placed more responsibility on Cowherd, a pianist who just seems to be more impressive with each and every performance.
Now, a year later, Blade has completely removed his name from the marquee, leaving the group simply as The Fellowship Band. If its Ottawa performance proved any one thing (it proved many), it was that Oslo was no fluke. The Fellowship Band, with a new album coming later in the year, has clearly found its voice, its strength and its premise. Walden and Butler may be only two voices, but somehow the way they intertwine suggests something bigger, while Cowherd manages to create a harmonic context and melodic foil simultaneously. It's hard to imagine blowing a roof off an outdoor venue like The Fellowship Band did in Oslo last year, but believe it; blow the virtual roof off it did, with the audience responding to its energy and sheer commitment from the start of the set.
The Fellowship Band played a set of almost entirely unheard material to the crowd, only "Return of the Prodigal Son" coming from one of the group's recordings (Season of Changes). But familiarity didn't seem to matter with a group that somehow managed folkloric simplicity—even performing a short, relatively faithful version of the traditional tune "Shenandoah" as a kind of mid-set release and relief, before launching into "Return of the Prodigal Son" and a set-closing "King's Highway"—that was the closest thing to church this festival has ever seen. There's a spirituality that imbues The Fellowship Band, driven by Blade's tumultuous ability to drive rhythms while injecting massive bursts of power. And while every member of the group is clearly a virtuoso, that isn't what the music is about. Thomas' solo could have been about look-at-me pyrotechnics and furious note-play, but instead, he hung onto simple motifs, repeating them with the kind of perfect intuition that has made him such a cornerstone of this band, especially given Blade's maelstrom-like tendencies when the music and the group achieve lift-off.
But as much as there were periods of profound intensity, The Fellowship Band is also capable of keeping it simple and driving a singable melody with the same kind of commitment. "Stoner Hill," the song-like track from Season of Changes, was nowhere to be found in the set, but amidst these longer, often episodic compositions, there were plenty of strong themes. In recent years, Blade has proven himself as capable a singer/songwriter as he is a drummer, as on Mama Rosa (Verve, 2009), but that should come as no surprise to anyone who has listened to his music with The Fellowship Band since its inception. It's also no surprise that he writes much of his material for The Fellowship Band on guitar; while the collective improvisational energy of this group takes them to some far-out places; indeed, at their core—and the same can be said for Cowherd's writing—are the kind of compelling themes that make them instantly appealing and accessible.
Anticipation for the new record is already high, and with its Ottawa Jazz Festival performance running a very close cousin to its nuclear Oslo set. It may only be the second night of the 2012 edition, but the entire evening—and The Fellowship Band's performance in particular—has already set a high bar that will be difficult to match.
June 23: Anouar Brahem/John Surman/Dave Holland, Thimar
Or so it seemed. While one of the joys of festival-going is the ability to hear a huge swatch of music over the course of just a couple weeks—sometimes as many as three, four or five per night—there are times when, after a particularly moving performance, it just seems somehow wrong to then move to another venue, another show. While the wealth of choices on June 22 rendered it impossible to catch bassist
Dave Holland
bassb.1946
Kenny Barron
pianob.1943
Anouar Brahem
oudb.1957
John Surman
saxophoneb.1944
The Montreal show was, indeed, magical; surprisingly so, perhaps, given that a late arrival from Surman meant the trio hit the stage without any rehearsal—though sometimes such adverse conditions can actually push a group to transcendence. Still, with the benefit of some serious rehearsal time in Ottawa, and with everyone relatively rested, after arriving in town a couple days prior, the trio's performance at First Baptist Church even managed to surpass its performance a year earlier.
The sound in the 250-seat church was sublime, with a perfect blend of natural sounds coming from the front of the hall, organically filling the room courtesy of its natural reverb, and a PA system that ensured a perfect mix without being at all intrusive. The set list was similar to Montreal, drawing largely on the trio's single recording for ECM, 1998's Thimar (though there was some unfamiliar music as well), but taking the music much, much further, with some surprisingly free segments mid-way through the roughly 80-minute set, delivered to a particularly enthusiastic crowd.
A crowd so enthusiastic, in fact, that there were many times throughout the set that the group simply had to stand there, take it in, and acknowledge each other on the stage and wait for it to subside. And while the audience avoided the sometime perfunctory "applause after every solo" routine for the first half of the show, it was after a particularly explosive, yet lyrical soprano solo from Surman—an endless cascade of notes, the saxophonist's face gradually turning red from the effort of relentless circular breathing—that a single breath, a single pause, drew an absolute explosion from the audience. When Holland took over for an a capella solo that was clearly inspired by what had just happened, demonstrating why he's one of the most renowned jazz bassists alive today. As he moved from simple lines to almost unimaginable flurries across the neck, resolving to a series of increasingly long glissandi that drew both laughs and tremendous applause, the bassist simply smiled, and delivered an even longer one, before moving on and, ultimately, to a regrouping with his trio mates.
When Holland released Hands (Dare2, 2010), with flamenco master
Pepe Habichuela
guitarSurman was no less true to the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic spaces defined by Brahem, and yet the pastoral nature of his playing—heard to great effect on his own recently released Saltash Bells (ECM, 2012)—was inescapable, whether on soprano sax or bass clarinet, the latter an instrument that worked particularly well with Brahem's oud, and is something the Tunisian has continued to explore with Germany's
Klaus Gesing
saxophone, soprano
Brahem's writing may place the music in a very specific space, but if Surman and Holland come to it with their broader stylistic experiences, Brahem does nothing less than meet them on their own terms. Renowned as an oudist who has expanded his traditional roots into more improvised contexts (with eight albums on ECM since 1981's Barzakh), he was as unfettered in his own explorations as his band mates, patiently building solos of motivic invention, exploiting the warm, low-register tonality of his instrument and, occasionally, moving into surprisingly free areas where he strummed rapidly to create a dense wash of sound that built to a peak... only to resolve and fade, as he signaled a return to form with Surman and Holland.
Brahem, living in his native Tunisia, is very careful about his music, never rushing his writing or recording. He is also very specific about the performances he accepts, making his agreement to perform in Ottawa all the more special. If photographs were not allowed at the performance (those shown here come from the 2011 Montreal performance), it was because the quiet nature of the music demanded the utmost attention of both the musicians and their audience. Even allowing for a shoot in the first minutes of the show might have proven more than a distraction, and could have altered the entire complexion of the performance. Instead, with no distractions—well, other than an enthusiastic crowd that made the floor shake when it gave the trio a well-deserved standing ovation, but not without a demand for an encore—Brahem, Surman and Holland delivered a show of subtle beauty, soft pulses and unbridled imagination that will go down as one of the most sublime musical cross-pollinations this very limited number of Ottawans has ever experienced.
Coming up on days 4-8: Mark Ribot; Dave Holland's new Prism project, with keyboardist
Craig Taborn
pianob.1970
Kevin Eubanks
guitarb.1957
Eric Harland
drumsb.1976
Dave Douglas
trumpetb.1963
Joe Lovano
drumsb.1952
Mathias Eick
trumpetb.1979
Bill Frisell
guitar, electricb.1951
Jack DeJohnette
drumsb.1942
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
Photo Credit
All Photos: John Kelman
Days 1-3 | Days 4-8
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Live Reviews
John Kelman
Canada
Ottawa
Francois Houle
Branford Marsalis
Joey Calderazzo
Chris Tarry
Stefon Harris
David Sanchez
Nicholas Payton
CHRISTIAN SCOTT
Brian Blade
Dave Douglas
joe lovano
trombone shorty
Tim Berne
Marc Ducret
Tom Rainey
Jack DeJohnette
Rudresh Mahanthappa
David Fiuczynski
George Colligan
Jerome Harris
Dave Holland
Kenny Barron
Anouar Brahem
John Surman
Kevin Eubanks
Craig Taborn
Eric Harland
Bill Frisell
Esperanza Spalding
Mathias Eick
Jaga Jazzist
Eliane Elias
Gretchen Parlato
Chris Botti
John Mayall
Robert Cray
Eric Clapton
Cream
Weather Report
Wayne Shorter
Alphonso Johnson
Kenny Garrett
Taj Mahal
KEB' MO'
B.B. King
Joel Miller
Fraser Hollins
Thom Gossage
Christine Jensen
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Greg Ritchie
Geoffrey Keezer
Joe Locke
Tim Garland
Miles Davis
Gil Evans
pat metheny
Elvin Jones
Luques Curtis
Henry Cole
Edward Simon
Jon Cowherd
Myron Walden
Melvin Butler
Pepe Habichuela
Klaus Gesing
Mark Ribot
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