[beethyday]

Hey everyone - the jazz festival program is out so what's everyone's opinion on the matter ?

[DP5Ups8o]

I'm looking forward to hearing Cuong Vu's trio (who I missed the last time they came) as well as Joshua Redman, Vijay Iyer and Kurt Rosenwinkel.

One of my favorite parts of the jazz fest though is seeing people perform whom I've never heard of before. I'll continue to do that this year.

[ditpiler]

It's often been stated in this forum that the Jazz Festival has had a history of making its mark by placing an emphasis on new and improvised forms of jazz at the expense of more traditional styles. Certainly CJBS has fostered a very impressive record of European, American and local talent in this area, and there have been some amazing collaborations.

They are into their third year with the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, a very worthwhile educational program, which I attended in its inaugural year.

So I thought I would undertake a very unscientific study of this year's participants, based upon their musical style groupings as found on the CJBS website. Here's 3 of the categories: Acoustic jazz 107 groups, contemporary 23, free/improvised 15.

Acoustic jazz is the biggest category of all and many of the mainstream acts can be found there.

Contemporary is a very broad category, encompassing Astrid's smooth/latin style to the laptop/voice combination of Stefan Smulovitz and Viviane Houle.

I looked the 15 free/improvised listings in more detail. At least 10 have notable European improvisors in them. 6 are connected to VCMI, 5 being performance by faculty and then the one show by the program's participants. 4 are collaborations between Europeans and the top local improvisors. On listing is for Time Flies - wait, that happened last February.

That leaves two slots for local groups. Idolalla features two great singers db Boyko and Christine Duncan. Hold on, despite serious Vancouver connections for both, db lives on Gabriola Is. and Christine is mainly working out of Toronto.

That leaves one group, Dylan van der Schyff's Bande X, as the sole all-Vancouver group to be found in the free/improvised listings.

So based upon this breakdown of arbritrary labels stuck on artists by the CJBS website, all of you mainstream players out there who are pissed off you didn't get a festival gig this year and want to blame the free jazzers, you had better look for a different scapegoat.

Where are some of the groups that have been featured in many, if not most of the previous years' festivals? Where are the new improvising groups that have grown out of initiatives like VCMI and the NOW workshop series, groups that are playing regularly and finding audiences here in town?

It does beg the question - considering that local improvisors certainly got more bookings in previous years, is CJBS changing its direction in its programming?

Quite possibly not. A scan of the program book shows many more groups that may be categorized into the freer end of the spectrum. And certainly one would actually have to hear most of the acts before really knowing the extent of Coastal's continuing commitment towards more adventuresome musical forms.

As for myself, a guy for whom all of my playing situations save for one would fall into the free/improvised category, my sole Festival gig can be found under the swing/standards category (9 groups), amongst other labels. And I'm honoured to be there. It's gonna be a good gig.

[wiweimeli]

Quote:

[ditpiler]

Darrell, sorry but I chose not to take the bait.

If you run into my friend Remi Alvarez, who's a hell of a sax player and fellow VCMI alumnus, please give him my regards.

Further to my last post, upon going through the festival program, there are about a dozen local acts that run the range from significant to total commitment to free improvisation. For my taste, I'd like to see more, but it is what it is. I'm just happy I'm not the person making the decisions as to who to include or not include in the festival, given the huge talent pool, regardless of style.

So a more appropriate question may be how are certain labels applied or not applied to groups on the CJBS site?

[Appeselve]

Just a first impression, but there seems to be more vocalists than usual.

"THE MAJOR Tobacco Company, Blood Sucking Financial Institution, Gas Guzzling Car pimp out-vancouver intl. blues gospel roots fest." I think Vanoc already has that trademarked.

[Knillagrarp]

Darrell
You say you play for the love of music. Good.
You also post in for the love of being spiteful and hateful. - And you put other people down to make you feel better about yourself. Do you recognize that?
Go post somewhere else.

You have no reason to slag anyone here.
Keep it up and I'll bring to light who you really are.
Go hate somewhere else.

[Jourgenz]

Saludos, John.

[medio]

Quote:

[UnmariKam]

"For my money he's the best drummer in the world, if not the best musician-hey that's why he's in my band 'Onslaught'."


Ahh yes the drummer is good in Onslaught....

http://www.myspace.com/onslaughtuk