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2nd Night at the Jazz Fest

2nd night out with my dear companion at the Jazz Fest. No big wins like opening night, but nothing bad either.

Started out at the Roundhouse with In the Country, interesting with very lovely voices and harmonies. Bounced to the Venue on Granville for Jaga Jazzist great band, reminded me a little of Frank Zappa at his brassy best.  

I was not so much impressed by the venue (Venue) small version of the Commodore felt too tight nowhere to sit for a bit and an over packed dance-floor. My dear companion, who loathes the Commodore, declared it quite nice!  :/

Final stop was the Vogue for Blonde Redhead.  Opening for them was the Luyas, cool little band. Jessie Stein, the lead singer/guitarist hits the stage with plenty of energy.  Very "art of noise" with a dose of industrial thrown in.  I liked it.  Blonde Redhead, very interesting stuff, very sensual, got the crowd up and crowding the stage. Not what I normally listen to but very cool.

Today we'll check out Koptor and I have tickets for Steve Earle! 

Talk to you later.

Sunday June 26 - Jazz Vespers at 4 pm

I'm posting this on behalf of my dear friend Tiff: 

Sunday June 26 - Jazz Vespers at 4 pm. This becomes a congregational participation event.

West Vancouver vocalist, Tiffany Hambrook, will lead an old-fashioned gospel sing-along service, fronting a five-piece band with Peter Vanderhorst at the piano.
It is expected that this will become an annual event. 

A $10 donation will be appreciated.

Opening Night of the Jazz Festival

Opening night at the 2011 Jazz Festival!

Brilliant night, started off with Peter Brötzmann FULL BLAST fierce, aggressive and skilled from the initial blast from Brötzmann's saxophone to the encore. My dear companion and I went out of the Roundhouse vibrating.

Jumped on the Canada Line and rode up to the Vogue Theatre, one of my favourite theatres in the world to see THE LOST FINGERS. Interesting gypsy jazz, using old pop tunes as a base, fun but not really our thing.  Great crowd though, a mostly full house that was there to see them. bounced out of there to catch a bus to Performance Works on Granville Island .

We caught the show of the night there, Dan Berglund’s Tonbruket. Just wonderful! Propulsive, driving one minute, lyrical the next and pulling you with the whole way.  Two standing ovations; one, long encore and a strong desire to buy a CD (which we did not see). Cab home and sleep, do it again tomorrow (today).

Go see some Jazz!

Tiffany at 'One of a KIND Stories'

Went down to Organic Livings on 2nd Ave and Quebec to see Tiffany perform with Bill Sample and Richard Stokes.

Two short but nice sets bookending a share by Charles (Chip) Holmes and Wind Walrath.

Tiff is a great blues, R&B, and gospel singer with a lovely heart and has been a dear friend for many years. If you get a chance to see her do check her out.

12 Minutes Max

This is the 38th presentation of 12 Minutes Max and it is a great one. Eight pieces, none more that 12 minutes, hence the name.

Personal favourites:

Them Kids by Sarah Ballard

Joyful, playful, great energy. Made me want to see more.


Untitled by Jennifer Clarke

Unsettling, very interesting use of loops, sound and voice.

Autonomic by Julianne Chapple

The performer's hidden face and expressive movement pulled me into that quiet place where I am just attending to the dance, no other thoughts.

the temperature of weight byKiri Figueiredo

Loved the swirling motion of the trench coats.

James Proudfoot did the lighting and I love James' work with light.

Go and see this tomorrow, Tuesday, May 18th.

Firehall Arts Centre
280 East Cordova Street
Vancouver, British Columbia

later

jack

Any Night

In "Any Night" dream, nightmare and reality cut into each other and through each other. Characters appear and disappear or so it seems. Privacy, trust, love are all illusionary and real (what ever that might be).

I ushered for this play at the cultch's culture lab this evening and I'd have to say it was right up there with "True Stories" for engagement. One of the audience members said that she "... kind of forgot it was a play, I was so in it to it...", have to agree.

Four more performances, go and see "Any Night" and you can have nightmares too.

Jem Rolls At the Fringe

Jem Rolls is one of the hardest working performance poets out there. Soaked in sweat 5 minutes into a hour long show, he just roars into his monologue/poetry/performance. He gleefully shakes language by the back of the neck and beats on your ears with rhythms, and burns images into the back of your head.

Jem is immediate solidly planted in the here and now. There are no books or cds for sale, no mp3s to download, just you and Jem, his performance and your memory.

Stories, images, poetry, memory.

There is a great review and article on Poets on Fire that I'd have to recommend.