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.

Van Django at the Cellar

I took my dear friend out for a birthday treat and we both got treated. I don't remember the last time I was in the Jazz Cellar but I think I've been missing something.

Room is pleasant, comfortable; service is stellar; food good (the salmon chowder was excellent as was the pasta w/ prawns, mangos, pineapple in a light cream curry sauce). Best of all was the music.

Van Django is a string ensemble that uses the sounds of Django Reinhart and Stephan Grappelli to start out from as the note on the The Cellar's website says:

Van Django is an acoustic string ensemble made up of four extremely talented and eclectic musicians. Their music is well-rooted in the gypsy jazz of 1930's Paris France, but beyond that it's all pure blue-skying: flights of dazzling fancy, driving rhythms and boundless creativity. Experience this foursome as they play their original compositions and quirky arrangements in an action packed musical universe they call, "acoustic string hot jazz!"

A great show and I will be back. But it's quarter to one, and I'm tired, and so to bed.

later

@2 back from Dark Knight eahh! Okay but I could have waited until the rental

Just up and trying ping some more

Titus Andronicus

Very good, very violent and the scene with the rape and mutilation of Lavinia was brutal. No one left and no one seemed seriously discomfited although Monica complained that the woman beside her kept up a nervous laughter throughout.

Needless to say, everybody dies.

There was some talk on the way home about how issues and themes that would be revisited in later plays could be picked out. I liked the production, I usually do. Bard on the Beach does good work and I always come away feeling that I have spent my time well.

There was also a clear connection between the issues that Shakespeare was trying to deal with and our present varied predicaments. A failing (failed) imperial power, a ruling class addicted to plots and torture, an ignored and essentially powerless populace that gets trotted out for justification for decisions made behind closed doors and with no interest in its needs or desires. Wars, leavened with bread and circuses.

NINE POINTS TO NAVIGATE - The Brian Webb Dance Company

First show I have ushered and seen at this years Dancing on the Edge. I was very strongly affected by this piece, less by the dance and far more by the spoken and sung word. This is a piece of remembrance, of fathers who were young enough to be influenced, changed, affected by the 1930's Depression and the 2nd World War; as my father was.

The two leads (David Webb and Sheir Somerville) spoke of their fathers with love, and understanding. Both of their fathers had been damaged in the Great Depression and the War, focused on providing for their families but finding it difficult to care for their families. I know that one. The silent father who struggles against the odds to make a living and support his family but who cannot speak or play with his children.

As I said a very affecting piece, using music, theatre, voice, and movement to remember, with love and understanding.

Susan Tedeschi at the Commodore

Got in to catch the last 20 minutes of John Scofield, a couple of nice pieces and the one I walked in on he was just howling on.

The treat of the evening was Susan Tedeschi over at the Commodore, she was paired with Jim Byrne. I got in at about 10:30pm and she hit the stage seconds later, and she smoked. I was reminded of Bonnie Rait or Ellen McIlwaine but only reminded, Tedeschi has a look, sound and style all her own.

She is one to keep an eye on. Hope she does as well as she seems posed to.

Gordon Grdina's Box Cutter with special guest Fredrik Ljungkvist

As Mark says, "Music so intense, you feel like you will go insane."

Another great show in the only venue that actually feels like a jazz club.

An Evening with the Cowboy Junkies

Well the Cowboy Junkies may not be the first group that you think of as jazz or blues, but they do make great music and that is what is important to me.

When Margo sings Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry.

She owns me. I just fell head over heels in love with her take on that song. Later on "Lost My Driving Wheel" feels like an old traditional blues with it's repeated refrain:

I feel like some old engine that's lost my driving wheel
I feel like some old engine that's lost my driving wheel

Then a Niel Young cover "Powder Finger" and a encore that channeled the best of Lou Reed and the early Velvet Underground with a smoking version of "Sweet Jane".

I came home and put on the Trinity Sessions wondering why I hadn't been playing it every day for the past 20 years.

Charlie Haden's Quartet West and Iro Haarla Quintet

My first concert of the 2008 Vancouver International Jazz Festival. I was going to go and see Beade Belle at Performance Works but some work related IT problems stopped me from getting out the door. I saw Charlie Haden a couple years back and walked out half way through the set because it was boring; either Charlie was off that night or I was because he was not boring tonight.

Great band: Charlie Haden's Quartet West with Charlie Haden bass, Ernie Watts tenor saxophone, Alan Broadbent piano, and Rodney Green drums. They all delivered great performances; strong solos and best of all they played together! I think one of my complaints last time was a repetitive approach to each song; group plays theme then every player has a solo and then reprise the theme - boring. This time they played together and kept the solos in check with Ernie Watts and Alan Broadbent doing some especially fine work.

Iro Haarla Quintet

Mostly Interesting stuff, very atmospheric but some good energy. I must admit I was nearly lulled to sleep at one point.

Swedish jazz pianist Esbjorn Svensson killed in accident

Swedish jazz pianist Esbjorn Svensson killed in accident: "Swedish jazz star Esbjorn Svensson died in a diving accident this weekend, his manager announced on Monday.

Police are conducting a routine investigation of the accident that killed the 44-year-old pianist, said Burkhard Hopper, manager of the vibrant, award-winning Esbjorn Svensson Trio.

Svensson died Saturday while diving off a small island near Stockholm.

The composer and pianist was a prominent figure in contemporary jazz. He helped dissolve boundaries between traditional jazz and other genres, with his efforts including the introduction of rock-inspired electronic elements.

Svensson's trio had its international breakthrough in 1999 with the album From Gagarin's Point of View and had recently finished its 12th album, Leukocyte, slated for release in September.

Dubbed e.s.t., the trio often played in rock venues, attracted a host of younger fans and won acclaim and awards across Europe, including in Sweden, France, the U.K. and Germany. In 2005, e.s.t. became the first European jazz band ever featured on the cover of U.S. jazz publication Downbeat magazine.

Svensson is survived by his wife and two children. No funeral details have yet been released."

This is sad news indeed. I had been looking forward to hearing them this festival.

Been more than a bit slack in posting

I haven't posted here for a while now but the festival season is starting up and that should generate some activity.

Nope nothing else just wanted to see if I remembered how to do this .

Vancouver International Dance Festival @ The Roundhouse 07/03/2008

I ushered for The Roundhouse for the Vancouver International Dance Festival last night. I like the Roundhouse, the venue, the staff and in this case the presenter.

It was a long shift but worth it all in all, I mainly signed up to see Sarah Williams, who I remembered from Lee Eisler's JumpStart very fondly. I found that I would also be seeing Toronto Dance Theatre and Arts Umbrella Dance Company.

Arts Umbrella Dance Company, very young, as is to be expected from an Arts Umbrella company (A not-for-profit society for visual and performing arts for children based in Vancouver). I wasn't able to see them all that well as I was still doing door as people drifted in and out of the "free" (if you bought a $3.00 membership) performance (a good deal by the way and there are number of performances/companies to come. Check out the VIDF website under Performances>Cabaret Stage Performances for more details). What I could see was enough to make me want to go back tonight and take a proper look.

Toronto Dance Theatre doing Chiasmata was the unexpected treat of the evening. I have seen them in the past at this festival and liked them then too. Great dancers, great choreography and great music/soundscape. Amazing movement and emotional range, it captured me fully and completely. I'd say catch it if you can there is one more performance tonight (08/03/2008).

The Sarah Williams from Eisler's JumpStart, was not the Sarah Williams that we got, not a bad thing but it took awhile to get used to. In fact, I was feeling disappointed until I shook off the old memories and tried to see her fresh. Three pieces: "croque-monsieur"; "Patty.Tania.Paige.
"; and "Glossy Poupée Says Can She
".

croque-monsieur I saw the least of, once again working the door and getting latecomers in, this is where I started to feel disappointment were conceptual and performance art oriented not the highly athletic physicality of my memory.

Patty.Tania.Paige.
 I managed to get seated for this piece and while I thought the conceit was clever, the idea of identity changing and the ways in which that change connected or was driven by a person's public persona. Was Patty Hearst an heiress, a kidnap victim, a revolutionary, an FBI victim, a convicted felon, a wife, a sex addict? Or all and more. What did not work for me at first at least, was how the movement informed the idea.

Glossy Poupée Says Can She
 This is were it clicked for me. Glossy Poupée reminded me of the bars and the women that worked in them from my bad old days. Rough side of town, exploitation without shame, fetishized pornography, fear. A parodied pornographic photo shoot that cut very close to the bone; a compelling look at the pain of a woman as she is made an object. With all the echoes of the disappeared women of the DTES and the murderous appetite of Robert Pickton.

Disturbing. One more performance. Might not be what you like but it might be what you need.