Grant Stewart – Next Spring
Grant Stewart; Tardo Hammer; Paul Sikivie; Phil Stewart
Cellar Music CMF110223 (grantstewartjazz.bandcamp.com/album/next-spring)

Toronto-born, New York City based Grant Stewart is a masterful tenor saxophonist, composer and producer. Additionally, he is the Director of the revolutionary and free-thinking Tribeca Jazz Institute. With over 20 CDs to his credit, this is Stewart’s fifth album for Cory Weeds and his impressive Cellar Live label. This well conceived project was beautifully recorded at the iconic and legendary Van Gelder Studios. Stewart’s collaborators here are three of the most refreshing and creative jazz artists on the scene today – pianist Tardo Hammer, bassist Paul Sikivie and (brother) Phil Stewart on drums.

The intriguing material on the recording includes rarely performed jazz standards, as well as five original compositions. Stewart was a student of the late, great Barry Harris, and although bop and post bop modalities are wonderfully present in Stewart’s writing and soloing, this is a cutting edge, technically thrilling, contemporary jazz album – rife with emotional depth and totally devoid of any over-trodden licks or trite modalities. 

First up is Next Spring by Marvin Jenkins. Stewart’s rich, warm tenor sound is a delight, and the quartet is tight. Hammer takes a dynamic solo here, not only displaying his technical chops, but also his superb choices and lush harmonic ideas. Sikivie and tasty, skilled drummer Stewart are deeply locked in, the bass solo fluid and facile. Wayne Shorter’s immortal, Nefartiti is also stirring, with the ensemble donning a sensual, languid and deeply swinging motif. 

A stand-out of this thoughtful programme is Harris’ composition, Father Flanagan, which was written in tribute to genius jazz pianist Tommy Flanagan. Stewart’s sonorous tenor sound, and the depth of sensitivity of the players here is stunning. This inspired recording is nothing short of a master class in the art of the jazz quartet. Every note has been created with skill, creative intention and taste.

Curtains of Light
Whitney Ross-Barris; various artists
Independent (whitneyrb.bandcamp.com/album/curtains-of-light)

Jazz vocalist, pianist and composer, Whitney Ross-Barris’ latest recording is a triumph of musical genre-blending and considerable artistic spelunking into the emotional depths of the things that make us human – including our innate ability to re-emerge into life following adversity through love, connection, creativity and community. A stellar cast was assembled for this project, including Amy Peck on saxophones, Rebecca Hennessy on trumpet, Drew Jurecka on violin and viola, Kevin Fox on cello, co-producer Michael Shand on keyboards/guitar, Eric St. Laurent on guitar, Lauren Falls on bass and Ben Wittman on drums/percussion. All 13 compelling tracks were composed by Ross-Barris and arranged by Shand and Jurecka. 

Every offering here is like a meticulously fashioned rare gem, but some clear highlights include the uplifting opener Bourgeois Reverie. Presented with a tasty horn arrangement, this song was inspired by punitive pandemic restrictions and is a reflective idyll on the little niceties of life and the personal connections that we were denied. An engaging and soulful blues, Up in the Night is a masterpiece of Ross-Barris’ technical skill, style, grace and understated elegance, supported by Shand’s B3 as well as supple, and pure backing vocals from Alex Samaras, Gavin Hope, Miku Graham, Mary van den Enden and Yvette Tollar. 

Other stand-outs on this unique and delightful recording include the breath-taking, a cappella Sunrise that boasts a superb vocal arrangement by Ross-Barris which seamlessly segues into There You Are, on which Jurecka’s inspired string arrangements are a thing of special, luminous beauty. The closing title track is another stunning ballad, fully realized with sumptuous strings, superb rhythm section and ensemble work, as well as superb and evocative vocals from Ross-Barris.

Listen to 'Curtains of Light' Now in the Listening Room

Heart’s Pace
Joshua Rager Quartet
Bent River Records BRR-202503CD (joshrager.bandcamp.com/album/hearts-pace)

It’s a mark of excellence when a recording with a guest artist achieves the band dynamic of a group that’s been together for decades. Montreal based pianist Josh Rager, bassist Alec Walkington, and drummer Rich Irwin, certainly have this lineage. The aforementioned guest is New York guitarist Peter Bernstein. 

Heart’s Pace doesn’t go out of its way to sound cutting edge, but it also resists any nostalgic trappings of neo-traditional jazz. This aesthetic makes Bernstein a perfect guest, as he has a grounded “old school” sensibility that he brings to 21st century playing. Rager arranged standards like I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face and Henry Mancini’s Dreamsville in an original way, and his original compositions hold their own alongside these classics.  

The quartet is captured beautifully at Montreal’s legendary Studio Pierre Marchand, a space revered by local and visiting musicians alike. The sounds are crisp without being sterile, which serves to further elevate and highlight the musicians’ individual artistry. I seldom pick “favourite” tracks when reviewing, but Fathers and Sons encapsulates a lot of what’s great about Heart’s Pace to me. There is complex moving harmony, brilliantly navigated in solos by Bernstein and Rager, placed atop a rock-solid swing feel from Walkington and Irwin.  

Occasionally I’d like to hear a take with longer solos by the band, but that’s a common paradox when recording improvisatory music. If anything, that’s just further impetus to hear these great musicians live, and in the meantime, give Heart’s Pace a listen!

Listen to 'Heart’s Pace' Now in the Listening Room

Words Underlined
Patrick Smith; Lowell Whitty; Dan Pitt
Lit Soc Records 001 (litsocrecords.bandcamp.com/album/words-underlined)

Saxophonist Patrick Smith has been a mainstay on the Toronto music scene for several years, carving out a creative and sustainable niche for himself. Words Underlined isn’t commercial or “mainstream,” but Smith is a consummate professional in those worlds, influencing his more adventurous creative playing in a positive way.  

Toronto is full of great musicians, but an easy place to get pigeon-holed. Some “creative” players lack a visceral approach gleaned through commercial work, while many commercial players prioritize a well pressed suit over the ability to improvise. Toronto’s historically successful and respected players (Doug Riley and Moe Koffman come to mind) straddled that fine line, and I think Smith is carrying that torch in his own way.  

Words Underlined features Dan Pitt on electric guitar and Lowell Whitty on drums. This bass-less format brings to mind drummer Paul Motian’s trio, but influenced or not, Smith’s Words Trio sounds unique. Pitt uses guitar effects in a tasteful way, never over-saturating his sound. Whitty contributes ample groove and embraces sparser moments too. Tracks like Hazel and As Years Go By utilize the intimate nature of the trio format, while parts of Banff demonstrate you don’t need a bassist to rock out.  

A versatile group needs a versatile venue, and Sellers and Newel was the perfect place to bring this music to life. I look forward to hearing what’s next from the Words Trio and fledgling Lit Soc Records!

Standard Elegance
Bill Coon
Cellar Music CMF121225 (billcoon.bandcamp.com/album/standard-elegance)

Bill Coon is a Vancouver based jazz guitarist and composer with an over 30-year history playing with many well-known jazz artists including Jimmy Heath, Sheila Jordan, Bucky Pizzarelli and Hugh Fraser. He has also performed on more than 50 recordings and has won “Guitarist of the Year” from the National Jazz Awards. Coon has written works for orchestras from the National Arts Centre, Vancouver, Norwegian Radio and Jill Townsend, as well as big bands and small jazz ensembles. 

Coon’s multifaceted activities serve in contrast to Standard Elegance, an exquisite album of jazz classics played on solo guitar. These 13 standards are treated warmly and introspectively by Coon on electric archtop and nylon string guitars. All the Things You Are shows off Coon’s beautiful chord melody skills and he also throws in some contrapuntal lines to contrast with the melody. The Nearness of You begins with some harmonics and sparingly harmonized melody and then slowly progresses through some beautifully arpeggiated chords before ending with the same harmonics. Here’s That Rainy Day has some delightful combinations of arpeggiated chords with just a hint of some bossa nova rhythms. 

Standard Elegance is both relaxing and engaging. It is a pleasure to listen to a fine musician displaying his craft.

Northbound to Finch
Maria Kaushansky; Paul Gill; Anthony Pinciotti
flat 6th records FS-1001 (mariakaushansky.com)

This is New York City-based jazz pianist Maria Kaushansky’s debut album. She was born in Russia, and her family emigrated to Israel. In the early 1990s they moved to Toronto when she was a young girl, where she grew up and went to university. All compositions are by Kaushansky here with nine main tracks and six alternate takes, each being her musical reflection and tribute to growing up in Toronto. She is joined by New Yorkers Paul Gill on bass, and the late Anthony Pinciotti on drums.

Opening title track Northbound to Finch is inspired by the Toronto Transit Commission’s Finch subway station, which was Kaushansky’s home stop. An opening loud repeated piano melody is supported by bass and drums. Happy ”almost home” jazz flavoured piano lines followed by louder sounds from the rhythm section. Sudden soft and slow tight playing is followed by solo piano to silence, like the station stop. Windchill -30, Kaushansky’s music about Toronto winters is so interesting. The solo “low temperature” bass start, then faster with drums, descending bass line like falling down, and piano “shivering” trills express Toronto’s extreme winter temperatures. 

Tight trio performances and beautiful creative playing paint a sonic portrait of Toronto. Each listener will have their own story based on listening to the tracks, whether or not you are from or live in Toronto. 

Kaushansky has also released a companion album, Northbound to Finch: Music for Ballet Class which has the compositions here adapted for ballet exercises.

Listen to 'Northbound to Finch' Now in the Listening Room

hORs TempS
Geraldine Eguiluz; Michel F. Côté
ambiences magnetiques am284 (actuellecd.com/fr/album/6813-hors-temps)

Reversed tape loops, strummed micro gestures and percussive elements sourced from increasingly esoteric places encircle something less akin to a pulse than some greater subtextual unifying logic. The source of these seemingly endless subtle sonic events – be it primary or found – does not grab you as much as the question of their seamless coexistence. 

This is music that journeyed quite a ways to get here; somehow all that you are hearing is born from the early 1990s when Géraldine Eguiluz was in Paris, and recorded some sounds on cassettes. Returning to one’s work after a prolonged span of time can perhaps come with an inherent freshness  and Eguiluz warped, molded, deconstructed, recontextualized and eroded the sounds on these tapes through collage which is another category of introspective creation. Take Territoires perdus #3 for instance, where from a handful of vocal tracks stem harmonies that feel like they are only attained through this medium, as sustained breathy backgrounds envelop heavily edited streams of gibberish, creating a unique atmosphere of uncanniness and one of the many inscrutably hyper specific feelings achieved throughout this project. 

Adding Michel F. Côté ostensibly adds an entire additional process to the creative mix, as he is another universe in himself with all the audial information he is able to generate through countless means. Around track five, the “how” becomes less enthralling than the “what.”

Listen to 'hORs TempS' Now in the Listening Room

Music is Life
Joe Bowden
Independent (theurbanyoda.com)

Delightfully infectious fusion outing from Joe Bowden’s ludicrously stacked band, every track demands repeated listening, just by virtue of how catchy the grooves are, how expertly mixed the elements are, and how every solo is a standout. An incredible midpoint has been found between dazzlingly complex metrical wizardry and fundamentally bouncy accessible songcraft, a breath of fresh air to say the least. This is music that works in the foreground, works in the background (the blissful Spacing Out is aptly named), works at work and works when one is feeling overanalytical. 

It could be said the band operates in two different capacities throughout the album: one being the Rich Brown iteration and one being the Mike Downes iteration. This is a little reductive, as other variables are not beholden to which bass player is present, but there is a welcome shift in sonic identity every time one swaps in for the other. Bowden’s drums are always driving and propelling proceedings forth, but how the elements of the kit synergize with Brown’s electric and Downes’ acoustic playing is a subtle difference that makes a world of difference when it comes to the expressive depth of this project. Not so coincidentally, both bassists have absolutely showstopping solos at various points. Other key members include Warren Wolf (vibraphone) and Manuel Valera (piano). Overall, this is a band that allows the nuances in the music to speak the loudest. Plenty of rewinding, head-shaking and exclamations of “how did they…” will ensue.

Impact
Steve Holt Jazz Impact Quintet
Independent IMD108 (steveholtmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-steve-holt-jazz-impact-quintet-impact)

Truly brimming with life, this release delivers on its album art and audacious title with a sound that is not grandiose or bombastic per se but makes an enduring impact on the listener. The intangibles that come with being a great bandleader may not necessarily be immediately apparent in many recordings, but this one feels like an exception. These songs have a real, ever-present sense of direction to them, and to say that everything about the quintet’s approach to these tunes feels airtight would be an understatement. 

Steve Holt’s keyboard playing is very prominent in the mix and this emphasis on harmonic information and rhythmic interplay serves as an anchor for everything that ensues within these intricate compositions. The B section of Second Voyage, when Holt briefly doubles what Kevin Turcotte and Perry White have in the melody, is a moment that conveys real heft, beyond just being extremely pretty. Meanwhile, the head of The Unveiling is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hail of countermelodies and shots, with Holt’s left-hand doubling of Duncan Hopkins’ bass pedal feeling as essential an aspect of the piece as anything else. 

Owing to the precision and grace of the playing, this music is always fleet-footed (even the ballads) yet there are moments of tenderness prevalent throughout. Again, this album delivers on its title in a very holistic, diverse and abundant sense.

No Kings!
No Kings!
JACC Records 59 (jaccrecords.bandcamp.com/album/no-kings)

Recorded in 2022, before the U.S. anti-Trump No Kings protests, the 78 minutes of creative sounds by this quartet exemplify the freedom totalitarians abhor. Americans, tenor saxophonist John Dikeman, bassist William Parker and percussionist Hamid Drake, plus Portuguese trumpeter Luís Vicente are perfectly in sync as they propel sound variations ranging from brass portamento and staccato triplets, the reedist’s renal growls, elevated screams or multiphonic shredding and powerful ambulating bass and drum action, without one overwhelming the others’ assertions as President Donald Trump has done to other U.S. government branches.

Despite a mid-point tempo acceleration the quartet vigorously maintains a steady pulse of drum backbeats and walking bass lines. This takes place even with unexpected interjections from Parker’s gimbri strums or wooden flute peeps that are matched by Vicente’s bell shakes and bamboo flute whistles and Drake’s frame drum vibrations. Together these interjections neatly intensify the exposition of stretched staccato trumpet smears and hearty reed scoops and honks. 

The group groove attained remains even after a pause for prolonged audience applause followed by a brief recapitulation of brass tongue flutters and ascending reed tongue twists. Modulating among free-form exploration and carefully positioned narratives, this group of No Kings! defines effective and perceptive group interaction while metaphorically suggesting what pre-MAGA American democracy used to resemble.

Vibrations in the Village Live at the Village Gate
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Resonance Records HCD 2081 (rahsaanrolandkirklive.bandcamp.com/album/vibrations-in-the-village-live-at-the-village-gate)

When Rahsaan Roland Kirk died after his second major stroke at 42 in 1977, jazz lost a major sound innovator who was also an unabashed entertainer. But Kirk, who overcame the impairments of blindness and a 1975 stroke which forced him to play with one arm, always performed without compromising or condescending. Naturally ebullient, on this 77-minute gig, he not only plays a music store’s collection of instruments, including tenor saxophone, stritch, manzello, flute, nose flute, whistle and oboe, often two or three simultaneously, but also vocalizes a sly anti-racist blues.

Although backed by Sonny Brown’s tough backbeat drumming, Henry Grimes’ bass pulse and three different pianists, Jane Getz, Horace Parlan or Melvin Rhyme, who are alternately bluesy, minimalist or highly rhythmic, the set is rightly focused on Kirk’s work. He creates an unsentimental, throbbing flute version of the ballad Laura with the same ingenuity he brings to tricky chord and pitch changes on swift originals like Ecclusiastics and Three For the Festival. He dexterously appends quotes from other tunes, playing two reeds at once, whistles for emphasis and once duets with himself on transverse and nose flute. He even uses the oboe’s snarky vibrato to originate a double-time, nearly unaccompanied blues groove.

Recorded in 1963 at the height of Kirk’s communicative powers, it’s easy to ignore the occasional audience cross talk, even when there isn’t a bass solo, to appreciate comprehensive sounds that would never be heard again.

Ruta De La Clave
Joaquin Núñez & Habana Safari
Lula World Records LWR051A (lulaworldrecords.ca/joaquin-nunez-habana-safari)

Five years in the making, noted JUNO-winning, Cuban-Canadian percussionist, composer and producer, Joaquin Núñez has produced an exquisite, contemporary Latin-Jazz recording. Núñez’s partner here is sizzling New York City-based Cuban pianist, Dayramir Gonzalez. All of the superb compositions were penned by the pair, and are a celebration of the essential heartbeat of Afro-Jazz, the “clave” rhythm, which can be found in nearly every Latin-Indigenous culture positioned along the Caribbean slave routes from West Africa.

Although incorporating motifs from a number of Latin musics – this CD is clearly a New York project, infused with Cuban cultural identity, but also baptized in that special energy, creativity and magic that can only be found in one place. Núñez’s gifted colleagues here, include Gonzalez on piano/keyboards, Roberto Riveron and Paco Luviano on bass, Alexander Brown on trumpet and flugelhorn, Jeff King on tenor sax, Luis Deniz on alto sax, Bill McBirnie on flute, Colleen Allen on clarinet, Esteban Vargas on violin and viola, and vocalists Marta Elena, Joanna Majoko and Dyalis Núñez-Machado.

Things kick off with the incendiary Afrocubanos, which features thrilling percussion from Núñez, potent bop-infused horn lines and a face-melting tenor solo by King, as well as a ridiculous trumpet solo by Brown. The listener takes a deep dive into Afro-Cuban mysticism on Mi Changui, supported by dynamic vocals and an exquisite solo from Deniz on alto as well as a volcanic percussion-infused coda.  Other stand out tunes include the stirring title track Ruta De La Clave, which boasts a skilled arrangement with plenty of Cuban flavour, and the magnificent Una Guajira En NY (Cuban country girl in New York), which is loaded with fine bop-centric soloing and continued reverence to the sacred “clave” itself!

This Thing Called Love
Liona Boyd
Moston Music 471603 (lionaboyd.com)

Internationally renowned, multi-award-winning Canadian musician Liona Boyd blends her classical guitar with folk, pop and Latin music, her singing, and song/lyrics writing skills here. This surprisingly memorable 14-track release, Boyd explains, “covers” her full range of lifetime emotional experiences. It marks her 50-year career, which has included more than 30 recordings.

The first two tracks are covers. The Everly Brother’s Bye Bye Love has Boyd singing with Mark Masri (of The Tenors) in an upbeat rendition with guitar strums and solos. Producer and longtime collaborator Peter Bond’s bass supports Boyd and Srdjan Givoje vocals in Jamaica Farewell. Two of Boyd’s earlier collaborative compositions/recordings are reimagined here. Gordon Lightfoot, a tribute to the late musician’s classics, includes Ronnie Hawkins vocals. Boyd also revisits her collaboration with the late Olivia Newton-John on lead and harmony vocals, with classical instrumental touches in Summer Dreams.

The other tracks are Boyd compositions. My Dog (Dedicated to all animal lovers) is a heartwarming song about pets, in duet with Andrew Dolson, who also plays steel string guitar here. Guitar melody phrasing is perfect. Nice woof-woof like guitar plucks at the ending. My Canada is a rambunctious patriotic work featuring a full orchestra arranged by Mark Lalarna, choirs and numerous Canadian vocalists. Boyd passionately expresses her personal feelings in the instrumental This Thing Called Love, a moving Boyd/Dolson classical guitar duet. Introspective My Life Alone, and high-pitched Living on Borrowed Time are heartbreaking storytelling songs about the ups and downs of Boyd’s life.

Thanks to this iconic artist for sharing her personal emotions and this marvellous music.

Listen to 'This Thing Called Love' Now in the Listening Room

Once the preserve of virtuosi and usually limited to a few designated instruments such as the piano and the violin, solo concerts began featuring many more instruments in the concert field and jazz, especially during the later half of the 20th century. The growth of improvised music during that time bolstered the individualized concept even further and now it’s possible to find solo expositions for as many instruments as exist anywhere. Of course, the idea of solo playing involves timbral enhancement, not reduction and the sounds on these discs comprehensively reflect this approach.

Banish any thoughts of Lawrence Welk schmaltz or endless choruses of Peg of My Heart from the squeeze box when contemplating Swiss accordionist Jonas Kocher’s Archipelago (Bruit Editions BR 17 bruit-asso.bandcamp.com/album/archipelago). Divided into seven parts, the unpredictable improvisation slides among tempos, pitches and emphasis as Kocher uses bellows glissandi plus button pressure and release to outline the narrative. At points allowing largo drones or repeated shakes to confirm the ongoing exposition, his sudden staccato jabs or pinpointed accents break up the sequences enough so that inserts including treble key tension, sudden stops and pulsing almost-electronic shrills are constantly associated. As likely to winnow chords as to ascend to pipe-organ-like chordal augmentations, Archipelago contains its own wood slapping percussion and responsive jiggles while maintaining logical horizontal ambulation. Additionally, among the presto mechanized pivots, key stops and resonating squeaks and shrills, melodic fragments exist that harmonize enough to tone down unwarranted stridency,

Listen to 'Archipelago' Now in the Listening Room

Another solo flight which has become almost standard in the jazz-improvised music world, especially after the pioneering efforts of Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton and others in the 1960s, is the unaccompanied saxophone session. Looms & Legends (Pyroclastic Records PR 41 nedrothenberg.bandcamp.com/album/looms-legends) is American Ned Rothenberg’s solitary statement with alto saxophone, Bb and A clarinets or shakuhachi. Although Rothenberg ends the disc with a strained breathy version of the jazz standard ‘Round Midnight that’s the only conventional tune here. Instead, he moves through timbral scrutiny, study and story telling with his reeds. Irregularly projected with tongue slaps, bagpipe-like tremolo drones and consistent tone extensions, there are recurrent interludes where his andante lower-pitched flutters and shrill staccato cries advance two tandem lines with different pitches at the same time. Meantime, for example, Fra Gile moves from squirmy and slithery flutter tonguing to altissimo circular breathing, and then downshifts to more dissonant but consistent linear puffs. More forcefully, a track like, Plun Jah alternates spetrofluctuation and pinched clarinet trills until reaching straight-ahead line extensions. Others, including Resistance Anthem work their way horizontally with languid balladic suggestions in advance of single alto saxophone bites slowly ascending with taut variations. With many other instances of circular breathing and intense clarion reed whooshes and whorls, the key definition of Rothenberg’s ideas among the 14 tracks is the give-away titled Urgency. Making full use of continuous reed slurs and slides and the timbral extensions of nearly every tone, a steady ostinato continues at the same time that tongue, mouth and air approaches encompass reflexive reflux. This hardens into snorts and snarls until a combination of those textures and emphasized mouthpiece squeaks confirms the harmonized narrative until it fades away. 

If singular extemporization is a challenge for musicians when they have bellows, buttons and a keyboard at their disposal or multiple woodwind keys, imagine how it is improvising with nothing but three valves, a manipulating slide and a body tube. But that’s what Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser does on 18 monologues élastiques (Blaser Music BMO 18 CD samuelblaser.bandcamp.com/album/18-monologues-lastiques). Not the first to do so, and actually his second solo disc, these monologues are even more unique. That’s because he recorded the album while walking through multiple acoustically-designed areas in Berlin’s famous Funkhaus studio complex. With tracks lasting from 32 seconds to six minutes, the building’s spatial qualities are also adapted to the creation. At points you hear footfalls as he enters a space along with brass textures moving from distant to close up. Sometimes trombone output reflects the location as on Torture Room when detached mouthpiece whistles become murmuring howls and rumbling snarls as brass metal is rubbed against the floorboards. Grand 8 features wide gutbucket slurs that reflect back from the walls, with here and on other tracks antiphonic responses taking two identities, one slurry and horizontal the other fragmented. The speedy 78 instead of 45 is double- tongued, staccato and almost martial, as notes refract onto themselves and slither up to prestissimo. Meanwhile La promesse de l’aube is built around speedy glissandi that when moderated become rounded and almost mellow, but when emphasized turn to triplets. Oddly enough the concluding Waedamah is so linear that the mid-range and moderated tones nearly replicate lyrical jazz standards. However brass pressure is adumbrated on the extended Le grand numéro as the detached slide is banged against the trombone’s body to create metallic clanks as prestissimo yelps echo off the studio walls, then gradually thicken and widen as they bend into subterranean tones.

Listen to '18 monologues élastiques' Now in the Listening Room

There are prominent stops and pops as well on NYAEBA (Whirlwind Recordings WR4838 richbrown-whirlwind.bandcamp.com), but ones only produced with thumbs and fingers. That’s how Toronto’s Rich Brown uses a 6-string electric bass, a 4-string semi-acoustic fretless bass and e-bowed electric bass to define his eight variants on solo playing. Someone who has participated in projects with the likes of Rudresh Mahanthappa and James “Blood” Ulmer, here he cannily matches the instrument(s)’ rhythmic and resonant roles with textures that also resemble those from a guitar, a kalimba, idiophones and synthesized strings. In a way NYAEBA is an updated version of Spiritual Jazz of the 1970s, with less percussion and uneven expositions, but pinpointed versatility. Confirming his jazz influences, Brown plays Heart of a Lonely Woman, which incorporates Ornette Coleman’s classic tune and bookends his elevated interpretation on Turiyasangitananda - The Transcendental Lord’s Highest Song of Bliss with audio clips from an interview with Alice Coltrane, known for her transcendental music. The first has a slippery and slinky exposition with buzzes and bumps advancing underneath the familiar theme played on the instrument’s top strings. Reflecting instrumentally Coltrane’s statements with a consistent meditative drone on the latter track, Brown’s elevated finger picking projects a groove on top of what is a vaguely eastern-leaning canon. Other tracks project folkloric airs with chiming guitar-like elaborations in stop-start melodies anchored by double bass-like stops. Then there are those like Nyaeba (The Griot) and Kalagala Ebwembe where blurred fingering creates Africanized ngoni-like frails at the same time as thick thumps resemble a jazz bass solo. Since Brown’s soloing is eclectic, not exhibitionist, variations throughout maintain a groove as well as melodic extensions.

More expected but unique solo explorations of acoustic double bass textures are on Rumble | Rubble | Ripple (Endectomorph Music EMM-029 andrewschiller.bandcamp.com/album/rumble-rubble-ripple) by Boston-based academic and improviser Andrew Schiller. Drawing on the standard repertoire as well as diversions into folkloric, improv and aleatoric music, Schuller’s is the only album here that includes interpretations of familiar tunes such as Skylark and You Must Believe in Spring. The recognizable melody of the second is framed with adagio bowing, then with measured nonchalance doubled and finally defined with single sul tasto strokes. Meanwhile Skylark is introduced in triple time as the theme is deconstructed in single notes then reprised at an even quicker pace. More generic to his ideas, Schiller’s magnified low tones are the antithesis of Brown’s electrified pitch leaps. Hard string stops with prestissimo or staccato thumps bring out the instrument’s woody resonance as processional patterns move consistently forward. Despite pivots in tempos, speeds and intensity, light and more lyrical motifs also exist within the improvisations. Instances of this two-pronged approach are on Blueberry Phase and Satellite. The former is built around scouring narrow bow work that reaches strident constriction then downshifts to a more moderated exposition though with harsh string pulls as a climax. Satellite on the other hand tweaks expectations by interpolating snatches of Norwegian Wood and other lyrical stanzas in between stop-start evolution of singular woody thumps, and introduces a melodic reprise at the end.

These musicians have adopted various strategies to emphasize their concepts of how to present solo sessions to their best advantage. Rather than thinking of the results as missing timbres from other instruments, the use of extended techniques adds textures to solo playing which makes these sessions more productive than reductive.

Why do I so often talk about myself as I write this column? Personal connections open doors, and ears, especially with the esoteric field of contemporary music. As I learned during my time as general manager of New Music Concerts from founder Robert Aitken, hearing firsthand from the composer – for the audience at pre-concert chats and post-concert receptions – can really foster understanding and curiosity about challenging repertoire and approaches to music-making. Of course, I also had the opportunity to get to know the composers during their often-week-long rehearsal sessions with our musicians.

Brady: New Music Concerts was not my first opportunity to meet composers in person and discuss their work, however. From 1984 through 1991 I was the host of “Transfigured Night” on CKLN-FM and in my first year of broadcasting I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Brady, an accomplished jazz guitarist who also composes for the concert hall. I believe he was the first guest on my overnight radio program. We discussed an album of his piano music recorded by Marc Widner on the Apparition label. This was the first of many encounters with this prodigious artist over the past 40 years, including a subsequent interview about his Chamber Concerto commissioned for New Music Concerts’ 15th anniversary event in 1986. There were numerous collaborations during my own tenure with NMC, most notably when we presented his opera Three Cities in the Life of Doctor Norman Bethune in 2005 and the evening-long multi-media creation My 20th Century in 2009. I also had the opportunity to perform in Brady’s Instruments of Happiness project While 100 Guitars Gently Weep – Concerto for George at Luminato in 2018, so my relationship with Tim is many-faceted. 

In my column last issue, I speculated that Alice Ping Yee Ho may be Canada’s most prolific and most recorded composer, but I now realize that Brady’s output rivals hers, with some 30 CDs of his own, plus a dozen more that include his work. There are also four no longer available vinyl LPs, three of which are still in rotation on my turntable, including the abovementioned Music for Solo Piano. 

2025 saw two releases, a double CD of solo (although many layered) works, For Electric Guitar (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/for-electric-guitar) and The Possibility of a New Work for String Quartet: Tim Brady String Quartets Nos. 3-5 which features the Montreal-based Warhol Dervish String Quartet (leaf.music/leaf-music-tim-brady-and-warhol-dervish-string-quartet-present-the-possibility-of-a-new-work-for-string-quartet). This album’s name is derived from the String Quartet No.3 “The (Im)Possibility of a New Work for String Quartet.” 

Brady says “In March 2019 I woke up one morning with this idea in my head: It’s impossible to write another string quartet – so many have been written – there is literally nothing left to do with the medium. I needed to think of the string quartet not as a finished product (a score) but as a process for making music. So, I wrote a bunch of instructions on how the members of a quartet should compose their own quartet. These instructions are… ‘Write a fake folk tune,’ ‘Sustain notes in F minor’ ‘Make a big noise,’ etc.—it never tells them precisely where to go or what to do but jump-starts the collaborative process.” I find this iteration of the work – the players are instructed to tear up the score at the end of the performance to insure no two presentations will be alike – very convincing, and I was captivated by the “fake folk song,” a kind of a dirge reminiscent of some of the rustic children’s songs that Béla Bartók collected. Not having read the program note in advance, I had no clue that this wasn’t through-composed, it seemed so organic.

Since sketching the outline for that work Brady has evidently found a way to reconcile himself to the medium, and the two subsequent quartets are fully fledged contributions to the genre. Brady says String Quartet No.4 from 2020 is “quite sparse and transparent, and generally slow and meditative. I also use quarter-tone harmonies in a few places in this piece... It gives a soft, almost fuzzy feel to these chords which suits the reflective nature of the work.” 

“#5 was also totally unbidden. I woke up one morning in October 2022 (near the end of the pandemic when we all had time to sit and ruminate on many things, including string quartets) and had this idea: a really big multi-movement string quartet with lots of notes and big contrasts—why not? Say 30 minutes: a good chunk of time, something that the players and listeners could really sink their teeth (ears) into. The plan is five movements—including two slow movements, with ample opportunity for the players to push their rhythmic agility and ensemble acuity. It’s a bit of a ‘chops-buster,’ but Warhol Dervish give an impressive performance.” And that’s true of all three works. By the way, Brady tells us that he has since written a sixth string quartet.

Regarding For Electric Guitar I’ll simply quote from the press release: “The three works it encompasses are all solo guitar pieces that he composed for himself to play. Throughout its 80+ minute runtime… Brady manages to embrace a plethora of styles and approaches with languid ambiences and textures, driving post-minimalist composition, nods to prog and jazz, and vital gestural moments that relate to modern concert music. The titular piece even echoes the format of a concerto, with Brady varying his tone to allow him to behave as both the soloist and ensemble.” It’s a striking achievement. 

And if you found my mention of Brady’s 100 Guitars project intriguing you can check out the latest 

Installment from the 2025 Brisbane Festival on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=Kqfjd4aAsO4&t=11s), where you can also find the George Harrison tribute (youtube.com/watch?v=3M_4_FTW1wY).

Listen to 'For Electric Guitar' Now in the Listening Room

Listen to 'The Possibility of a New Work for String Quartet' Now in the Listening Room

Boulez: A couple of issues ago I wrote extensively about having the opportunity to spend some time with Pierre Boulez, one of the truly great composers and conductors of our era, during my time as general manager of New Music Concerts. The context of that reminiscence was the release of a seemingly definitive set of recordings of his collected works, Boulez the Composer (DG 4847513, 13 CDs) which came out to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. I recently found a stunning complement to that collection, Quatuor Diotima’s own tribute to Boulez’s centenary, a recording of his Livre pour quatuor (pentatonemusic.com/product/boulez-livre-pour-quatuor). The album features the world premiere of the piece’s fourth movement, which the composer conceived in close cooperation with the members of Diotima (who, incidentally, performed for New Music Concerts back in 2011). 

“Working on Pierre Boulez’ Livre pour quatuor was one of the founding projects of the quartet when we began in 1996. However, the project had to be postponed due to an ongoing collaboration on the same score with the Parisii Quartet. About fifteen years later, Boulez agreed to initiate a new collaboration with us around this piece. This took place within the context of a four-concert cycle project, ‘Schoenberg / Beethoven’ in which we proposed to include each of the six movements of the Livre pour quatuor between the works of those two Viennese masters, involving the creation of the fourth movement, which had previously remained unfinished… Unfortunately, severe vision problems forced [Boulez] to give up composing and conducting. The task of reconstructing this unfinished movement was therefore entrusted to Philippe Manoury. We are proud to have been associated with this project and delighted to have finally been able to record this complete version of the Livre pour quatuor.” 

The Parisii’s 2001 recording of the then existing five movements was included in the DG set mentioned above. Thanks to this exquisite new release by the Diotima I can now consider my Boulez collection complete.

Lachenmann: Another iconic composer I had the pleasure of meeting through New Music Concerts is Helmut Lachenmann (b.1935). Known for his “musique concrète instrumental,” Lachenmann’s music makes extreme demands on the players, utilizing a plethora of unconventional playing techniques which produce unusual sounds from conventional instruments. Often entire pieces unfold without any traditionally “musical” tones, melodies or harmonies. This is exemplified on Lachenmann: Works for String Quartet (pentatonemusic.com/product/lachenmann-works-for-string-quartet), the fruit of a 25-year collaboration between Quatuor Diotima and that visionary composer. 

Their first meeting in 1998, originally just a one-week workshop, sparked a deep artistic bond and a shared fascination with his radical approach to sound and listening. This album is the result of hundreds of hours spent in rehearsal, performance, and conversation with the composer. It doesn’t make for easy listening, even in comparison to the rigours of the music of Boulez, but patient and careful listening will reward the adventurous musical soul. 

Quatuor Diotima is not the only ensemble to have benefited from working with Helmut Lachenmann. Back in 2003 an early iteration of the JACK Quartet came to Toronto for an intensive masterclass with him under the auspices of New Music Concerts. Fully matured, JACK would return to headline a concert co-presented by NMC with Music Toronto a dozen years later, but this encounter with Lachenmann was a formative experience for the young quartet. 

Wourinen: another iconic composer who graced the stage of NMC during my tenure is Charles Wuorinen (1938-2020). Perhaps best known for his opera Brokeback Mountain, Wuorinen’s uncompromising oeuvre encompassed solo works to large orchestral scores and included electronic compositions, such as 1970’s Time’s Encomium for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. A recent addition to his discography, MEGALITH (rezrecordz.com/megalith), comprises six works from the composer’s later years. JACK is joined by violist Miranda Cuckson and cellist Jay Cambell for Zoe (2012) which to my ear harkens back to the serialism of the Second Viennese School (rather than to the lush textures of Schoenberg’s own string sextet Verklärte Nacht). 

The disc begins with Spin 5, a concerted work from 2006 for solo violin (Alexi Kenney) and an ensemble of 18 musicians conducted by James Baker, and also includes a piano concerto, the title work from 2014, featuring Peter Serkin and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra under Matthias Pintscher. Filled out with an extended work for solo oboe (Jacqueline Leclair) and mixed sextet, Buttons and Bows for cello (Michael Nicolas) and accordion (Mikko Luoma), and Scherzo for solo piano (Tengku Irfan) this collection is a testament to the importance of one of the most challenging American composers of the last half century.

Laplante: While JACK Quartet is only peripherally involved in the Wuorinen recording, they are front and centre on Travis Laplante – String Quartets 1 & 2 (New Amsterdam Records travislaplante.bandcamp.com/album/string-quartets). The Brooklyn-based composer and saxophonist was deeply moved by the experience of reading W. A. Mathieu’s seminal theory book The Harmonic Experience. This led to an interest in resonance which led to studies with Mathieu, and ultimately to a PhD in composition at Princeton University. 

Laplante’s fascination with resonance guided him into the world of just intonation using the Helmholtz-Ellis notation system, and into collaborating with JACK Quartet who have extensive experience working within this musical framework. This is particularly noticeable in the first movement of String Quartet No.1 where the slowly unfolding muted opening has a medieval quality. The second movement, which also opens quietly, develops into minimalist textures and arpeggios referred to as [Philip] Glass-esque by the composer. 

“String Quartet No.2 leads the listener to harmonic spaces that challenge our perception of beauty and resonance. The longing melodic payoff at the end of the piece comes only after moving through an intense harmonic passage that pushes and pulls consonant harmony to its extremes. JACK Quartet performs at the very edge of intensity where any push can break the music, yet they remain in total control…” 

I see I have, as usual, used up most of my allotment talking about myself, but there are several other striking discs which came our way that I want to bring to your attention before they get too “long of tooth.” To keep things brief, I’ll rely on the accompanying press releases for the basic info. I want to assure you, however, that after repeated listenings I can, in all cases, wholeheartedly embrace the publicists’ enthusiasms.

To start, I want to make amends to one of our reviewers, Sam Dickinson, whose disc Gemini Duets (tqmrecordingco.com/sam-dickinson-gemini-duets) somehow fell through the cracks when it was released last spring. “Gemini Duets was envisioned as a mainly solo guitar album ‘with a few overdubs,’ but quickly grew into a broader project offering dense contemporary soundscapes, multi-tracked duets, and unaccompanied vignettes. This exciting new music was captured at the historic Sharon Temple in Aurora, Ontario by Ron Skinner. 

“Effects and electronics have been part of Dickinson’s sound since he first began playing guitar, and Gemini Duets has a healthy helping of these sounds without them taking away from the notes and song-forms.” Dickinson describes this mandate as “I’ve always been interested in how differently I play depending on my instrument and setup of choice. That said, I’m amply careful not to stray from the core of the music itself just to ‘experiment’ with new gadgets and gizmos.” 

The result is a solid offering based in straight-ahead jazz idioms ranging from contemplative and balladic tracks to playful turns and rich, resonant soundscapes.

A co-commission and co-production of City Opera Vancouver and Pacific Opera Victoria, MISSING was created to confront the ongoing crisis of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). More than half the cast and crew are of Indigenous background, yet as librettist Marie Clements – herself of Métis/Dene heritage – comments: “To me and to so many other people, this is not an Indigenous issue; it’s a human issue. As human beings we have a responsibility to end this, and so we’re asking for people to open their hearts, to be able to comprehend on an emotional level what’s really happening.” Guggenheim Fellowship and Juno Award-winning composer Brian Current (now artistic director of New Music Concerts) joined the project after the libretto was completed and composed the music in close partnership with the cast and cultural advisors. 

Set in Vancouver and along the Highway of Tears, MISSING was premiered in November 2017 at City Opera Vancouver and toured by Pacific Opera Victoria in British Columbia and Saskatchewan in 2019. This recording (Bright Shiny Things brightshiny.ninja/missing) features ATOM (Artists of the Opera Missing, including sopranos Cait Wood and Melody Courage and mezzo Marion Newman) and Toronto’s Continuum Ensemble. Conductor and musical director Timothy Long, says: “Being a Muscogee/Choctaw man, I have often felt alone in this musical world, but MISSING revealed the purpose of my path. The victims and the families looked like my family and me. It pivoted my life trajectory towards representing all Indigenous people.”

According to Current, “Working on MISSING alongside Indigenous artists and listening to families of the missing quietly shifted how I see the world. I hope this recording invites the same kind of awakening.” I think it will. 

In 2015 New Music Concerts commissioned Canadian Anna Pidgorna to create a piece based on her Ukrainian heritage for a concert featuring a new work by Odessa native Karmella Tsepkolenko. The result was Weeping, for mixed sextet based on rural Ukrainian traditional mourning songs, which Pidgorna had discovered through archival recordings during field work in Ukraine in 2012. Mesmerized by the sonic qualities and emotional power of these songs, a new chapter in her musical development began.

“Invented Folk Songs (redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/invented-folksongs) is a set of songs resulting from her traveling to Ukraine to study with traditional music practitioners. Returning from this period abroad, she subsequently arranged to study voice [at] Princeton with the intention of building her own hybrid vocal sound. The bold, powerful voice she has since cultivated, is couched here in matching ensemble textures that capture the drive and raw emotion of folk music, yet stray far from traditionalism in their form and sound. She has harnessed the strengths of both musical realms, rather than blending superficially. She finds the places where traditional playing overlaps with so-called extended techniques, and expands upon the compositional features of these folk songs that are ripe for experimentation… The lyrics, also written by Pigorna, function similarly, drawing on folkloric imagery and tropes to formulate relevant commentary, often with a strong feminist bent.” The booklet includes the lyrics in her hybrid Ukrainian dialects with full English translations.

Pidgorna is accompanied by the Ludovico Ensemble, a Boston-based chamber group specializing in modern music, known for focusing on specific and often unusual instrumentations. For this recording the instruments are violin, cello, double bass, cimbalom, piano and percussion.

Listen to 'Invented Folk Songs' Now in the Listening Room

When I first started collecting contemporary “classical” music, I was intrigued to find that the Louisville (Kentucky) Orchestra, contrary to common wisdom, was specializing in modern music and trying to support itself by commissioning and recording new orchestral works. Evidently the practice continues to this day, some 90 years after the orchestra’s founding by Robert Whitney. 

Cellostatus (brightshiny.ninja/cellostatus), is the debut album from Louisville Orchestra principal cellist Nicholas Finch and the NouLou Chamber Players (Louisville), conducted by Jason Seber. Comprising three world premiere works – by Dorian Wallace, Alyssa Weinberg, and Ljova – commissioned by Finch and the ensemble, the album’s far-flung inspirations include the Kübler-Ross stages of grief (Wallace), the Latin word caligo meaning darkness or obscurity (Weinberg), and the ubiquity of the smartphone and social media (Ljova). Finch is in fine form, ably rising to all the diverse challenges in these attractive works.

My introduction to Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord was a recording on modern instruments by Leonard Rose (cello) and Glenn Gould (piano). I became enamoured of these “true contrapuntal jewels,” but I must say that hearing them on period instruments has opened my ears in a whole new way (atmaclassique.com/en/product/the-sonatas-by-bach-for-viola-da-gamba-and-obbligato-harpsichord). 

“These works offer a dialogue of remarkable eloquence between two instruments engaging on equal footing, revealing both the expressive depth and architectural refinement of Bach’s chamber writing. 

Margaret Little and Christophe Gauthier offer a performance that is at once precise, flexible, and deeply expressive. Their musical rapport highlights the nuanced palette of the viola da gamba and the brilliance of the harpsichord, illuminating the emotional power of Bach in a recording that is both vibrant and elegant.” 

Two pieces by Antoine Forqueray — La Couperin and La Buisson — complete the program with their virtuosity and distinctly French refinement. A truly refreshing experience.

As with the Bach sonatas, I first heard Beethoven’s cello sonatas recorded by Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter, and my current favourite recording features Pieter Wispelwey and Dejan Lazić, again on modern instruments (Channel Classics CCS SA 22605). I must say, however, that a new period performance of Beethoven Cello Sonatas, Op. 5 by cellist Keiran Campbell and Sezi Seskir (fortepiano) (leaf.music/keirancampbell-seziseskir-beethoven) is growing on me for its sheer rawness and exuberance. 

“Performing on a fortepiano with its leather hammers, and on a gut-strung cello with a supple classical bow allows the players to recapture these beloved sonatas’ intended original sound. The two cello sonatas (Nos. 1 and 2) were composed in 1796, and saw Beethoven attempting to make the two instruments more equal while celebrating the capabilities of the five-octave piano.” 

Campbell is co-principal cello of Tafelmusik, and on faculty at the Chamber Music Collective, an intensive chamber music program on period instruments which focuses on post-1750 performance practice. Seskir is a co-founder of the Chamber Music Collective, and an associate professor of Music at Bucknell University. Together they bring new life to these timeless pieces.

Listen to 'Beethoven Cello Sonatas, Op. 5' Now in the Listening Room

Canadian cellist and composer Daniel Hass has built an impressive career that encompasses a diverse range of pursuits, genres, and achievements. He has performed as soloist with orchestras across Canada, the United States, and Europe; and has received numerous commissions, including one from the Glenn Gould Foundation, The Lord of Toronto, His Pavin, for cello and piano dedicated to Glenn Gould.

He wrote to me earlier this year to say “I’m excited to share my next milestone: my debut album Love and Levity (travislaplante.bandcamp.com/album/string-quartets). […] This recording features my original compositions for string quartet and piano quartet, performed by the Renaissance String Quartet and other collaborating artists. These quartets are Beethovenian at heart, in their thematic and structural tautness, but draw from contemporary musics such as Jazz and Folk along the way… [They] were written in the summer of 2021. There was a pandemic going on, and I spent most of the summer in my apartment, reading books and feeling the momentum of life melting away in the heat.”

While the COVID lockdown was not such a productive time for many people, Hass certainly put his isolation to good use, crafting these fine chamber works. 

David Olds can be reached at discoveries@thewholenote.com.