Jazz and Improvised

Montréal Jazz Trio
Steve Amirault; Adrian Vedady; Jim Doxas
Odd Sound ODS-20 (steveamirault.com)

Montreal has always been a unique city, maintaining a consistent and identifiable character amidst a cultural melting pot. Tourists from elsewhere in North America point out European aspects, those from Western Canada observe its truly Quebecois nature, and this Toronto-born writer always notices an American grit to the island metropolis. All of these influences and more are present in the music created by pianist Steve Amirault, bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas, who make up the Montréal Jazz Trio. 

This latest self-titled offering from the group features originals, arrangements of jazz standards, and two of Amirault’s pieces – All Those Lovely Things and Nowhere – based on well-known progressions from the genre. The latter of those tracks features a beautiful bass solo from Vedady, which prefaces him taking the melody of Wray, a tribute to pianist Wray Downes. Other originals include Empathy and Soho Dreams by Amirault, which are both melodic and modern sounding. Alongside his role as the trio’s drummer, Doxas mixed the nine tracks heard on the recording at his home away from home, the Boutique de Son studio on Montréal’s West Island. Doxas’ father George was behind the controls during the recording of the album and is renowned for the excellent sounds he achieves on countless albums per year. The production, repertoire and personnel heard on this recording give it a delightful “hundred-mile diet” sensibility, and transport its listeners to La Belle Province from wherever they may be.

Naufragés
Alex Lefaivre Quartet
arteboreal (alexlefaivre.com)

Alex Lefaivre’s latest quartet outing is a delightfully sequenced blend of energy and lightness that makes for a compulsively listenable project. As a listener, I’ve found that my most memorable experiences often occur when I can tangibly sense how much musicians relish interacting with each other, and this recording is a prime example of such synergy. Lefaivre’s basslines and guitarist Nicolas Ferron’s rhythmically inclined blowing on standout original Reset serve as a wondrous showcase for two musicians who are fully engaged with each other, listening intently. Meanwhile, Alain Bourgeois’ drumming is sensitive and understated, playing nothing but the bare functional necessities for most of the album’s duration, releasing only the occasional outburst for the most exciting moments. The band is locked in and Lefaivre is the primary driving force behind their sound. In the compositional sense, his lines propel the forward motion of the rhythm section while anchoring the melodic content, particularly on the rather animated track Sly. 

Lefaivre’s time feel is rock-solid and assured, helping to firmly ground the ensemble during the eccentric time signatures of tracks like Sneaked. He also fashions the bass into a highly effective comping instrument, providing a springboard for Erik Hove’s alto showcase on Sin City. All in all, Lefaivre has assembled both a group of artists and a set of tunes (playfully including a Led Zeppelin cover) that have allowed him to refine his band, leading chops in a very enjoyable way.

Imaginary Structures
Levi Dover Sextet
Three Pines Records TPR-004 (levidover.com)

In his debut as a leader, Montreal bassist Levi Dover has concocted something refreshingly original while also remaining true to his post-bop influences. From the very moment they hit the listener’s ears it’s apparent Dover’s compositions have a methodical quality to them; every statement of a tune’s central melody utilizes his entire sextet to its full expansive potential. Each line trickles into the next smoothly, as if the instrumentalists are finishing each other’s sentences. Musical phrases possess the easy flow of a daily conversation between friends. Dover is a very deliberate arranger, and one of his most interesting creative decisions (that ends up being greatly to the benefit of the music) is heavily featuring two functionally similar instruments: vibraphone and piano. Additionally, pianist Andrew Boudreau and vibraphonist Olivier Salazar are often playing the same material in tandem, creating an incredible textural effect that almost feels like an aesthetic marriage of Andrew Hill and Bobby Hutcherson. 

While a fair bit of Dover’s ornate writing brings to mind vintage mid-60s Blue Note, his personal progressive and classical leanings also shine through on immensely electrifying standouts like L’Appel du Vide and Galapagos. Boudreau is more often than not an effective mouthpiece for Dover’s vision, grounding the band through the more complex passages of rhythmic counterpoint and constantly serving as the primary accompanist for Dover’s own playing. Imaginary Structures is beautiful, and Dover establishes himself as an artistic force throughout eight masterful ensemble performances.

Galeanthropology
Darrell Katz & OddSong
Jazz Composers Alliance JCA1806 (darrellkatz.com)

Any considered exposé of Darrell Katz’s oblique, still under-appreciated genius is always welcome, especially one that is inspired by – and evocative of – his late wife, Paula Tatarunis’ poetry. Galeanthropology is an elliptical metaphor that connects Katz’s literary and musical pursuits, from the conventional to the experimental, the mechanical to the emotional. Making a leap from that almost illusionary promontory, this repertoire traces an evolutionary arc as if falling off a proverbial cliff and is comprised of elongated melodic, harmonic inventions with the rhythmic aspect provided by the radiant mallet percussion colours of the marimba and vibraphone.

Tatarunis’ extraordinarily expressive poetic canvas derives from life as a jazz cat and her lyrical canticles come alive together with Katz’s stylishly delivered instrumental contributions. Making the most of Tatarunis’ deeply elegant poems requires a particular sensitivity to linear shape, lyrical articulation and clarity of texture, not least in order to infuse it with the pungency of the harmonic language that this music breathes into it. 

The most striking example of this is certainly not restricted to the song Galeanthropology with its quote from Charlie Parker’s iconic, Ornithology. Katz’s ingenious hipness comes alive on his especially free-floating take on Charles Mingus’ Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love, James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James and the traditional I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger; the latter being a profoundly consequential musical experience for the listener. The elegantly idiomatic performance all around is fronted by Rebecca Shrimpton’s lustrous, poignantly executed vocals.