05 scott thomson bandcampMurray: Trombone Solos
Scott Thomson
Tour de Bras TDB90036CD (tourdebras.com) 

Trombonist, conceptualist, composer of site-specific works and programmer, Scott Thomson takes a speculative approach to improvised solo performance. In April 2014, he launched his first Trombone Solos at Odd Hours in Montreal’s La Poêle dance studio at times like 4 June, 9:11 am. Since then he has performed over 130 such concerts, often for a single listener. In 2016, the Calgary label Bug Incision released Heures Indues, a CD with three performances; Murray comes from a 2019 series in the Montreal studio of Thomson’s late friend and collaborator, the painter and drummer John Heward.

Thomson’s solos don’t explore a single idea; rather, they’re perambulations, here two half-hour long journeys through a variety of impulses and inspirations, with shifting melodies and timbres that can burst forth with marching band gusto or alight in a singing high register. Sometimes there’s a resonant partnership with some other material, whether an appended mute or something like furniture moving in the room. Sudden volume shifts suggest that Thomson is playing two trombones, one blasting loudly into the microphone, the other a distant, whispered aside.

The CD is packaged with cards reproducing a few of Heward’s starkly powerful abstractions, and the echoes of his studio may play a role in these performances, thematic as well as sonic. There’s something dramatic here, moods developing and changing along with the materials, a moving meditation in a terrain full of surprises, the shifting interior monologue of a musical flâneur.

06 MantecaAugmented Indifference
Manteca
Mmusic MM201913-4 (facebook.com/MantecaMusic) 

Happy anniversary, Manteca! A perennial audience favourite, Manteca returns to mark their 41st year with Augmented Indifference, a four-song EP bristling with their trademark energy, creativity and virtuosity. And a fitting celebration it is.

In the band’s 41-year history, they have been one of Canada’s leading musical ambassadors, sharing stages with Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Van Morrison. Founded by percussionist Matt Zimbel and bassist Henry Heillig, who ws the group’s music director for three decades, the group has been recognized as a musical innovator, drawing upon diverse influences in exhilarating performances. Accordingly, this latest release finds the group charting out new directions, while also revisiting more familiar musical territory. Miss Meteo, arguably the most experimental song, pairs electric guitar with spoken word, trumpet and the bass clarinet of Colleen Allen, along with alternating driving rhythms and spacey textures. Somehow, they make it all work! Busking In Deadwood, introduces a beautiful, majestic melody and features some outstanding work by Lucas Zimbel on accordion and Steve McDade on trumpet.

The aptly titled Avant Cool highlights the innovative pairing of guitar and alto flute, while the set closer, a Beach Boys-inspired Kowabunga, again features guitarist Nick Tateishi alongside bright, punchy horn backgrounds. Let’s all raise a glass to Manteca – here’s to another 40 years!

07 Aaron DolmanNostalgia and Other Fantasies
Aaron Dolman
Independent (aarondolman.com)

Montreal-born, up-and-coming drummer, composer and bandleader Aaron Dolman takes the listener on a meandering trip through music with his latest release. Closing your eyes while listening to this record evokes a feeling as if you were in a film, with each track bringing up a vivid image in the mind to accompany the melodies. Each piece is composed by Dolman himself and features younger musicians such as Marcus Savard-Lowry and Zacharie Bachand on guitars, Mathieu McConnell, bass, and Caitlin Smith on viola and vocals. The folk element imbedded in many of the pieces is a welcome and pleasing experience to the ear.

Gone for a While II is an atmospheric and ethereal beginning to the album, a fitting start to the journey on which the listener is about to embark. Stars in a Midnight Lake features a beautiful acoustic guitar riff underlying the entire piece, with the soft vocals by Smith joining in during the middle of the song for a wonderful and captivating interlude. The reprise of Willow Bunch is a joyful conclusion to the record and to the almost cinematic ride the listener has been taken on. The enjoyment in this album comes from not knowing exactly what’s going to be happening musically behind the next turn in the road, so to speak. It provides for an interesting listen that truly pulls you in and keeps you focused on the music.

08 Richard WhitemanOld Prose
Richard Whiteman Quartet
Cornerstone Records CRSTCD 151 (cornerstonerecordsinc.com) 

Toronto pianist Richard Whiteman developed a late fascination with string bass about a decade ago, rapidly becoming an adept performer, as demonstrated here in a 2019 performance from the Huether Hotel’s Jazz Room in Waterloo, Ontario. Another distinguished Toronto multi-instrumentalist, Don Thompson, has described Whiteman’s bass lines as “Bach-like” in their precision. Perhaps it’s a pianist’s special gift, but it’s apparent here in both accompaniment and some well-constructed solos.

Perhaps befitting a bassist’s role, Whiteman may be the most retiring member of his own quartet. The principal role is given to visiting American pianist Harold Danko who provides five of the six compositions played here, while tenor saxophonist Pat LaBarbera and drummer Terry Clarke supply much of the band’s fire. The music is consummate mainstream modern club jazz, focused, energetic, sometimes dense, sometimes lyrical, often intense, but always involved and involving.

Though Danko has worked extensively with cool jazz giants like Chet Baker and Lee Konitz, his compositions reveal the breadth of his inspirations. Blue Swedish Wildflower is gently melodic, with Danko’s own introduction reaching toward the rhapsodic; McCoy’s Passion, however, a clear nod to modal master Tyner, is an open invitation to LaBarbera and Clarke to summon up their roots in the inspirational turbulence of John Coltrane and Elvin Jones. That balance between the gentle and the edgy, sometimes contrasting, sometimes combined, distinguishes this entire set of engaged post-bop jazz, crafted by senior masters.

09 Jobs TrialsJob’s Trials – A Jazz Song Cycle by Dan Loomis
Yoon Sun Choi; Song Yi Jeon; Dan Loomis; Jeff Miles; Jared Schonig; Daniel Breaker
Independent (danloomismusic.com) 

With this release, New York City-based producer, composer, librettist and bassist, Dan Loomis, has created a 14-part, contemporized and unusual look at the biblical story of Job. The recording (to quote Loomis) is “…a song cycle and narration that offer a fresh look into a universal story exploring why bad things happen to good people” – perhaps a story only previously explored in a contemporary light in Neil Simon’s Job-focused hit comedy God’s Favorite. All compositions here are by Loomis with the exception of the project closer, Dear Lord by John Coltrane.

The Narrator (A.K.A. Satan) is masterfully performed by Broadway Star Daniel Breaker (Hamilton, The Book of Mormon), and the balance of the company includes vocalists Yoon Sun Choi and Song Yi Jeon, guitarist Jeff Miles and drummer Jared Schonig. Highlights of this unique jazz song cycle include Abundance Overture, where a funky, insistent bass supports the heavenly choir of Choi and Jeon, as they proceed through a complex scat section, underpinned by dynamic guitar work from Miles as well as relentless, bombastic drumming by Schonig.

As Job sinks into despair and confusion, Do Not Cover My Blood also takes a dive into the darker aspects of the human psyche, as the vocalists bob and weave through a cacophony of emotions and bop motifs. Although not a blues in the traditional sense, Job’s Blues focuses on our hero as he begins to bargain with his God with a rapid fire tempo, propelled into hyper-drive by Miles and Loomis. The closing salvo, Dear Lord, re-sets Coltrane’s lovely tune – leaving us with hope for the triumph of the unconquerable human spirit.

10 Lara DriscollWoven Dreams
Lara Driscoll
Independent (laradriscoll.com)

On the face of it, with cold hard logic, the act of weaving is simple: you treadle a needle with yarn (weft) that passes evenly through even lengths of more yarn (warp) strung taut across a frame. If you’re skilled, you could do all manner of ornamental things with that weft as well. Applied to music, however, weaving is altogether more daunting, especially when your aim is to become a weaver of dreams.

Whether Lara Driscoll was challenged in making Woven Dreams, however, seems to be a proverbial moot point. This is truly outstanding music that tells wordless stories about living things (Siblings and Trespassers) conjuring each with humour and detail; it sketches and paints moving pictures and landscapes with vivid colour and texture (Black Dog Skirts Away and Isfahan) and does so much more, seemingly enchantingly, by manipulating the black and white keys of the piano, which is then woven into bass lines and dappled with percussion colours.

Having sat mesmerized through it all, Driscoll, together with Paul Rushka (bass) and Dave Laing (drums), will have done for you just what they did for me: imprinted upon your mind’s eye something of a magical, seemingly unending dreamscape. In sheer colour and variety, in the depth of its characterization and the exceptional range and refinement of her pianism, Driscoll imparts an extraordinary bigness to this music that most pianists would die to achieve. This is music evoked as few pianists can. 

Listen to 'Woven Dreams' Now in the Listening Room

11 ChimeraChimaera
Emmeluth’s Amoeba
Ora Fonogram OF149 (orafonogram.no) 

Emmeluth’s Amoeba consists of Signe Emmeluth, alto saxophone and compositions, Karl Bjorå (guitar), Ole Mofjell (drums) and Christian Balvig (piano). Their playing is tense and engaging. Chimaera was recorded in Trondheim, Norway in 2019 and features eight compositions which offer a great deal of improvisatory freedom: much of this album›s excitement comes from the contrasts between the improvised portions and the sudden interruption of composed ensemble sections. Emmeluth’s saxophone is lithe and delightfully erratic and Balvig is particularly impressive with his clusters of runs and staccato interjections.

Throughout the album, change is the main constant. For example, the first half of Squid Circles features Emmeluth’s skittering saxophone lines interspersing melodic fragments with quick multi-phonics. Then the drums enter with guitar and piano soon after. The last two minutes are a solid groove that builds towards an extremely abrupt ending. AB is a longer piece with a variety of sonic adventures, including a short section reminiscent of some zany music that Raymond Scott might have written. No. 1 begins with a slightly off-kilter lounge piano section and keeps this same nuanced mood as more instruments are added. It’s understated and beautiful. Chimaera is an excellent album that manages to be surprising, charming and edgy at the same time.

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