The Normand Guilbeault Ensemble will present, on 18 May, 2007, its great tribute to Charles Mingus in the Master of Jazz series presented as part of The Israeli Opera Tel Aviv-Yafo’s 2006-07 season (Israel). You can’t be there? Then you should buy the excellent Mingus Erectus for which online audio clips are avalaible.

Le Silence des hommes whispers silence, whispers love: the one that leaves traces; the one that pearces, changes, hurts us; the one that we will never forget. Meet performer and poet artist D. Kimm, guitarist Bernard Falaise, singer Michel Faubert, and the musicians Frédéric Boudreault, Alexis Martin, Alex McMahon at La Sala Rossa in Montréal on May 16, 2007. Excerpts of the album Le Silence des hommes are online.

Il contrabbassista, tra i più attivi a Montréal, si dà qui il compito — con Jonathan Racine-Ménard (batt.) e Arden Arapyan (p.) — di cogliere i segreti e le possibilità interpretative di una serie di proprie composizioni (e arrangiamenti, viene specificato). Sono atmosfere perlopiù crepuscolari, appena scosse qua e là da qualche lungo brivido rettilineo. Inevitabilmente è il pianoforte a impadronirsi della scena: lo fa in modo vellutato ma deciso fin dal primo brano (che ha il tema più ricco, gli sviluppi, soprattutto armonici, più articolati ed equilibrati, e molte promesse che il seguito non riesce del tutto a mantenere), mentre non si rinviene di Mailloux altro che un puntualissimo accompagnamento.

Compositore, sassofonista e attore, l’argentino Nisenson è vissuto a lungo in Europa prima di trasferirsi in Québec qualche anno fa. La comunità musicale di Montréal ha accolto con favore la sua estroversione, il suo calarsi sempre festoso e scenografico nella musica, dandogli anche l’occasione di registrare questo Cd per una nuova etichetta che si affianca, nell’ambito Dame, alla più nota Ambiances Magnétiques. Un contrabbassista inappuntabile come Jean Félix Mailloux e il batterista Pierre Tanguay accompagnano il tenore, il contralto e il sopranino di Nisenson in dieci brani fortemente aromatizzati da un folclore latino-balcanico e smussati da forti semplificazioni ritmiche.

The Dutch violist Ig Henneman […] runs the Dutch WIG label along with her partner, reedman Ab Baars. Her music straddles a realm between contemporary classical string music and free improvisation: never bereft of humor, her music remains nonetheless restrained, but it also doesn’t shy from extended techniques. In 2002 she joined the Canadian improvising duo Queen Mab: Lori Freedman on bass clarinet, clarinet and Marilyn Lerner on piano. Here the trio plays a program loosely based on the Queen Mab Scherzo by Hector Berlioz. Thin Air, the title track and only piece attributed to all three, begins with Freedman and Henneman sparsely duoing, Henneman edgily scratching her strings; Lerner enters with a prepared-piano sound. Indeed, here and elsewhere, the music sounds chamber trio-esque, with the third piece by Henneman, Drums and Trumpets, containing brief, almost fragile themes repeated theatrically between Freedman’s wail, Henneman later providing a minimalist basso continuo background for Freedman. Henneman’s background accelerates and changes into something Erik Satie could have written. Characteristic of the entire CD, Drums and Trumpets transforms itself with a fragile air.

There’s no shortage of solo drum or percussion ensemble discs. However, very, very few of these attempt to explore their subject matter in an electro acoustic way. This marks Tombak as an important building block in what will surely become more commonplace in years to come. Recorded live with no edits or overdubbing, Tombak shows Tabassian in total control of his instrument. He is well known in Quebec as a proficient player, in the traditional sense, of this single headed, goblet shaped drum, but here he eschews pattern-based regular rhythms in favour of scraping, scratching and advanced tonal manipulation of this incredibly versatile instrument. Perhaps a solo record on tombak works better than on some other percussion instruments due to its inherent versatility. Tabassian capitalises on the quick and sensitive response of the tightly bound drumhead to create everything from pure bass pulses to wind-like howls. The dampening effect achieved by using one’s hand inside the cavity of the drum is also imaginatively deployed. Further sonic ingredients are found in Tabassian’s ability to brush the body of the drum or create distorted effects simply with his hands. All these sonic inventions are interesting but his formal technique also plays a major part in his ability to generate abstract sounds — consider the drum flurries in Varashan, which sound more like smears than precisely metered riffs. The last tune on the album, Danse mon tambour, does give it up and turn it loose with some addictive rhythms and sparkling colours.