The second day began with Montréal-based guitarist and composer Tim Brady with the video artist Martin Messier and the Bradyworks ensemble. Brady opened with a piece for solo guitar with video. The guitar part was a Frippish quick-strumming work with a video of orange clouds and lines of words at the bottom of the screen. Interesting, it reminded me of some early space-rock. The second piece was called Switch and was in five parts. Some sections reminded me of Nick Didkovsky’s prog/rock guitar sound with some slowed down bent-string weirdness elsewhere. 57 Ways of Playing Guitar displayed some constantly shifting ways to play the guitar with electronic sounds and beats inserted at certain points. The best piece was last, a Shoshtakovich tribute with (a sort-of) double quartet featuring guitar, piano, sax, percussion and a sampled string quartet. The writing recalled some Zappa-like complexities and layers of images of old St. Petersberg with current images of the same city worked very well with the music. […]

The Victo fest began with Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms at the cinema. It seemed only appropriate that one of Quebec’s most creative composers, musicians and multi-bandleaders, would open this great fest in Victoriaville, a small town in the center of Quebec. Jean Derome is reeds wizard and a most successful and diverse composer and one of the reasons we go keep going back to the Victo Fest every year. Mr. Derome brought his dynamic 5-piece all-star ensemble plus another seven musicians were added. Derome and his 12-piece small orchestra performed two new long pieces called Traquenards and Plates-formes. The musicians included Derome (alto sax & flutes), Lori Freedman (clarinets), Tom Walsh (trombone), Martin Tétreault (turntables) & Joane Hétu (vocals). The rhythm team of Pierre Cartier (el. bass) and Pierre Tanguay (drums) was in especially fine form as they played their cosmic throb undertow while the clarinet and strings played a lovely repeating theme on top. Joane Hétu did a good deal of odd bird-like vocal sounds that blended well with Martin Tétreault’s turntables effects. Jean Derome’s composing continues to get better and better, I dug the way he interspersed more melodic sections with directed freer parts. This piece seemed darker than anything I’ve heard from Jean Derome previously, yet it was quite successful on a variety of levels. Bravo! […]

This was the 25th Anniversary of the Victoriaville International New Music Festival and it was indeed a wonderful event! This was also my 20th Victo Fest and it was one of the best Victo’s that I can remember. Michel Levasseur promised something special for this year and he and his crew delivered the goods. Composer, musician, bandleaders & label-heads, Fred Frith and John Zorn, two of the most influential and popular of those icons who return to Victo time and again, were involved in two sets a piece and attracted bigger crowds than usual. Fred Frith unveiled his new rock band, Cosa Brava on day 2 and closed the fest with the much-anticipated return of the Art Bears (Songbook). The Victo played on day one with The Dreamers project and unveiled the explosive Moonchild, a North American debut that still hasn’t been performed in NY. And that’s just 4 of the 24 mostly incredible shows that Victo featured this year. More passports (a festival pass for all of the concerts) were sold than any other year. Hence, the Art Bears, Frith’s debut band and both Zorn projects, as well as a wealth of other challenging sets, seems to inspire some folks to come out of the woodwork. Friends that haven’t been to Victo in many years, as well as lots of newcomers showed up for this special event. […]

Pour son 10^e anniversaire, le spectacle Riel: Plaidoyer musical de Normand Guilbeault se refait une jeunesse à L’Off Festival de jazz de Montréal.

Il y a une couple de sujets sur lesquels Normand Guilbeault est intarissable: en l’occurrence, le destin de Louis Riel et la musique de Charles Mingus. Et en un sens, le spectacle qu’il reprend au Cabaret Le Lion d’Or dans le cadre de L’Off Festival de jazz est à la croisée de ces deux passions. «Je n’oserais pas dire que Riel, c’est mon Fables of Faubus, mais c’est vrai qu’il y a une parenté», opine le contrebassiste-compositeur, dont on sait l’admiration pour le réquisitoire de son mentor contre les politiques racistes du gouverneur Orval Faubus d’Arkansas, par ailleurs intégré depuis belle lurette au répertoire de l’ensemble de Guilbeault, qui d’ailleurs enregistrait au Upstairs, ce printemps, un troisième album-hommage à Mingus.

Mais pourquoi Riel? «Ça faisait plusieurs fois que j’allais jouer dans l’Ouest canadien, toujours aussi surpris d’y entendre parler français, rappelle le compositeur. En 1995, je suis tombé sur un livre sur l’histoire de la nation métisse canadienne et j’ai été touché au cœur par cette histoire.» Pour mémoire, rappelons que Louis David Riel, chef du peuple métis des Prairies et fondateur du Manitoba, a dirigé deux mouvements de résistance contre le gouvernement fédéral dans le but de protéger les droits et la culture des Métis dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest. En 1885, cette ‘Rébellion’ s’était conclue avec l’arrestation, le procès expéditif puis la pendaison de Riel pour ‘trahison’, une mort qui eut des répercussions durables sur les relations entre le Québec et le Canada anglais.

Après trois ans de recherche intensive avec la précieuse collaboration de Bob Olivier, Guilbeault accouche du libretto et des partitions de ce qu’il reconnaît comme son opus le plus ambitieux. Créé au Festival de musique actuelle de Victoriaville, en 1998, et repris à quelques occasions depuis, Riel: Plaidoyer musical réunit sur scène pendant deux heures une dizaine d’improvisateurs chevronnés (parmi lesquels le percussionniste Pierre Tanguay, le trompettiste Ivanhoe Jolicœur, le guitariste Sylvain Provost, le multisouffleur Jean Derome et le clarinettiste Matthieu Bélanger) et deux récitants, Fortner Anderson et Paul Chaput dans la nouvelle version. Peut-on parler d’un oratorio jazz? «Comme me l’avait fait remarquer je-ne-sais-plus-qui quand on l’a fait pour la première fois à Victo, c’est comme un opéra où les deux chanteurs ne chantent pas.»

Revampée et réorchestrée pour cette re-création qui coïncide avec son dixième anniversaire, l’œuvre n’a rien perdu de sa pertinence et de son actualité. «Un martyr, Riel l’a été, c’est sûr; mais à mes yeux, il incarne aussi le gouffre qui sépare les cultures fondatrices du Canada: la française, l’anglo-saxonne, l’autochtone et la métisse.» Gouffre que Guilbeault s’évertue à combler en musique, avec sagesse.

On June 19, 2008 at L’OFF Festival de Jazz de Montréal: Joël Prenovault’s Cantouque ensemble (with Bernard Falaise, Marianne Trudel, Pierre Tanguay) will be at Lion d’Or at 8 pm. Then, Isaiah Ceccarelli’s sextet (with Pierre Cartier, Josée Lalonde, Philippe Lauzier, Franck Lozano, Pierre-Yves Martel) will be at Dièse onze at 10 pm.

On June 19, 2008 Paul Dutton will perform at McNally Robinson Booksellers during the eVOCative festival in Saskatoon (Saskatchewan). The day after, he will give an artist’s talk and performance on the theme “Speech as Music” at the University of Saskatchewan, Edwards School of Business, at 1 pm. The eVOCative festival is a component of The Oral, the Written and Other Verbal Media Conference.