Review

On Thursday May 15, the olpening night, Jean Derome’s large group performed its Hommage a Perec, an extended tribute to the late French writer Georges Perec, who loved jazz and word play. Derome’s piece, based on the passages referring to music in Perec’s Je me souviens, is a long sequence of different musical themes, ranging throught various forms of jazz, latin, marching band and rock music, a playful kaleidoscope that was brilliantly executed by the 13 piece band. There were plenty of good solo moments from the three saxophonists —Derome, Frank Lozano and Robert Lepage—but the most surprising performer was turntable artist (record player?), Martin Tétreault. His remarkable sound effects and distortions of old recordings were among the wittiest and most virtuosic elements in the performance. For this listener, the homage was a delight for about 45 minutes, each interlude filled with anticipation of what might come next, but it went on for just too long, perhaps another half hour, and formal elements, other than the linear pastiche of styles, weren’t immediately apparent.