Audacious as well as artful, this Montréal disc shows what can result when free improvisation meshes with knowledge of notated New music. Architecturally organized, the nine originals and two “covers” make up an exceptional version of chamber music that avoids fussy inversion and directionless jamming.

One indication of the trio’s fearlessness is that the “covers” are of compositions by Béla Bartók. Here, the composer’s Bulgarian Rhythm takes on a Latin tinge courtesy of Robbie Kuster’s percussion and ends with a section of double-tonguing by alto saxophonist Philippe Lauzier, and double stopping from bassist Miles Perkin.

Confirming their innovative thinking, the three follow a clarinet-plucked bass-and-drum reading of Bartók’s Mélodie pentatonique with an improv that flows from it. Reharmonized, the tune incorporates distinctive tongue stops and intense vibrato from Lauzier, reverberating strings from Perkin and a modified march beat on wooden blocks from Kuster.

Probably the best example of their mature talents is Perkin’s Broken Glass, divided into sonata-like sections. Near the top, a sliding bass invention gives way to buzzing sul ponticello accompanied by squealing saxophone split tones and contrapuntal drum pummelling. After a side-slipping obbligato from the altoist is matched by a walking bass line, the penultimate variation harmonizes reed notes with the bassist’s wordless vocalizing. Echoing sax runs plus answering arco swipes from Perkin form the spacey finale.

A 21st Century advance on jazz chamber music, Today is a Special Day more than lives up to the inference of its title.

Forty years after he arrived on the scene, Michel Donato is still Montréal’s first-call jazz bassist. These CDs demonstrate why Donato, 64, who has backed everyone from chansonier Gilles Vigneault to pianist Oscar Peterson, is in such demand. […] On Ellen’s Bar, for instance, he adds his rock-solid rhythm to 11 originals otherwise featuring two players better-known for their commitment to musique actuelle: guitarist Antoine Berthiaume and drummer Pierre Tanguay. […] Here the guitarist’s supple fills and soloing lie within parameters set by Herb Ellis and Bill Frisell, giving the CD a country-ish vibe. […] Similar teamwork is apparent on the other CD, although the guitarist takes most of the solos. In this smaller setting Donato is more sensed than heard, though his oblique, sturdy piloting remains. The nub of Tanguay’s accompaniment is rim shots and ratamacues, unique additions to the guitarist’s lapidary solos. Using chiming runs, Berthiaume shines with a natural romantic bent. Prime instance of this is Nose Worthy. Sprinkled with C&W licks, the straightforward melody skirts ordinariness due to drum rolls and pops plus a walking bass line. Tough plucking from Donato rescues other tunes where the guitarist’s finger-picking threatens to move into supper club territory. […]

Étiquette emblématique de la musique actuelle, Ambiances Magnétiques est sur le point de devenir la référence en matière de jazz contemporain au Québec. Pour son troisième album pour ce label, le guitariste Antoine Berthiaume offre un programme de neuf de ses compositions, soutenu par le maître-contrebassiste Michel Donato et le «batteur-maison» de l’étiquette, Pierre Tanguay, ces derniers contribuant chacun d’un morceau de leur cru. Alors que les projets précédents de ce jeune guitariste étaient plutôt expérimentaux (son premier album Soshin nous permettait de l’entendre avec nuls autres que Derek Bailey et Fred Frith), ce récent disque se situe tout droit dans la lignée des trios à la Pat Metheny ou John Abercrombie. Parmi les pièces, La Betterave, un calypso de Tanguay auquel seul le ténor de Sonny Rollins semble manquer, offre un contraste bienvenu au sein d’un répertoire résolument moderne. Berthiaume démontre un exceptionnel contrôle de son instrument, jouant dans un style complexe mais fluide, alors que ses acolytes lui donnent un appui idéal et se montrent flexibles dans leurs accompagnements. Impressionant!

Premier d’une nouvelle manne de onze (!) disques à paraître chez Ambiances Magnétiques durant l’automne, ce dernier-né de la série jazz de l’étiquette est, à ce jour, le plus audacieux de tous. Vivant dans le sud de l’Italie, le pianiste Gianni Lenoci signe ici son deuxième enregistrement pour le compte de cette maison de disques, le premier étant un duo de miniatures intimistes avec la contrebassiste Joëlle Léandre (Sur une balançoire). Proposition toute autre cette fois-ci car il s’agit, comme son titre le dit, d’un ensemble à six constitué de deux saxos, un guitariste, un bassiste, un batteur et le pianiste. Pourtant, ces seules informations ne disent pas toute l’histoire; outre ces instruments acoustiques, il y a également une quincaillerie électronique qui se greffe à l’ensemble, élargissant de ce fait la palette sonore. D’une part, on retrouve des pièces de factures plus traditionnelles, à l’apanage d’un certain post-free jazz européen (Realtà, en ouverture, et une mise à jour assez décoiffante, mais trop brève de Miss Ann d’Eric Dolphy); d’autre part, on passe de ce côté plus maximaliste à un minimalisme électro très dépouillé (Intersezione et Notturno frattale), sans passer sous silence (terme approprié s’il en est un) une composition de Morton Feldman, soit Intermission VI. Rares sont les disques, de nos jours, où ces deux mondes se côtoient et il était temps que quelqu’un le fasse. Merci M. Lenoci pour cette belle offrande. Cela dit, on espère bien voir cela chez nous un de ces jours…

Thrusting himself wood, strings and bow-first into very fast company, Montréal-based double bassist Pierre-Yves Martel has unselfconsciously created his own solo bass CD.

Although the session betrays many of the limitations of a young musician doing his first record, the 27-year-old Vanier, Ont. native’s recital contains enough originality to be considered in a field pioneered by such masterful soloists as France’s Joëlle Léandre and the United Kingdom’s Barry Guy.

Martel does this by making Engagement & Confrontation an elaboration of the sounds produced when the bass’s four strings are prepared by placing sticks, paper clips and rings among them. Additionally the sound is captured in studio with multiple microphones – there are 10 in total – to literally amplify every movement. The end result is a selection of tracks, ranging from 35 seconds to 4 and a half minutes, whose improvisations develop midway between conceptual and accidental. There’s no overdubbing involved.

The bassist, whose background includes playing musique actuelle with clarinetist Lori Freedman and guitarist Antoine Berthiaume, Balkan-jazz with the band Foreigners, and early, baroque and so-called classical music elsewhere, has the chops and background for experimentation. On some tunes in fact, you marvel at his sheer audacity, constructing pieces out of fingered drones and scrapes of the instrument’s spike on the studio floor.

But youth’s audacity also plays second fiddle to impudence on the set. Evidentially intent on showing off his developing prowess, Martel has packed 18 tracks into a CD that’s only slightly more-than-48-minutes long. This produces some sections of different compositions which are mere technical exercises, which are also not given enough latitude to develop into coherent statements, and worse of all, sporadically sound like other passages on the date.

At his best the bassist keeps you guessing at his next move, as when he seems to be vocalizing through his string set or somehow produces oscillating wave form vibrations that create secondary bass lines – as if his primary notes were being accompanied by another bassist.

Percussive more than dissonant, his sul ponticello bowing on a piece like Fromage en crottes moves from ear-wrenching shrills down to violent pizzicato smacks. He’s isn’t above whacking the bass’s waist and belly either, or producing what sound like wood rending pressure below the bridge for additional resonance. On tracks like Pneus semi-pneumatiques walking bass lines quickly evolve into the vibrating buzz created by torqued strings. Meanwhile Dresser – which may be a salute to the masterful American bassist of the same name – features guitar-like finger-picking pirouettes that when coupled with percussive motions suggests the African balophone as well.

On the other hand, Benibraun’s onomatopoeia-like sound reflects its title; the balladic For D/C evolves reflectively in broken octaves from high-and-low-pitched strumming; and Correspondances domestiques melds lumbering squeaks and caws into a low-key, burbling theme.

With much of his musical life ahead of him, the young Franco-Ontarian has created a notable debut. It implies that eventually he may attain membership in the highest ranks of improv’s low-pitched string fraternity.

An album featuring a choir of seven clarinettists might be overkill, but Pee Wee et Moi, Robert Marcel Lepage’s tribute to the clarinettist Pee Wee Russell, turns out to be a charmer. Tribute albums to jazz’s canonical royalty – Coltrane, Monk, Bird and so on – tend to feel self-conscious and overburdened by the Great Tradition; but there’s no such problem with Russell, one of jazz’s great mavericks (and great faces: Lepage’s cartoons of his mournful basset-hound visage adorn the CD sleeve). Lepage’s composite mosaic portrait of the dedicatee takes its inspiration from his blues-playing: Pee Wee’s Blues and Muskogee Blues are played straight and also serve as sourcebooks for Lepage’s own originals. A few abrasive postmodernist touches keep this from turning into a revivalist project, but most of the album works off a slinky, warped blues vibe that’s absolutely faithful to the spirit of Russell’s music. René Lussier’s razzledazzle Eddie-Condon-meets-Eugene-Chadbourne guitar work is the finishing touch.