Guelph Jazz Festival 2017, Day Three Preview

With Day Three of the 2017 Guelph Jazz Festival, Friday 15 September, there is an intensification of activity (and fun!), especially as programming at the Market Square Stage, Carden Street next to City Hall, commences. Highlights include New York’s Pocket Brass Band, led by the amazing trombonist Ray Anderson, a frequent winner of the Downbeat Critics Poll over the years. His quartet exhibits the swing and power of a New Orleans brass band with the flexibility of a small jazz group, and features trumpeter Steven Bernstein, sousaphone player Jose Davila, and drummer Tommy Campbell. They round out a program at Market Square that includes the extrovert, radical pop of Friendly Rich, dreamy electro-RnB by the Toronto quintet, Bernice, and Brent Rowan’s Guelph Youth Jazz Ensemble under the guest direction of Toronto singer and conductor, Christine Duncan.

Ticketed events feature the exceptional international improvising trio of John Butcher (saxophones, UK), Thomas Lehn (analogue synthesizer, Germany), and Matthew Shipp (piano, USA). The trio’s sole recording, Tangle (Fataka 2016), is a both a deep meditation on the nature and process of real-time group music-making, and reflects the sweeping, lyrical, virtuosic nature of their performances, certain to delight. The trio performs on an 8pm double-bill at Co-operators Hall, River Run Centre, with the crack Vancouver ensemble, the Peggy Lee Octet, playing Tell Tale, a suite of pieces loosely inspired by the HBO series, Deadwood, and interweaving sharp composing with extended solo and group improvisation. It’s a rich and varied double-bill program.

Silence hosts a 5pm matinée by Jane and the Magic Bananas, the cooperative trio with a twenty-year history of Montréal’s Michel F. Côté (drums & feedback), Alexandre St-Onge (bass guitar & electronics), and Sam Shalabi (guitar). These three combine their vast experience in and across the fields of musique actuelle, improvisation, sound art, noise, and multi-media creation with the raw energy of a small rock combo.

See the full performance schedule, comprising both free and ticketed concerts, here.

The University of Guelph hosts the third day of the Colloquium, convened by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI), with programming designed to celebrate and reflect upon the 10-year partnership of the GJF, IICSI, and KidsAbility, a local service organization that works with young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Included in the programming is a panel that assembles alumni guest artists who have led the ‘Play Who You Are’ program over the years, including Joe Sorbara, Lynette Segal, Friendly Rich Marsella, Susanna Hood, Richard Burrows, and Rob Wallace. Furthermore, the Colloquium features a noontime concert by Robin Dann’s Toronto band, Bernice, superb Arts & Crafts recording artists who are due to play Market Square as well at 8pm. This free midday concert takes place in Branion Plaza, University of Guelph, and is a partnership with the Central Student Association.

A full Colloquium schedule can be accessed here.

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