In many respects, the year 2020 was a time of reckoning for Asian Americans.Hot on the heelsof the landmark Asian ensemble-cast blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho made history with Parasite, which took home the first Academy Award for Best Picture ever to be received by a subtitled film. After a decades-longContinue reading “Reclaiming Chinatown”
Genre Archives
The Apperceptive Musical Adventures of Taylor Brook
Canadian composer Taylor Brook—whose music can strike an unusual balance between challenge and charm,sometimes with an astonishing delicacy—had been based since 2011 in New York City, where he was first a doctoral student and then a lecturer at Columbia University, all the while making the most of the city’s wealth of performers. But in 2020,Continue reading “The Apperceptive Musical Adventures of Taylor Brook”
Maurice Louca. Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour)
Some of the most mind-bending and genre-blending music is emerging from the fertile underground scene of Cairo, Egypt. Maurice Louca is a founding member of the Dwarfs of East Agouza trio with Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls fame and Montreal’s Sam Shalabi, as well as other Cairo-based groups such as Bikya and Alif. OriginallyContinue reading “Maurice Louca. Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour)”
Le GGRIL. Sommes.
Montreal’s Ratchet Orchestra, Vancouver’s New Orchestra Workshop, and Toronto’s Association of Improvising Musicians are evidence that Canada’s largest cities have robust improvisation scenes whose participants occasionally coalesce to play works composed for larger ensembles. It is perhaps even more impressive when smaller communities pull off similar feats. Rimouski, a town with a population of 50,000,Continue reading “Le GGRIL. Sommes.”
Fall 2021
James Goddard Makes Brave New Spaces
“Recorded music these days is like an inversion of the old-time medicine show—you know, those people who would go from town to town and put on this big carnival performance to sell their medicine. Now that ticket sales have become the main income generator for musicians, recorded music is just an advertisement for the show.”Continue reading “James Goddard Makes Brave New Spaces”
The Underflow. Instant Opaque Evening.
An evocatively named trio, the Underflow brings together three stars of the global experimental music scene, all with long-running ties to the city of Chicago: guitarist David Grubbs, saxophone virtuoso Mats Gustafsson, and cornetist Rob Mazurek. One senses the presence of the undertow in the “underflow,” and memories surface of swimming in the Atlantic OceanContinue reading “The Underflow. Instant Opaque Evening.”
Scott Thomson. Pal o’Alto.
Trombonist Scott Thomson has split much of his creative life between Montreal and Toronto. On this series of improvised duets with alto saxophonists, he explores key musical relationships in the two cities, playing with four distinctive musicians: Montrealers Yves Charuest and Jean Derome and Torontonians Karen Ng and John Oswald. Each duet benefits from longstandingContinue reading “Scott Thomson. Pal o’Alto.”
Walter Smetak. Smetak & Interregno.
The first comprehensive biographical article on Walter Smetak in English was published in Musicworks 121 (2015). Since then, interest has been growing: in 2017 the BBC Radio show Hear and Now dedicated an episode to his work; Smetak was the only artist to receive a full chapter in Sound Art: Sound as a Medium ofContinue reading “Walter Smetak. Smetak & Interregno.”
Ocelot. Ocelot.
A program of carefully assembled small-group jazz and improv, Ocelot, the eponymous debut from the new trio Ocelot, features playing and composing by British-born reedist Yuma Uesaka, Vancouver pianist Cat Toren, and American percussionist Colin Hinton. Throughout, the near-gossamer sheen of some tunes often rolls back to reveal durable underpinnings. Spunky or subtle, the CD’sContinue reading “Ocelot. Ocelot.”