8:30 pm | JOHNSTON/BATES/FRASER featuring JON IRABAGON
This Canadian composers’ collective with members, spread to Brooklyn, San Francisco and Toronto, has enough shared interests to form a cohesive group sound, with enough divergent musical backgrounds to steer them in just about any direction. Wild experimentation meets a grounded and masterful approach steeped in multiple musical traditions. Expect unique compositional ideas, surprising and thoughtful group interplay, deep grooves, hard swing, and a great time for all.
They have played together as just a trio, but tend to play as a quartet with featured guest artists. Past guests have included Tony Malaby, Peter Hess, and Jon Irabagon, all on tenor sax, and Anna Webber (also a Canadian playing the festival) on tenor sax and flute.
In the case of Irabagon and Webber, both guest artists were invited in recent years to bring their compositional voices into the group, which they explored together during four-night runs at Toronto’s iconic Rex Hotel. They're thrilled to be in Hamilton for Something Else!, and equally excited to be reuniting with the incredible Chicago-based saxophonist and composer Jon Irabagon.
Jon Irabagon tenor saxophone
"…never fails to bring the sound of surprise to his albums, no matter what the format."
– Tim Niland, Jazz and Blues
First-generation Filipino-American Jon Irabagon (b. 1978, Chicago) has been influenced by the self-empowering and individualistic philosophies and aesthetic of the great AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) ensembles as well as the historic world-class tenor saxophone lineage from his hometown. Equally adept at composing for rising stars in new music and the most intricate modern jazz ensemble, Irabagon builds on this foundation by adding modern classical and late-period John Coltrane to his compositional base, focusing primarily on mixed chamber ensembles to take advantage of hand-chosen musicians' voices and attitudes.
Irabagon was the winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, winner of the Rising Star award in Downbeat Magazine for both alto and tenor saxophones and the recipient of a Panama Filipino Presidential Award, which is the highest civilian honor an overseas Filipino can receive in commemoration for their contributions to the perception of Filipinos worldwide.
Darren Johnston trumpet
“a resourceful improviser who writes vivid, episodic themes.”
– Downbeat Magazine, “25 Trumpeters for the Future.”
“Someone to watch, on trumpet of course, but as a composer and bandleader as well.”
– John Corbett, Downbeat Magazine
Canada-born trumpeter/composer/educator Darren Johnston’s interests rotate primarily between performing all styles of jazz, purely improvised music, new music, and various other traditional musics, especially that of the Balkans, Greece, and Macedonia. He is especially drawn to music that tends to defy categorization, and is also generally open to further suggestions.
After twenty one years in the Bay Area, Johnston recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY in 2019. In the time since moving there, he has played and/or recorded withChes Smith, Dayna Stephens, Carmen Staaf, Michael Formanek, Tony Malaby, Michael Attias, Slavic Soul Party!, Raya Brass Band, The Peter Hess Quartet, Michael Vatcher, and many more.
Michael Bates double bass
“Bates manages to navigate that most difficult and rarely traveled road leading to accessible experimentation….always forward–thinking but also beautiful and within the grasp of even the most casual jazz fan.” – Chris Watson, “The View”
“Bates demonstrates his rock solid composing skills and enviable technical faculties….Simply put, Bates has the ability to make a huge impact on the existing state of modern jazz!” – Glenn Astarita
Canadian-born bassist, bandleader, and composer, Michael Bates is also a curator and educator who thrives in many musical worlds. Drawing upon his experience in jazz, classical, punk and hardcore, Arabic, and improvised music, he has composed and recorded a catalogue that often defies categories. A New Yorker for over twenty years, Bates can be found in the heart of several music scenes as both a bandleader and sideman. A prolific and unflinching advocate of all things creative, he has composed 100’s of works for string quartet, chamber orchestra and every combination of jazz ensemble imaginable.
Nick Fraser drums
“Fraser is a deft and sensitive percussionist with a hint of an enigmatic streak, a feeling for economical gestures, and an innate sense of form.” – Mark Miller, The Globe & Mail
Nick Fraser has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto new jazz and improvised music community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1995. He has worked with a veritable “who’s who” of Canadian jazz and improvised music including Justin Haynes, Mike Murley, Rich Underhill, P.J. Perry, Phil Dwyer, Michael Snow, John Oswald, Andrew Downing, Jean Martin, Christine Duncan, Lina Allemano, Quinsin Nachoff, Dave Restivo, Jim Vivian, David Braid, Ryan Driver, David Occhipinti, William Carn, Nancy Walker, Kieran Overs, Kelly Jefferson, John Geggie, Scott Thomson, Marilyn Lerner, David Mott, Lori Freedman, Jean Derome, Ron Samworth and Kirk MacDonald.
In addition, he has had the opportunity to perform and/or record with such international artists as Tony Malaby, Michael Moore, Bobby Shew, Donny McCaslin, Marilyn Crispell, Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bela Fleck, Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Wynton Marsalis, David Binney, Steve Turre, Matt Welch, Bill Carrothers and Bill Mays. Nick’s recorded works as a leader include Owls in Daylight (1997), Nick Fraser and Justin Haynes are faking it (2004) and Towns and Villages (2013).
Photo © Ryan Lash
9:30 pm | MESTIZX
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti voice, synthesizers, guitar, percussion, performance
Frank Rosaly drums, percussion, electronics
James McClure trumpet, percussion, synthesiser
Ben Boye synthesizers, autoharp
Nate McBride electric bass
MESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut project as co-composers, arrangers and musicians.
Partners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices.
Rosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice to all of us that live in-between.”
Ferragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.”
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti is an Amsterdam-based mutli-medium artist who has worked as a performer, theatre maker, vocalist, visual artist, musician and teacher. Raised in Bolivia within Bolivian and Brazilian families, Ferragutti describes their work as “deeply interwoven in post-colonial justice, the paradox and beauty between grief and celebration, Andean Cosmology as a source of reclamation, resistance and resilience. Embodiment embedded in sonic fabrics while speculating myths through word oracles. I am a neo-mestiza, a spiritual activist, a femme defender and a Moon lover.” Her notable musical collaborators include: Alabaster DePlume, jaimie branch, Ab Baars, Wilbert de Joode, Eric Boeren, Mary Oliver, Paul Koek, and The Paper Ensemble. Along with her partner Frank Rosaly, Ferragutti founded the DIY arts/music space MOLK FACTORY in Amsterdam in 2017.
Frank Rosaly is a Puerto Rican drummer, composer, and sound designer with several decades of touring, performing, recording, and creating to his name. Born and raised in Arizona, Rosaly was known for his fifteen years of creative work on the Chicago jazz and improvised music scene, before moving to his current residence in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2016. He has been featured on over 150 recordings, and is in constant collaboration. Artists he has worked with include: Fennesz, Joan of Arc, Jeff Parker, Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, Colin Stetson, Rob Mazurek, Ryley Walker, jaimie branch, and many others. Since 2005 Rosaly has self-released recordings under the MOLK label, and in 2017 co-founded the DIY arts/music space MOLK FACTORY with his partner Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti in Amsterdam.
Saturday Evening Ticket:
$28 advance / $35 door (1 event, 2 sets)
Saturday Pass:
$50 advance / $60 door (4:00 + 8:30 pm events, 5 acts)
Festival Weekend Pass:
$100 (7 ticketed events, 16 acts, up to $235 value)
Discounted Advance Tickets & Passes:
E-transfer (no fee) tix@zulapresents.org or EVENTBRITE (+fee)
Students, Seniors, Underwaged at the Door (cash/e-transfer):
$20/event, $30 day passes, $80 festival pass, in person w/ID
No one will be refused admission for lack of funds
In our 12th year of operation, as Zula Presents Something Else!, we are most grateful to Canada Council for the Arts, Department of Canadian Heritage, and The City of Hamilton for their financial support to make these festival events possible. We would also like to acknowledge and thank our partners Hamilton Public Library and Open Streets for their kind support and enthusiasm.