$15 advance/ $20 door/ $10 students, seniors, un(der)employed at the door. Our admission policy: No one will be refused entry for genuine lack of funds.
Music: NOMAD TRIO
Gord Grdina (Vancouver) oud, guitar
Jim Black (NYC) drums
Matt Mitchell (NYC) piano
Complex, intricate, idiosyncratic, and rocking — those are the adjectives that best describe this cross-border collaboration between Vancouver guitarist Gordon Grdina, and New York’s Matt Mitchell piano, and Jim Black drums. Juno Award winner Grdina’s compositions give the nod to 20th century classical composition, rock, free jazz, and third stream, and this trio promises to explore those ideas at their highest levels.
Gordon Grdina is known for his incredible versatility and ability to bring a fresh and edgy vibe to any ensemble he joins or forms. His musical output is diverse, including 10-piece Arabic/avant-garde ensemble Haram, the intricate GG Quartet and cinematic GG Septet, high-energy collective Grdina/Houle/Loewen, free-punk duo Peregrine Falls, and contemporary Persian-influenced ensemble The Marrow.
Jim Black is a legend in the downtown New York jazz and improv scene and a world-renowned drummer. He has been part of legendary groups Endangered Blood, Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, and Human Feel as well as leading his own groups the Jim Black Trio, Alas No Axis, and Malamute.
Matt Mitchell is a mainstay on the New York jazz scene playing with internationally acclaimed ensembles like the Dave Douglas Quintet, John Hollenbeck’s Large Ensemble and Tim Berne’s Snakeoil. He also leads his own Quartet, Phalanx Ambassadors and Friction duo with Ches Smith.
Film: On the Road with Ellery Eskelin… w/ Andrea Parkins & Jim Black
The film captures life on the road and this is where the emphasis is, rather than on the music. Super fun road movie with three greats of the creative music world, with one in attendance. It is a document of the concert trail that began at the Festival Les 100 Ciels in Nancy, France and moved through Paris where they performed at the Duc Des Lombards and from there on to Katowice in Poland, Germany and England. What is life like on the road? Music enthusiasts often wonder.
As part of the 10-year anniversary celebration of his trio, saxophonist Ellery Eskelin offers a glimpse of touring on his new DVD On the Road With. Eskelin personally culled the hour-long program from more than 25 hours of footage from the spring 2003 European tour with partners Andrea Parkins (accordion, sampler, piano) and Jim Black (drums). Filmed on the fly, mostly by the band and audience members, what it lacks in production values, it makes up for with all-access intimacy, catching the group’s backstage banter, sleep-deprived giddiness and travel malaise. These sequences are juxtaposed with powerful performance clips, whose highlights include the final climax of “43 RPM”, the Black’s-eye view of a sound check, an “It’s A Samba” montage from across the continent and close-ups of extended solo performances by each member of the group.
In adhering to the short runtime, the musical performances are often edited; because it is homemade, the edits can be jarring at times – whetting the appetite, but cutting out just as things start cooking. Intentional or not, the musical segments’ brevity likely mirrors the band’s perceptions of touring – performing is the brief highlight between hustling to a waiting transport and the attendant downtime. The DVD includes moments when subjects are either self-conscious of or completely oblivious to the camera’s presence and sprinkles in surprises and local flavors to give a sense of the delight, boredom and spontaneous lunacy of life on the road.
Dance: Learie Mc Nicolls & Megan English with Dale Morningstar
A Dance Spoken Word piece by choreographer Learie Mc Nicolls linking words, music and movement with a live accompaniment by multi-instrumentalist Dale Morningstar, followed by… Megan English’s ‘A Sublime Order’, a careful selection of common movements performed to organ driven art rock. The performer reaffirms the ritual essence of dance while elevating everyday movement to ceremonial status. ‘A Sublime Order’ invites us to find the sacred in the hum drum of dailyness and to have faith in the ritual of routine…. with Dale Morningstar on keys.
This event was made possible with kind support from Canada Council for the Arts.
