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Rampis/Johnston/Ochs Trio
Rampis/Johnston/Ochs Trio
Dave Rampis alto saxophone Darren Johnston trumpet Larry Ochs tenor/soprano saxophones
This free-improvising trio came together in the fall of 2011, when Rempis journeyed to the West Coast to discover some things about his compatriots on the Bay Area improving scene. Trumpeter Johnston, a frequent visitor to Chicago, where the two had collaborated in several different settings in the years prior, suggested this trio lineup for a performance at Oakland’s Uptown Nightclub. Although Rempis hadn’t worked with Ochs before, the latter’s renowned experience in the all-horn lineup of The ROVA Saxophone Quartet made the idea especially appealing. From the first few notes, that initial meeting flowed comfortably, yet in totally unexpected ways, with all three making logical structural decisions that gave their improvisations the feel of through-composed pieces. Eager to continue developing this language that the three later came to dub “invisible architecture,” Rempis made a follow-up trip to the Bay Area in the spring of 2012 for two more concerts and a studio recording session. Spectral, the first document of their work, was the result of that visit, and shows an improvising trio playing out an audible game of chess. Not satisfied with simply existing in the moment, these three combine sensibilities to look many moves ahead, setting each other up time and again to capitalize on structural possibilities that give rare and meaningful form to an otherwise very spontaneous music.
Dave Rempis was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts on March 24th, 1975. He began his musical studies at the age of 8, inspired by a family friend who played clarinet in local Greek bands, and by Zoot, of the Muppets Band, to pick up saxophone. During high school he performed in his town, district, and all-state bands and wind ensembles, as well as in a jazz combo at a local music school.
In 1993, Rempis began a degree in classical saxophone at Northwestern University with Frederick Hemke. Finding this environment stifling, Rempis quickly ditched the music degree to pursue studies in anthropology and ethnomusicology. As part of these studies, he spent a year at the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana, Legon, studying African music and ethnomusicology. He also continued to perform with many different types of groups, ranging from highlife and reggae bands while in Ghana, to jazz, free jazz, funk, and contemporary music ensembles at home. He graduated from Northwestern in 1997.
Upon graduating, Rempis decided to focus on performing, and in March of 1998 was asked to replace saxophonist Mars Williams in the well-known Chicago jazz outfit The Vandermark Five. This opportunity catapulted him to notoriety as he began to tour regularly throughout the US and Europe playing clubs, concert halls, and festivals on both continents.
During his tenure with The Vandermark Five, Rempis also began to develop the many Chicago-based groups for which he is currently known. These include The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, The Rempis/Rosaly Duo, The Outskirts, Ballister, The Rempis/Daisy Duo, Bishop/Rempis/Kessler/Zerang, and Wheelhouse. Past working groups include Triage, and the Dave Rempis Quartet. Many of these groups have been documented on the Okkadisk, 482 Music, Not Two, MultiKulti, Solitaire, and Utech record labels. Rempis also performs and tours with Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band and Resonance Project, and The Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet. Past collaborations have included performances with Paul Lytton, Axel Dörner, Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Steve Swell, John Tchicai,Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Kevin Drumm, Paal Nilssen-Love, Nels Cline,Tony Buck, and Joe McPhee. Rempis has been named three times in the annualDownbeat Critics’s Poll as a rising star in both the alto and baritone saxophone categories.
Since settling in San Francisco in 1997, Canadian-born trumpeter, composer, songwriter Darren Johnston has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists, yet always finds ways to be true to his own unique voice in each context. From straight-ahead jazz luminaries such as bassist/composer Marcus Shelby, to experimental icons like ROVA, Fred Frith and Myra Melford, rising star in the singer/songwriter world like Meklit Hadero, or traditional Balkan brass band giants Brass Menazeri. As a bandleader he has made his mark with the award winning The Nice Guy Trio, The Darren Johnston Quintet, the category defying Broken Shadows, and more. Johnston was featured as one of Downbeat Magazine’s “25 Trumpeters for the Future,” and has been listed multiple times in the critic’s polls. His debut quintet recording, “The Edge of the Forest” received four stars by four very different critics in the Downbeat “Critics Polls,” and was given an honorable mention by the Village Voice for the top 10 CDs of the year. Johnston has a BA from the Cincinnati Conservatory of music, and an MFA in composition from Mills College.
He has received commissions for dance companies such as Kunst-Stoff, and Robert Moses’ Kin, and AXIS Dance, presenting organizations such as Intersection for the Arts, the De Young Museum, and the Yerbas Buena Garden Festival, and his music has been used in a few independent films. His original works have been supported by the Zellerbach Family Fund, Meet the Composer, and SF Friends of Chamber Music. In June of 2013, he will premiere his upcoming commission from the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, “Letters From Home,” developed in collaboration with choreographer Erika Chong Shuch, for which he is forming a multi-generational chorus with over eighty participants, the Trans-Global People’s Chorus. As an educator, Johnston currently teaches privately, at the Community Music Center in San Francisco’s Mission district, the Oakland School for the Arts, and as adjunct faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.
Larry Ochs (b. 1949; New York), tenor & sopranino saxophones, has been performing with San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet since February 1978, and with them has traveled throughout USA, Canada and Europe as well making tours in Japan. He also has served as the acting executive director of the non-profit organization “Rova:Arts” since its inception in 1986, and in that capacity has produced many large collaborative concerts in San Francisco and beyond. Ochs has composed over 3 dozen works for sax quartet, many with added musicians.
Rova Saxophone Quartet: Since 1978, Ochs’s professional activities have been primarily centered around the Rova Saxophone Quartet, which has made over thirty European tours and numerous concerts throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as recording over 30 CDs as a quartet and/or in collaboration with other artists.
Other performance groups: In 1986, Ochs formed the group Room with Chris Brown and William Winant, a trio of saxophone, piano, computer electronics and percussion. The group continued performing and recording until 1994, and was one of the first bands to combine acoustic instruments and computer electronics in formal compositions that involved improvisation.
In 1990, he and keyboardist Wayne Horvitz formed The International Creative Music Orchestra for the Pan American Goodwill Games in Seattle with further performances at the Vancouver DuMaurier International Jazz Festival.
In 1991, he suggested a collaboration between Room and The Glenn Spearman Trio, a sextet that eventually became an ongoing band, and recorded 4 CDs as Glenn Spearman Double Trio.
In 1993, he created a nine-piece group to perform a specially commissioned work for Antwerpen ’93 Festival entitled The Secret Magritte. Also in 1993, he organized a saxophone octet (including the Rova quartet) to perform five compositions of his music at festivals in Austria and Germany.
In 1994, Ochs joined with Lisle Ellis and Donald Robinson to form the ongoing trio, What We Live, which has toured in the US and Europe and recorded six CDs.
In 1995, he was a guest soloist with the George Lewis Creative Orchestra at Mills College in Oakland, California. Also in 1995, he performed and recorded with India Cooke’s group, Red Handed.
In 1997, he composed the 45 minute work Pleistocene for a 12 piece ensemble which was performed at The San Francisco Jazz Festival (as part of Rova’s 20th anniversary concert.) Also in 1997, Ochs first recorded with the John Lindberg Ensemble; a tour and second recording took place in 1999; a third recording and tour followed in 2000.
In 1998, he toured and recorded with guitarist Fred Frith and koto-player Miya Masaoka in a trio called Maybe Monday. A CD was released by this trio on Buzz (Netherlands) in 2000. A second CD with guest Joan Jeanrenaud has been released in 2002 on Winter & Winter (Germany) in time for an 8 city European tour.
In 2000, Ochs organized the trio Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core with drummers Scott Amendola and Donald Robinson; a first recording has been released on Black Saint in 2002, and their first European tour also took place in early 2002. Ochs has composed some 2 dozen compositions for saxophone quartet as well as many other pieces for mixed ensembles (see groups mentioned in previous paragraph).
His most recent composition for saxophone quartet, a thirty-minute piece entitled Certain Space, was commissioned by Chamber Music America / Doris Duke Foundation, and he has twice previously been commissioned by Commissioning Music USA / Meet the Composer Fund. He composed the music for the film Letters Not About Love which won best documentary film award at the 1998 South by Southwest Film Festival. His monograph on “Strategies for Structured Improvisation” was published in 1999 as part of the book Arcana, a collection of composers’ writings edited by John Zorn (Granary Press, New York). He has also composed for theater and one video play.
Lynn/Foisy/Palmer + Faster
(Montreal/Toronto/Hamilton)
Lynn/Foisy/Palmer
Michael Lynn upright bass Raphael-Foisy Couture bass Chris Palmer Guitar
Improvising bassists, Montreal’s Raphaël Foisy-Couture and Toronto’s Michael Lynn are on tour across Ontario and Quebec, infiltrating the local scene, shaking things up a bit, performing with local musicians. In Hamilton they will perform with improvising guitarist Chris Palmer, plus Faster, a post-post-modern improvising duo from Montreal and New York area.
An important contributor to the vibrant Montreal improvised music scene, Raphaël Foisy-Couture has been presenting his raw and highly physical approach to the bass in venues ranging from punk lofts to jazz clubs since 2012. Raphaël’s authentic, uncompromising, rapidly evolving, genre-defying playing, DIY attitude and overall openness to surprising sounds have made him a sought-after player on the scene. Always eager to break new grounds in musical comradeship Raphaël collaborators have included an eclectic mix of musicians such has local improvise music fixtures Nouveau Jazz Libre du Québec (NJLQ), Ellwood Epps, John Heward, Craig Pedersen, Yves Charuest, , Ivan Bamford and Simon Labbé , rock and experimental musicians Roy Vuccino (PYPY, Red Mass), Samuel Bobony (Black Givre, Avec le soleil sortant de sa bouche), Jonathan Legault (Loose Pistons, Style shuts) and Philippe Vandal (Orian, VNDL), multi-disciplinary artist Belinda Campbell and international players Jeff Henderson (NZ) and Faye MacCalman (UK). In addition to his frequent ad-hoc music performances he can be heard in the projects Ninja Simone, Bord à Bord and Mettler/Foisy duo. As a grassroots organizer, Raphaël has been involve in the La Passe collective, co-running the Mardis touscroches and Philippe Foisy et les amis dudimancheseries and presenting cutting-edge local and international artists. He is also the creative director of the Small Scale Music label; another means to develop a stronger sense of collectivity for challenging and life affirming music.
Michael Lynn, an improvising upright bass player, has been active both within the Brisbane, Australia and Toronto improvising music scene. He has played in the Now, Now festival and winter tragic festival (Australia), the New Music Marathon (Dundas Square), the Somewhere There Festival and the 416 Festival, and he is a regular player for Somewhere There, the Array Sessions and Coexisdance. He is currently a member of the NourbeSe Phillips’ Zong Ensemble and Colin Anthony’s Dream Dance, and the Birth of Troubling Forms. For the past 2 years he has curated a monthly improvising music series Audiopollination at Array Space.
Chris Palmer is an improvising guitarist in Hamilton, having moved to Canada from New Zealand where he was active in the Wellington avant music/ theatre scene for about thirteen years.
(Montreal/New York)
Faster
Kayla Milmine suprano sax/vocals Brian Abbott guitar/electronic effects/junk percussion
The duo FASTER is Kayla Milmine (soprano sax/vocals) from Montreal, and Brian Abbott (guitar/electronic effects/junk percussion) from the New York area. They play a mixture of freely improvised music, reharmonized (and often hilarious) jazz standards, and punk songs in the style of Ella Fitzgerald. In addition to music they also venture into performance art in their live sets and have been spotted performing with popcorn poppers, and doing onstage carpentry to frightened, confused, and ecstatic audiences.
Craig Pedersen Quartet
(Montreal)
Craig Pedersen Quartet
Craig Pedersen trumpet
From Ottawa and Montreal, a fiery, inspired avant-jazz quartet made up of younger mavericks and led by Craig Pedersen trumpet, with Linsey Wellman saxophones, Joel Kerr bass and Eric Thibodeau drums. They’re on a tour of Ontario and Quebec with their new album Ghosts.
Craig Pedersen is a trumpet player, composer and educator based out of Montréal. An active freelance musician specializing in jazz and free music, he also performs commercial, classical and klezmer music. He actively leads his own bands, the Craig Pedersen Quartet and the It’s A Free Country duo with Joel Kerr.
Since 2011, Craig has released eight albums, ranging between composed material to improvisation, through jazz, free music, country, and klezmer, in a variety of ensembles. Recent highlights of this work have included collaborations and/or performances with Joe Morris, Jean Derome, Joane Hetu, Lori Freedman, Nicolas Caloia, Ian Birse and Laura Kavanaugh (Instant Places), and Mark Molnar (Kingdom Shore), as well as recording on the soundtrack for Robert Lepage’s Needles and Opium, and performances at L’Off Festival du Jazz and FONT Canada. His method book exploring extended techniques for the trumpet, Trumpet Sound Effects, was published by Berklee Press and HalLeonard in November of 2014.
linseywellman.com
“An astringent tea for the ears.”
“It’s consistently playful, imaginative work that’s somehow true to both the emotional directness of country music and the oblique abstraction of current improvisation, just not at the same time.”
“I hear in it something Robert Wyatt-ish”
“…reminds this listener of the halcyon days of the 1970s when the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Julius Hemphill and Henry Threadgill first entered my consciousness. ”
Crofts/Adams/Pearse + Gerry Hemingway
(Halifax)
Crofts / Adams / Pearse with Hemmingway
Tim Crofts piano Norman Adams cello Lukas Pearse bass
Intrepid, nimble improvising Halifax trio of Tim Crofts (piano), Norman Adams (cello) and Lukas Pearse (bass) will be joined by American master-percussionist, composer Gerry Hemingway, who is perhaps best known as an Anthony Braxton Quartet alumni. This most virtuous unit will grace the Pearl Company stage as part of their coast to coast Canadian tour of select cities (Halifax, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, Hamilton, Guelph, Toronto). The trio, considered “one of Atlantic Canada’s most creative free music ensembles”, has been presented numerous times on the suddenlyLISTEN Series, at the Festival des Musiques de Création Jonquière, The Halifax Jazz Festival and Re:Flux Festival. With the addition of Hemingway, fresh, spontaneous interaction is the heart and soul of this unit. The trio has released their first album, Sonomatopia, in 2008 and a second release, Literal Lateral, followed with Hemingway recently. Don’t miss this Hamilton first!
http://www.gerryhemingway.com
https://www.suddenlylisten.com/tim-crofts
Hat & Beard + West & Cartwright
An unusual, charming homage to Thelonious Monk (via Eric Dolphy) by Ken Aldcroft (guitar) and Dave Clark (drums), plus another dynamic, improvising duo comprised of Hamilton’s Brodie West (alto saxophone) and Evan Cartwright (drums) from Toronto.
Hat & Beard
“Hat and Beard” is Eric Dolphy’s tribute-through-looking-glass piece for Thelonious Monk on the classic Blue Note recording, Out to Lunch! Like its namesake composition, this pair pays Monk’s perennially vanguard music fair respect by re-envisioning it in an unconventional way. Ken Aldcroft and Dave Clark have absorbed huge chunks of Monk’s songbook, and traipse both down well-trodden paths with familiar material like “Epistrophy” and through the thornier thicket of little-tackled gems like “Brilliant Corners”. Overtly, Ken tends to play the straight man in the face of Dave’s combination of chops and comedic flair that is reminiscent of none other than Han Bennink. At times though – like Bennink’s Monk-theorist foil, Misha Mengelberg – Ken can subvert the tune from within it, and playfully prod Dave to keep up with him. In this way, Hat and Beard is a fun and joyful romp through one of the great compositional legacies of the past century.
As a guitarist , Ken Aldcroft extends the jazz tradition that lies at the core of his music education. Through his commitment to a wide-open field of musical influence and to forging new collaborative ties, Ken has systematically sought new and challenging contexts in which to improvise. As a result, his playing reflects the breadth of his interests, from the extended bebop of a jazz repertory project like Hat & Beard, performing the music of Thelonious Monk, to the language of free improvisation that he explores in collective improvisational settings such as ongoing collaborations with NY bassist William Parker and saxophonist Andy Haas or one off performances with artists such as Wilbert DeJoode, Joe McPhee, John Oswald and Lori Freedman to name just a few. This variety comes into its fullest view with Ken?s two solo recordings; “Home: Solo Guitar Compositions” (2011) and “Vocabulary: Solo Guitar Improvisations” (2009), both are passionate musical reflections on his ongoing development as an improvising guitarist.
Dave Clark is a drummer/multi-instrumentalist/vocalist, Gemini Award winning composer, music student, music educator, author, poet, record producer, audio mastering engineer and the leader of the WoodChopper’s Association improviser’s orchestra. Dave has been lucky enough to have performed with such diverse artists as the Dinner is Ruined, the Nihilist Spasm Band, Jah Youssouf, Vieux Farka Toure and Mansa Sissoko of Mali, West Africa, mezzo soprano Jean Stillwell, Plunderphonics mastermind John Oswald, legendary drummer Neil Peart of Rush, the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Woodshed Orchestra, the Rheostatics, Jean Derome, Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip, trumpeter Lina Allemano, Rich Underhill of the Shuffle Demons, Tannis Slimmon, the Shrine of Impossible Love, Joe Lapinski, Runcible Spoon, Madagascar Slim, Sook-Yin Lee, Jo Ann Hetu, Rock Plaza Central, Wayne Omaha, Trish O’Callaghan, Michael Johnston, the Williams, Mihirangi, Eliza Gilkyson, Carolyn Mark, GUH, Lewis Melville, Andrew Downing, Les Blancs Brilliants, dancers Andrea Nann, Rex Harrington, Yvonne Ng, Kate Alton, Shannon Cooney, and Susie Burpee, poets Paul Dutton of the CCMC and Jim Carroll author of the “Basketball Diaries”, created soundtrack work for Nick Deponcier, Audrey Huntley, co-created soundtrack music with the Rheostatics for Martin Scorsese “Naked in New York” and Richard J. Lewis “Whale Music”, worked with theatre artists Tina Rasmussen, Jane Wells, Suitcase in Point of St. Catherines Ontario, Theatre Junction of Calgary Alberta, One Yellow Rabbit Theatre Company of Calgary Alberta, Installation Artists Sherri Hay, Fastwurms, Walter Willems, Mike Murphy and many others. Dave has studied with master drum teacher Jim Blackley of Barrie, Canada, Bata music master Gilberto Morales Chiong of Matanzas Cuba, British guitarist and composer Fred Frith, and saxophonist David Mott of Toronto, Canada. Dave is the author of “A Month of Sundays” poetry collection and the music instructional text “How to Conduct…Yourself! Conducting Cues For Instant Musical Composition”. Dave has produced/ co-produced recordings by the the Williams, Joe Lapinski, Michael Johnston, the Inbreds, By Divine Right and the WoodChoppers Association. He has mastered audio works by the Rheostatics, Han Bennink, Sam Larkin, Dave Reed and Zunior.com amongst others. Mr. Clark teaches music at his studio in Toronto, Canada as well as leading his Improviser’s Woodshed music workshops at public, secondary and post-secondary schools, as well as at music festivals, in art galleries, for theatre companies and for various bands.
(Hamilton/Toronto)
WEST & CARTWRIGHT
Brodie West Saxophone Evan Cartwright Drums
Evan Cartwright and Brodie West have been playing regularly together over the past few years. Cartwright has appeared as a guest in West’s ensemble Eucalyptus on several occasions. This evening’s concert will mark their first public appearance as a duo. They will premier 3 new compositions which they developed in collaboration over they past two years.
http://lornarecords.blogspot.com/
Brodie West is an alto saxophonist and composer currently living in Hamilton Ontario. West has been an active member on Toronto’s creative music scene for the past 20 years and has played with many of Toronto’s finest musicians. Notably he was a member of Drumheller, Deep Dark United, The Woodchoppers Collective and Zebradonk. He has toured and recorded with international musicians Getatchew Mekuria, Han Bennink, The Ex, Ken Vandermark and Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed. He plays with The Lina Allemano 4 and The Ryan Driver Sextet. West leads his own ensemble Eucalyptus (since 2009) and performs solo. He is currently working in collaboration with Andrew Zukerman in a duo setting and Evan Cartwright also as a duo. West has toured extensively throughout the USA, Europe and Canada. He has also made several trips to Ethiopia. He has appeared at several international music festivals and has made guest appearances on many recordings including Jennifer Castle Pink City, Nifty Pity Slash Love, Tenderness The Axe is Ready, The Ryan Driver Quintet Plays the Music of Steven Parkinson and Broken Social Scene You Forgot it in People.
Drummer Evan Cartwright is a fixture of the Toronto music scene. He is a frequent collaborator with such local acts as Snowblink (Arts and Crafts), Alex Lukashevsky (idee fixe), Eucalyptus (Healing Power), and Luka. Internationally, Evan has performed his original songs on stages ranging from the Bataclan in Paris to the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, and has toured extensively with Tasseomancy and Omhouse. A graduate of the University of Toronto’s Jazz program, Evan is a technically accomplished drummer with an innate ability to express ideas through music. As an educator Evan has worked closely with renowned music instructor Doug Friesen exploring alternative teaching methods to bring a greater sense of equality and respect into the classroom. As a composer, Cartwright’s accomplishments include writing music for the Ingrid Veninger film I Am a Good Person/I Am a Bad Person (2011) and creating accompaniments for works by Toronto based contemporary dancer Ana Groppler.
Atomic 7
(Norway and Sweeden)
Atomic 7
Fredrik Ljungkvist reeds · Magnus Broo trumpet · Håvard Wiik piano ·Ingebrigt Håker Flaten bass · Hans Hulbœkmo drums
In 2008, Zula organized a tour for Atomic in South Coastal BC… now they are finally back in Canada! Since its inception in 1999, Atomic has focused on converting their deep knowledge and love of the history of jazz, along with well-honed chops and artistic vision, into beautiful, fresh, creative music -without emulating. Atomic plays original music, mixing grooves and modes with a distinctive approach to free playing. Think classic Miles Davis meets late-period Coltrane meets Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, filter through Albert Ayler, Andrew Hill, Ornette Coleman influences and you’ll get an idea why their joyous, life-affirming sound has spurred collaborations with leading contemporary jazz musicians, such as Ken Vandermark, Chris Potter, Iain Bellamy and Per ‘Texas’ Johansson.
Ronley Teper 4 + Brodie West
(Toronto)
Ronley Teper 4
Ronley Teper vocals and guitar Tim Posgate banjo Caleb Hamilton trumpet and accordian Aly Livingston flute
Toronto singer, songstress, guitarist, bandleader Ronley Teper has gracefully helped close our Something Else! Festival in June. She returns to Hamilton with a scaled-down yet potent quartet version of her Lipliners with Tim Posgate on banjo and Caleb Hamilton on trumpet and accordion, Aly Livingston on flute.
(Hamilton)
Brodie West
Brodie West saxophones
Toronto ex-pat, fresh Hamiltonian, alto saxophonist Brodie West, who was presented by Zula in a duo setting with Han Bennink in 2004 will grace our “stage” again with his inaugural solo set here at the Zula House.
Ken Aldcroft's Convergence Ensemble
Convergence Ensemble
Ken Aldcroft guitar Karen Ng alto saxophone Emily Denison trumpet Scott Thomson trombone Wes Neal bass Joe Sorbara drums
Convergence is neither a jazz crew playing tunes nor a free-improv unit, slipping from one to another both within and between songs. While I am as addicted as anyone to energy music’s sugar high, Aldcroft’s formula leads to an ultimately more satisfying full-course banquet.
Epps/Charuest & Barwin/Lee
Montreal improvisers, perpetual explorers and searchers of the sound, trumpeter Ellwood Epps and saxophonist Yves Charuest are on tour in support of their debut recording “La Passe” and are joined at Hamilton’s Artword Artbar by two of Hamilton’s literary and musical greats; writer, poet, saxophonist, flutist Gary Barwin and writer, double-bassist David Lee for an evening of scary good music and text.
(Hamilton)
Barwin/Lee
Gary Barwin saxophones, flute David Lee bass
Gary Barwin is a poet, fiction writer, composer, multi-media and visual artist and performer. His music and writing have been published, performed and broadcast in Canada, the US and elsewhere.He is 2014-15 Writer in Residence at Western University (London, Ontario) and was Young Voices Writer in Residence at Toronto Public Library in Fall 2013. Barwin currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario with his family where he is being worked over by Yiddish for Pirates, the great Canadian Jewish pirate novel.
David Lee is a writer and double bassist. Originally from BC, he spent years in the Toronto art scene and on BC’s Sunshine Coast, and currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Wolsak & Wynn recently published a newly revised edition of David’s critically-acclaimed jazz book The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field, and in spring 2015, if all goes well, they will bring the Cthulhu mythos to the mean streets of modern-day Hamilton with his YA novel The Midnight Games. In 2012 Tightrope Books of Toronto published David’s first novel, Commander Zero.
(New York/Montreal)
Epps/Charuest
Elwood Epps trumpets Yves Charuest saxophones
Ellwood Epps (Montreal/New York City) is an improvising trumpet player, and one of the leading lights of Canada’s creative music scene. He has performed with Steve Lacy, William Parker, Josh Zubot, Henry Grimes, Jean Derome, Le Quan Ninh, Joe McPhee, Butch Morris, John Butcher, and Marshall Allen, and appears on more than 50 recordings. He has appeared internationally at the Stone, CBGB’s and The Jazz Gallery (all in New York), the Guelph, Vancouver, Halifax, and Toronto Jazz Festivals, FIMAV, Festival of New Trumpet (NYC), Earshot (Seattle), Suoni Per Il Popolo, and the Off Festival de Jazz (Montreal). Epps cofounded l’Envers in 2008, through which he has presented over 500 concerts. In the same year he also cofounded the Mardi Spaghetti series at Le Cagibi. He is also the director and principal teacher at the Studio d’Improvisation de Montréal since 2009, presenting an ongoing series of improvised music workshops, including guest teachers like Henry Grimes, Lori Freedman, and Jean Derome. Ellwood is active with several working groups: the longstanding Pink Saliva (an electric band with Michel F Côté and Alexandre St-Onge), Land of Marigold (with Josh Zubot), the acoustic Ellwood Epps Quartet (with Scott Thomson, Nicolas Caloia, and Ivan Bamford), the Ratchet Orchestra, and in duet with saxophonist Yves Charuest.
Canadian saxophonist Yves Charuest emerged on the jazz and new music scene in the 1980-90s with many Canadian musicians such as Michel Ratté, Jean Beaudet, Guillaume Dostaler, Lisle Ellis and Jean Derome, in different groups and projects: I Like Jazz, Evidence, Duo Charuest-Ratté, Trio Michel Ratté, Wreck’s Progress, among others. Charuest was also a member of the Peter Kowald Trio (1985-1990) with Louis Moholo, with whom he played extensively in Europe and in the USA. He has also played with William Parker, John Betsch, Mathias Schubert, and Agustí Fernández. More recently, Charuest has been involved on many projects with the following ensembles: Duo Charuest-Caloia, Murray Street Band, Ratchet Orchestra, The Disguises, Charuest/Shalabi/Caloia and Four-sided Circle, as well as with Nicolas Caloia, Ellwood Epps, Lori Freedman, William Parker, Sam Shalabi, Scott Thomson and Josh Zubot. Charuest has also presented solo concerts in Montreal, Quebec, Germany, France and the Netherlands, and has collaborated with electroacoustic composers Jean-François Denis, jef chippewa and Jean Piché, and more recently with choreographer Susanna Hood and dancer Alanna Kraaijeveld.
