On the first three days of the Guelph Jazz Festival…

By Connor Kurtz

The 2017 Guelph Jazz Festival started big on Wednesday with a solo set by the one and the only Peter Brötzmann in the Guelph Little Theatre. Brötzmann opened the night with a long piece on his signature tenor saxophone, which was full of emotion and surprise. Rather than the aggressive bombardments that made Peter Brötzmann such a popular name, he opted for a far more soulful improvisation which carefully drifted from melody to non-melody and from style to style. Themes and motifs came and went through the piece, even making surprise returns on the pieces which would follow on different instruments.

The biggest surprise of the night, for this reviewer, was that his clarinet performance ended up both harsher and quicker than the first tenor performance. Even though there were long stretches of careful melody in the piece, it was dominated by abrasive textual improvisations. Next, he took off his jacket and took out his taragoto to perform a wonderful clash of cultures, focused on experimental repetitions and full body movements.

Finally, he took out his tenor saxophone once again to play a brief piece which, to this review, sounded to be an aggressive younger brother to the first piece, but was later confirmed in an on-stage interview to be a piece from Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite. Brötzmann also teased the idea of releasing a Brötzmann Plays Standards CD, and hinted towards future work with drummers Han Bennink and Andrew Cyrille.

On Thursday night in the River Run Centre was the Toronto-based chamber jazz quartet Cluttertones, who were accompanied by Hong Kong-Toronto pianist Lee Pui Ming. In their two-hour set, they covered a huge amount of music ranging from free improvisation to contemporary classical music to vocal pop. Cluttertones' greatest appeal, for this reviewer, was the clear mutual respect and artistic comfortability that all performers shared. This allowed for a huge variety of improvisations using different members of the ensemble, where no members make attempt to steal any unnecessary spotlight.

Gracing the stage of a small performance space simply known as Silence on Friday was the Montreal-based trio known as Jane and the Magic Bananas. Sam Shalabi, on guitar and electronics, and Alexandre St-Onge, on bass guitar and electronics, are both known quite well for their involvement in the wonderful psychedelic rock group known as Shalabi Effect. Michel F. Côté, on drums and feedback, may not be as well known outside of Montreal's musique actuelle music scene, but there's no denying that this trio has brilliant chemistry (upon the end of the trio's first piece a man could be heard yelling "Seriously? Yes!"). All musicians found beautiful ways to mesh their instruments with their electronics, and the result was a psychedelic wasteland which left the whole crowd enamored. The music may have little to do with jazz, but it's difficult to say exactly what genre of music this does have to do with. What this reviewer knows for sure, is that this performance was visceral, inspiring and that it won't be easily forgotten.

Later, in the same night in the River Run Centre was the very exciting international trio of saxophonist John Butcher, analogue synthesist Thomas Lehn and pianist Matthew Shipp (all three performers will be playing again throughout the weekend). The trio's performance was nothing short of dazzling and constantly exciting. John Butcher's improvisation was kaleidoscopic in range, seemingly covering just about everything except traditional saxophone soloing. Thomas Lehn crafted a thick atmosphere of challenging tones and pops which filled the room, and even seemed to make the chairs shake at times. Through (what I assume to be) a MIDI-keyboard, Lehn's fingers move like a mad man's, in direct opposition to the much more careful Matthew Shipp. Matthew Shipp's performance was emotionally controlled, which created a wonderful balance against the two experimentalists. Shipp carefully crafted melodies and repetitions, imposing pseudo-form over the entire piece. It's hard to imagine a much more perfect 2017 jazz trio than this.

Following up the trio's performance in a double bill was the Vancouver-based cellist Peggy Lee with an octet of great improvisers to perform her suite, Tell Tale, written in response to the recent HBO series, Deadwood. Following the trio was surely tough, but the Peggy Lee Octet won over the crowd enough to warrant a standing ovation from nearly the entire audience. The piece drifts from gorgeous themes and songs to extended improvisations and back again, including lengthy unaccompanied solos for both the contrabass and drums. Highlights included pianist Chris Gestrin's reductionist approach, which seemed to take inspiration from the minimalist notion of a pulse, and guitarist Ron Samworth's use of effect pedals, which reminded this reviewer of Alexandre St-Onge's performance just hours earlier. Tell Tale is available on a 2016 CD, released by Drip Audio.

Saturday will include a solo performance from Matthew Shipp in the River Run Centre at 10, a double bill of Way Out Northwest (John Butcher with Torsten Müller and Dylan van der Schyff of the Peggy Lee Octet) and René Lussier’s MEUH (which also features turntablist Martin Tétreault) in the Guelph Little Theatre at 2, and a double bill of Josh Zubot’s MendHam (which also features composer and percussionist Isaiah Ceccarelli) and BassDrumBone (Mark Helias, Gerry Hemmingway and Ray Anderson) in the River Run Centre at 8. Sunday will include a double bill of Mark Helias (solo bass) and Tom & Gerry (Thomas Lehn and Gerry Hemmingway, that is) at noon in the Guelph Youth Music Centre, and Barnyard Drama (Christine Duncan and Jean Martin) at 8 in Silence.

Check back later this coming week for continued coverage.