NOW Orchestra Blog

The Sonic Presence Series called Clamour has been really magnificent.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9yjKJqK44

There you'll see a magical slice of the noworchestra.com production featuring percussionist Jeffrey Allport and electronics performer Lee Hutzulak and get a taste of what a delicious evening it was

The series continues this Thursday, October 22 from 5 - 7 pm @ The Western Front (303 East 8th Avenue in Vancouver).

This week Music on Main presents Cris Derksen on solo cello and electronics in the first set, and the second set features electroacoustic sound artist Chantale Laplante and saxophonist Jeremy Brown produced by the Western Front.

Admission is $10 (and if you're there before 5:30 pm admission includes the Clamour martini).

www.sonicpresence.ca

This is a very exciting and important series.

Hope you can make it.

This is going to be an amazing series. It will happen the way it's done in Montréal.

Drinks and sounds will happen from 5 - 7 pm at the Western Front (303 East 8th Avenue).

It is an tremendous program. If it's too small to read, go to www.sonicpresence.ca

NOW is producing the second night on October 8.

It starts this Thursday, October 1 with the Music on Main All-Star Band.

See you there...

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/2009/03/29/beaut-plate/

The New Orchestra Workshop Society of Canada has launched its own imprint, Now Orchestra Recordings, and the first five releases arrived in a handy display folder for my perusal. The Society has been going for 32 years, and it’s encouraging to see they continue to receive moneys from various Canadian art-funding bodies (unlike the situation that prevails in the UK, I’m sorry to report). Good to hear some improvised voice music from ion Zoo, where the voice of Carol Sawyer is set against low-key bass-piano-sax improvisations on Set Free At The Cellar (CLNOW001). Viviane Houle also lets her voice run free on La Belle et la Bête (CLNOW002), a record she made with Stefan Smulovitz who plays the “Kenaxis” program on his laptop in real time. Houle warbles and scats like some demented cross between Yma Sumac and Slim Gaillard, but also does the Phil Minton thing of squeezing non-musical grunts and sighs from a closed larynx. The Bruce Freedman African Groove Band perform lively lilting stomps on Live At The Cellar (CLNOW003), using two bassists and two drummers to establish irresistible rhythms, while the accordion of Tyson Naylor connects these pieces to township music. Jeff Younger’s Sandbox are a five-piece playing brass instruments with bass and drums, while the leader operates his electric guitar and electronics in free atonal ways on The Nudger (CLNOW004), a title which may appear unfortunate to UK ears, but as the Sandbox part of their name suggests, this combo are engaged in innocent experimental play. Lastly we have The Now Orchestra, showcasing a selection of their live recordings from the last 2-3 years on Animal Tales (CLNOW005); the Orchestra, active for over 20 years, is a large-scale unit on the order of the Globe Unity Orchestra in Europe, and they play semi-composed pieces which have mostly emerged from the pen of Coat Cooke, the executive producer of all the above recordings.

http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/life/story.html?id=93f30e13-dda7-49d5-ad8d-26a239ac8f62

October 9, 2008

BRUCE FREEDMAN  AFRICAN GROOVE BAND

Live at the Cellar
NOW Orchestra Records/Cellar Live
AFRICAN GROOVE BAND EXEMPLIFIES JAZZ TREND
With all due respect to Toronto and Montreal, Vancouver is the jazz centre of Canada, a city where veterans of the scene continue to hone their craft with newcomers, many of the latter coming from the region's top-notch music schools.

The Bruce Freedman African Groove Band exemplifies this trend.  Bandleader and saxophonist Freedman has been hard at it for decades, and here he shares the stage with a sextet of able musicians, including the young accordionist Tyson Naylor, On Live at the Cellar (NOW Orchestra Records/Cellar Live), recorded at Vancouver's premier jazz club, the band performs four lengthy improvisations. The band lives up to its name on the opening Little Melody in F, a flowing 6/8 number with a terrific soprano sax solo by the leader. Oasis opens in free time before settling into a groove reminiscent of John Coltrane's great quartet from the 1960's, where the sax solo follows an ascending arc to a peak. Double bassists Tommy Babin and Dave Chokroun begin Zen Death Poem with a lengthy dialogue, and Freedman performs a call-and-response exercise with himself. Drummer Dan Gaucher and percussionist Russell Shumsky dominate the Queen's Drone, which ends, oddly, with a fadeout. Naylor adds colour to each of the songs.