hearitn w

NEW
ORCHESTRA
WORKSHOP

A PROFILE OF THE

Ellis says, "We met up with Paul Plimley
and Gregg Simpson and wanted to organize
ourselves, get people interested in this
music, and start to play it. One way to do
that was to sponsor a series of workshops,
so we brought in Karl Berger, who had
experience in doing these things."
The invitation to the first workshop, Explorations in Creative Music, reads: "In the
workshop sessions, we will explore the elements basic to any style or form in music,
the nature of sound, rhythm, timing, tuning, basic natural harmonies and rhythmic
cycles, all of which are the building stones
of all the music on earth."

NOW ORCHESTRA HISTORY• By Laurence Svirchev

Now

is 1977 and NOW is 1994. If you think that
NOW can't be two different times at once, then
consider that NOW stands for New Orchestra Workshop and
this year it is celebrating its seventeenth birthday, one of
the longest lasting innovative new music collectives in
North America.

Longevity and innovation may be at a premium in the music
world, but NOW has a proven track record with a documented
history of recording, workshops given by its own members and
guest artists, and creative music festivals.
The New Orchestra Workshop was set up to provide a focal
point for the creation of an original West Coast Canadian
musical idiom by seven musicians, all of whom are still active
in that music: Paul Cram, Lisle Ellis, Gregg Simpson, Clyde
Reed, Paul Plimley, Ralph Eppel and Coat Cooke.
Ellis and Cram were the main initial organizers of NOW, with
Ellis doing the writing of the Canada Council Explorations
grant for funding their first initiatives, including their first
studio at 1616 (Rear) West 3rd Ave. Ellis had visited the Creative
Music Studio in Woodstock, New York in 1975 and came back
not only amazed by the extent of the creative music scene across
the continent, but also dissatisfied with the lack of new approaches to music in Vancouver. This was a period of time when
musicians were being kicked wholesale out of clubs in favour of
canned music for dancers. A space controlled by musicians was
desperately needed.

32 CODA

The concept of the workshop has stuck
through all the years. Among the long list
of international collaborators have been:
Sam Rivers, Muha! Richard Abrams, Joe
McPhee (1978), Ran Blake, Charlie Haden
(1987), Steve Lacy, Jay Clayton (1988), Vinny Golia (1989).
But NOW has not simply been a vehicle for bringing in nonVancouverites. The idea of the community of Vancouver musicians has always been the anchor. Throughout 1979-80, Lisle
Ellis held "Basic Practice" every Tuesday. There were workshops
preceding Friday, Saturday and Sunday performances each
weekend by Vancouver musical ensembles. In those pre-inflation days, Basic Practice was free, Workshops $5.00 and performances $2.00. The groundwork of those early workshops has
continued with each generation of NOW. For example, Kate
Hammett-Vaughan and Ron Samworth conducted a workshop
at the Vancouver Community College during the 1988 Time
Flies Series, Weekly Workshops were held in the Glass Slipper in
1991, as well as at Vancouver Community College by Coat
Cooke and Samworth in the fall of 1993.
NOW has always had an interesting structure. There has usually
been a group of core musicians who were members of NOW and
they in turn belonged to bands that revolved around NOW.
There has almost always been a large ensemble under the
direction of NOW.
In the beginning, there was the New Orchestra Quintet, composed of all the founding members except Clyde Reed. At a time
when acronyms flourished and community experimentation
was officially encouraged by government, the large ensemble
was CORD (Community Orchestra Research and Development).
Some of the satellite groups were Sessione Milano and the
Resident String Quartet. In 1986, new groups, such as Lunar
Adventures (Cooke, Samworth, Simpson, Reed), the Paul Plimley

RON SAMWORTH • KATE HAMMETT-VAUGHAN • COAT COOKE (Photograph by BILL SMITH)

AN ARTICLE/REVIEW BY LAURENCE SVIRCHEV & BILL SMITH
Octet and the Vancouver Art Trio (Bruce Freedman, Simpson,
Reed) sprang up. Of the currently active bands, the Paul Plimley/
Lisle Ellis Duo, and Garbo's Hat have recorded compact discs,
and the NOW Orchestra recorded with bassist Barry Guy.
Once they were on a roll, the original NOW was able to set up
Music Festivals and special events that were first thought of as
yearly. Things didn't tum out to be quite as cyclic, but the first
Festival, held in 1979, featured guitarist Bob Bell, the NOW
Quintet, and the CORD Orchestra. In 1980, the CORD Orchestra played the Vancouver Museum of Anthropology. Derek
Bailey and Evan Parker were presented in duo. During the 2nd
Vancouver Creative Music Festival, NOW sponsored a concert
by Al Neil at the Western Front, and the Art Ensemble of
Chicago played the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse. They also
presented the Steve Lacy Quintet in their first North American
Tour.
The discography of NOW also reveals intense activity for the
first few years, including Paul Cram's Blue Tales in Time and
New Orchestra Quintet's Up 'til NOW. But like many adventurous things, NOW's original energy dissipated with lifestyle
changes; Ellis, Cram and Simpson all moved from Vancouver.
Only Simpson has returned to make Vancouver his home.
After a period of non-activity, Plimley, Simpson, Cooke and
Reed of the old direction formed a new incarnation of NOW
with Samworth and Bruce Freedman in 1986. Kate HammettVaughan, Roger Baird and Graham Ord later joined the Board of
Directors.
The result was leap of activity in the Vancouver creative music
scene. The grunt gallery series has now run for seven years,
providing a home for experimentation. NOW co-produced four
creative music series with Vancouver's Centre Culture!
Columbien, including the 12 gigs spread over four weeks of
sold-out houses that formed the 1988 Hear It NOW! series.
During 1988-89, NOW co-produced the Time Flies series. The
NOW Orchestra performed concerts at the Vancouver East
Cultural Centre including a piece written for Marilyn Crispell as
guest pianist in 1988.
The Glass Slipper, which has become internationally known as
a creative music space, was operated by NOW from 1988 to 1992
for rehearsal and performance. In 1990, NOW groups were
show-cased at New York's Knitting Factory. Two NOW compilation compact discs were released on the 9 Winds label: Now
You Hear It and The Future ls NOW.
The latest recording initiative of NOW was the concert and
recording session with British bassist and composer Barry Guy
held in February of this year. The compact disc is being issued
in Britain on the Maya label with international distribution. An
application for a Canada Council Recording Grant was turned
down, making a Canadian release financially prohibitive, but
the grant funding agencies saw fit to provide funds for the
concert. NOW will also be performing with Guy at the summer
du Maurier, Ltd. International Jazz Festival Vancouver.

If there is one latest project that sums up the spirit of NOW, it
is their recent organization of Al Neil's 70th birthday party this
March. In his younger years, Neil was the premier west-coast
improvising pianist, a co-founder of the legendary Cellar Jazz
Club, and a source of inspiration to several generations of visual
artists, musicians, and poets. Ron Samworth, Coat Cooke,
current artistic directors of NOW, and Hank Bull of the Western
Front organized a morning surprise birthday parade, with flags
waving and horns and percussion playing Now's the Time. That
afternoon, a mammoth party was held at the Western Front
with Al's many collaborators and friends, as well as new emerging
artists.

NOW has always been a community organization, mindful of
the past, but always with a clear vision of the direction of the
music. 0
The NEW ORCHESTRA WORKSHOP can be reached at 435 West
Hastings Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 1 L4

HEAR IT NOW • By Bill Smith
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, a quaint old saying,
but so true. And the feast that was provided by the New
Orchestra Workshop to begin its series of events for 1994, was
a treat for sure. For a week in February NOW presented to the
Vancouver public, bassist Barry Guy; solo at Western Front, in
duet with Paul Plimley at the Glass Slipper, and a week-long
rehearsal, workshop, performance, recording with the NOW
Orchestra. This would seem to be enough, but of course there is
more. Myra Melford with bassist Mark Helias, drummer Reggie
Nicholson, and special guest, local clarinetist superb, Fran~ois
Houle. A wonderful party at the grunt gallery, with Garbo's Hat
(Kate Hammett-Vaughan, Paul Blaney, Graham Ord); music for
three evenings at the Glass Slipper, which featured, apart from
the Guy/Plimley Duo, a duet of drummer Gregg Simpson and
transplanted Toronto pianist George McFetridge, and the
culmination of the Orchestra's week long intensive with Barry
Guy, with a wonderful performance of his compositions Study
and Witchgong Game II /10.
As often happens, it was a gathering of old friends, a brief
encounter full of the joy that such projects exude. The solo bass
concert that kicked it all off set a new standard as to what can
be achieved with one instrument. Barry theatrical and in costume for Jacob Druckman's Valentine; explaining in a humorously serious and informative manner the structure of composers
Iannis Xenakis, John Anthony Celona and Bernard Rands written
forms, and the brilliance of his own pieces which had such
cha1ming and self explicit titles as She Took The Sacred Rattle And
Used It and Hilibili Meets The Brosh. A serious man for sure, a
master musician in fact, but also a performer in the complete
sense of the word.
Myra Melford's quartet was full of the energy that she has
become known for, the grunt party just that, and the Simpson/
Mcfetridge duo just what was needed on a Saturday night. But
the centrepiece of it all was the NOW Orchestra performance.

CODA 33