Jazz fest gets
record crowd;
k.d. is mooed
JAZZ AT THE PLAZA helped
the fifth annual du Maurier International Jazz Festival reach
a new attendance high , according
to festival artistic director Ken

NOTES
Pickering. Festival attendance
had already been boosted by the
new Gastown Jazz weekend and
the big shows at the civic
theatres, and Pickering estimates
that attendance could reach
I 15,000 when the figures are all
tallied. "Last year we were
around 92,000, but I know this
year we're over 100," he said.
The three days of free concerts,
which wrapped up Monday 0uly 2)
at the former Expo site, ranged
from the hardcore Chicago blues
of Charlie Musselwhite to the
free-form tragi-comedy of Phil
Minton and Roger Turner (imagine a packed house of enthusiasts applauding a balloon solo
as if it were a scorching saxophone break) . The Plaza programming is one of the jazz
festival's assets, exposing such
local acts as Lunar Adventures
and Garbo's Hat to a new audience and introducing us to such
pleasures as the intricately interwoven music of the Maarten Altena Octet (a festival highlight)
and the pan-cultural buoyancy of
Pierre Dorge's New Jungle
Orchestra. All was not entirely
well at the Jazz at the Plaza site,
however. At the end of the
Altena octet's Sunday set, a cur:
tain rail 40 feet above the
Discovery Theatre's stage gave
way, and a waterfall of heavy
black fabric descended towards
the floor. No one was hurt, but
pianist Randy Weston's concert
set was delayed for three hours
and moved to the outdoor Plaza
stage, where he played brilliantly.
Bad sound and other logistical
problems hurt the event, though,
and constant comings and goings
in the Discovery Theatre audience
prompted one frustrated performer to quip that he felt "like a
travel agent". However, Pickering
says this year was a good one for
Canadian musicians. "We had
some major talent buyers in from
the U.K., Japan, and the U.S., and
they were all really impressed
with what they heard." Other
unannounced visitors included Syd
Straw who sat in with the Jazz
Passengers for two songs at its
Vancouver East Cultural Centre
show ... AT THE SOUND of the
moo, you're a winner. That's the
message of Calgary radio station
CFAC, which is taking a novel approach to the k.d. lang controversy currently stewing in
Alberta's cattle country. Seems
like some big sky burghers were
stea!T'ed by lang's "meat stinks"
radio ads for the American People
for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) lobby, and they
responded by getting at least one
radio station to yank the countrypolitan singer's songs from the
airwaves. But CFAC program director Bob Switzer is getting
some prime ribbing from adding
cow sounds to lang's singles: his
station is giving four free steaks
to the first listener who phones
after they hear the heifer. No
bull, folks ... STOMPIN' TOM
CONNORS, the Violent Femmes. and Vancouver's own Hard
Rock Miners? All jamming together on stompin' classics like
"Gumboot Cloggeroo" and "Bud
the Spud"? This folk fan's dream
(and musicologist's nightmare)
became reality recently at Toronto' s Mariposa Festival, where this
unholy trinity found itself jamming
in the festival hotel's hospitality
suite. Miner Mike Turner reports
that his band also sold out its
post-Mariposa concert dates, in
the wake of further sessions with
the likes of veteran folksinger Ed
McCurdy, ace producer Daniel
Lanois, and lovable lunatic Jonathan Richman, who showed up at
his own concert wearing a Hard
Rock Miners t-shirt. ■