VancouverJazz
~aiiety
by Paul Serralheiro

in a @S-pectacutai
@S-ettin(j

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s a Montrealer who spent three seasons in
Vancouver, I came to appreciate the characteristics of this beautiful city and collect impressions
of its jazz scene. One telltale sign of the orientation of
jazz thinking here came from observing a busker on
Granville Street in the heart of the downtown shopping area playing on an acoustic guitar, not any ditty
by Bob Dylan or the Tragically Hip, but scratching
and plucking the stings with a pick for colors and
textures in a free, creative spirit.
One cornerstone of creative jazz in Vancouver
is the New Orchestra Workshop (also known as
the "Now Orchestra"), a group that emerged in the mid1970s from an improvising musicians'
collective.·
Directed by saxophonist and composer Coat Cooke, the
group has many members in a fluid come and go-many
of Vancouver's creative musicians have spent some time
in the band. With a few recordings to its credit, the group is
developing an international
reputation
and
recently
returned from a concert in
Portugal's Jazz em Agosto with
trombonist
George Lewis.
Along with concerts, the Now
Orchestra offers a series of
workshops each fall where
professional
and
amateur
musicians alike are trained by
guest conductors/facilitators,
thus nurturing the creative approach while building an
informed public for this music.
These free sessions, which attract
musicians of all stripes and backgrounds for an exploration of sound
and composition, happen at The
Western Front, an artist-run center
housed in a quaint old blue woodframe building on East 8th Street.
Since 1973 the center has been
home to an eclectic range of creative
work and is definitely another cornerstone
of the jazz scene in
Vancouver, with a tradition for encouraging cross-fertilization among the arts in its galleries, performance
spaces, spoken word events and its monthly magazine.
,,.-- In February, at the Western Front I attended the 16th
annual presentation of Time Flies, a~ important event in
creative music in Vancouver. Curated this year by bassist

l

Winter/Spring

2005

Torsten Muller
and Ken Pickering, artistic
director of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society
(the organization that also presents the city's international jazz festival), Ti,me Flies provides a unique setting
for the interaction of creative improvisers. This year, the
artistic goal of the event, which is loosely modeled on
English guitarist Derek Bailey's Company Week, was to
"shift away from the more typical free-jazz style of hard
blowing ... toward a distinctly contemporary improvisational chamber setting that allows for nuance, texture,
and subtlety."
Eight musicians met in various combinations over
four nights: Steve Beresford, an Englishman best known
for his work with the group Alterations; Norwegian guitarist Ivar Grydeland and his fellow Osloite, drummer
Ingar Zach; English harpist Rhodri Davies; Montreal
trombonist, keyboardist and composer Tom Walsh;
Vietnamese master musician Bic Hoang;
Vancouver trumpeter J.P. Carter; and Muller
himself. The first evening began with all the
musicians on stage, and from there they broke
up into different groupings over the four
nights. The audience in the intimate concert
hall was treated to solos, duos and trios and,
on the last set of
the last night, a
reunion of all eight
musicians.
While the experimental, creative approach is
a striking aspect of this city's
jazz scene, the mainstream
scene is no less interesting
and active,
and can be
accessed at a handful of clubs
Planet Jazz

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