Push The Right Buttons WESTERN FRONT March 1985 Calendar VANCOUVER'S ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ARTS CONCERTS MOVIES FASHION THEATRE $2/3 Thursday March 7 8pm Free Writers Reading: Erin Moure and John Marshall Friday March 8 Piano Festival: RESTAURANTS CLUBS Friday March 1 8:30pm An Evening of Computer Music 9pm Gordon Monahan $3/4 Saturday March 9 9pm Piano Festival: Anthony Davis $8/10 Tuesday March 12 Exhibition opens: Daniel Dion Wednesday March 13 8pm Writer Reading: Paulette Giles Free Thursday March 14 8pm Filmnite: Experimental Narrative $2/3 Tuesday March 19 9pm Performance: Vanalyne Green $2/3 Friday March 22 Piano Festival: $4/5 8:30pm Al Neil Quintet Tuesday March 26 7:30 & 9:30 $8/10 Piano Festival: Michel Petrucciani Trio Friday March 29 9pm Piano Festival: Paul Plimley Octet $3/4 Western Front 303 E. 8th Avenue Vancouver V5T 1S1 Canada tel: (604) 876-9343 A non-profit cultural centre. Financially assisted by the Canada Council, Department of Communications, and the Government of B.C. through the B.C. Cultural Fund and Lottery Revenues. PIANO FESTIVAL _ _ _ __ anics was awarded first prize (solo compositions) in the 1984 CBC National Radio Competition for Young Composers. He has performed with the New Music Co-operative and the Evergreen Club Gamelan Ensemble, and has premiered important new works by James Tenney and Udo Kasemets. Currently, Gordon Monahan is Assistant Editor of Musicworks, the Canadian Journal: of Sound Explorations. ANTHONY DAVIS Saturday GORDON MONAHAN Friday March 8, 9pm, $3/4 Gordon Monahan is a performer/sound experimenteur who is presently residing in Toronto. His work explores the acoustical properties of sound and the phenomenology of performance. He has worked with piano, guitars, electronics, and sound constructions of his own design. Monahan has received numerous awards for his work, including grants from the Canada Council Multidisciplinary and Performance Art Division, and from the Touring Office of the Canada Council. His composition Piano Mech- March 9, 9pm, $8/10 "If Anthony Davis were to pass away tomorrow, the epli.<1:\:tph on his ,t0l:nbsctmne woillJ.d ,prbbably read 'The Best New Pianist To Come Along In Years.' A piano virtuoso he is, but more importantly, Davis is by nature a formalist, a composer. It is the mathematical puzzles of rhythm and harmony, the variations of motifs, the sculpturing of jagged textures, that serve as sustenance for his searching mind, not the endless string of press clips raving about his prodigious piano talent. Davis's real artistic purpose is to redefine the musical ground plans that house his creative imagination, yet to retain all the emotional grandeur that he finds so important in the art of his mentor, Duke Ellington. Davis approaches his intellectual activities systematically, but with the uninhibited inquisitiveness of a child. In his conversation, as in his music, Davis bubbles with energy and the tantalizing possibilities of the new. But at the same time it is exactly this fascination with new compositional landscapes that has sent Davis journeying back' with Ellington to Nippon, with Sun Ra to Saturn, on a wobbly rail with Cecil Taylor,' with Stravinsky to the Urals, with Balinese gamelan masters to shadow puppet theatre and with Monk to Brilliant Corners." - Cliff Tinder, Musician "You've never heard a piano sound like this before." - David Either, New Beats PAUL PLIMLEY QUINTET AL NEIL QUINTET Friday March 29, $4/5 Friday March 22, 8:30pm, As senior shaman by (self-) appointment to the West Coast avant-garde, Al Neil needs neither introduction nor explanation, save to mention that his fractured but lovely post-bop piano lines are as idiosyncratic, sharp, sly, and tricky as ever, and that for this performance he has assembled one of the most unusual ensembles ever to appear at the Western Front. Longtime Neil associates Carole Itter (rattles and slide-visuals) and Howard Broomfield (percussion) will be augumented by virtuoso bassist David Lee (from Toronto's acclaimed Bill Smith Ensemble), Simon Fraser prof and computer synthesis pioneer Martin Bartlett, and avant-rock guitarist Alex Varty. Surprises are to be expected. 9pm, $3/4 The Paul Plimley Octet brings together eight musicians of highly varied performing backgrounds who share a common desire to develop a music which affords a complete spectrum of ensemble tone colours and me lodic invention, a music that is both rhythmically alive and sustained in an atmosphere of sensitive lyricism and good humour. For the most part, the Octet plays original compositions enhanced by each individual's interpretive collaboration. (Adapted material includes Thelonious Monk tunes and Souse marches.) Unique in concept, the Octet functions as a contemporary "mini-orchestra". Inspired by a number of regional traditions (especiall¥ Afro-American and European Classical) the band intends to communicate with as wide a range of listeners as possible. Appearing with the Octet will be Graham Ord (alto sax, flute) ; Coat Cooke (tenor sax, flute, guitar) ; Gordon Bertram (baritone sax, clarinet) ; Kevin Lee (trumpet) ; Ralph Eppel (trombone, euphonium) ; Paul Blaney (bass) Blaine Wikjord (drums) ; and leader Paul Plimley on piano and vibraphone. _..--mA MICHEL PETRUCCIANI Tuesday, March 26, 7:30 & 9:30 $8/10 "A phenomenal master of the piano." -Leonard Feather With only a few albums out on OWL and more recently on the CONCORD label, this French prodigy was named pianc "talent deserving wider recognition" by the 1984 DOWNBEAT Critics' Poll. Wowing audience on both sides of the Atlantic, he was the hit of last year's Montreal Jazz Festival. He is 22 years old. with: Eliot Zigmund - drums Palle Danielson - bass PRODUCED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE PACIFIC JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL. JOHN MACKAY Friday April 5, 9pm, $3/4 John Mackay is a distinguished pianist who teaches at the University of Victoria and specializes in the music of the twentieth century. His recital will include not only contemporary pieces but also some 'classics'. The Schonerg pieces are particularly recommended to fans of Theodor Adorno or John Cage.