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ding, Wheeler is joined by vocalist Nonna Winstone, pianist John
@¢ Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Greg Carter. One highlight of
cording is that th�s()mpositions (except for one by Taylor) are entirely by Wheeler - a
occasion indeed, as his wonderful writing has been insufficiently recorded .

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6

MON TR EAL IT I ES
I

CHARLES
PAPASOFF
FOGHORNLIGHTHOUSE
A Randal Mcllroy Interview

I

f the lungs don't get you, the eyes will. On
stage or off, Montreal baritone player Charles
Papasoff pins you with his commitment. You could
call it fierceness, except that the hard trio music
being played in this Winnipeg room is warmed by
robust melodies and open stretches for contemplation. Moreover, the eyes beneath that imposing bald dome are twinkling and the laugh is
genuine. He's a nice guy, and practical too.
The idea that he's waving the standard for a
burly instrument traditionally used as a doubler's
voice is quickly qualified. "I'm a baritone player,"
he states during a break in his club date at the
1997 Jazz Winnipeg Festival, the first stop on a
Canadian tour. "It's just that surviving in '97 sometimes means having to do
more than one thing. It's not only music; it's generally. You look at anybody.
Everybody's sometimes working more than one job."

F

ORPAPASOFF,
now 40, the realization

that baritone is his home horn came
early. At least part of the credit goes to
Shane Nestruck, one of his early teachers,
who now lives in Winnipeg and plays the
low end for the classical saxophone
ensemble, Saxology. "Baritone's my first
instrument," says Papasoff. "There are a
lot of factors that came into it, but Shane's
probably responsible.
"I'm playing more than one horn, and it's
a pleasure. I enjoy playing music. It could
be on the table" - he raps a quick tattoo
- "but baritone is my axe."
He's learned to diversify. Instrumentally,
Papasoff blows the range of saxophones,
clarinets and flutes (although he adds with
a laugh, "Doesn't mean I'm any good at
anything"), and for other jobs he works
keyboards and guitar as well. Those other
jobs range from working with dance and
rock to a busy second career in soundtracks.
"I do mainly French stuff, out of Quebec.
Some TV stuff. None of them were big hits
(but) some were actually quite good.Jene
t'aime pas was a very nice short film."
Do those jobs leave room for blowing?

12 CODA

That depends on the assignment, he replies,
adding, "No matter what I do, it can only
be myself. I can't pretend to be someone
else." He smiles. "It's a version of me."
The version on stage is tough but tender.
In two sets that draw heavily from his
superb new CD, Painless (on his own
Nisapa label), Papasoff is all over his big
horn, with a fullness and range that
compare favourably to John Surman.
However, Papasoff has a harder attack and
his own way of digging deep into the meat
of the melody. His soprano is equally keen.
Drummer Martin Auguste and bassist
George Mitchell are ideal partners, their
flexibility
muted only slightly by an
unsympathetic mix and lessthan generous
acoustics.
Amazement
over the great modern
baritones invariably comments on the
unexpected litheness of the instrument.
Papasoff says it's all a matter of perspective.
"It's an instrument like any other," he says.
"The air chamber is a little bigger, so if
you're used to the width of the air
chamber ... " He serves a fitting analogy.
"If you're used to driving a big truck, you
can still drive it through traffic and not kill
anybody."

Nonetheless, he drove home the power
and the versatility of the instrument with
International Baritone Conspiracy, an international sextet with Hamiett Bluiett,
JeanDerome, Christian Gavillet, David Mott
and Bo Van Der Werf. Their live recording
on Victo from the 1996 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville
far transcends the novelty factor of six
baritone saxes a cappella, thanks to sturdy
section playing, fine solos and supple writing.
It started once Papasoff began confirming
friendships with baritone players around
the world. "After a while I found a brotherhood, where people would exchange
(ideas) and get together, just for the pursuit of the instrument.
"The instrument is not gonna survive into
the next century if people don't play it.
You want it to be played for the instrument
to progress, so the only way to do that is to
promote the instrument by exchanging
between the players and getting the level
of proficiency higher, and getting music
written for the baritone saxophone so there
are composers who will write for the instrument so there will be music to play.
The chances of survival will be bigger.
"It's a bit of that, the survival thing, and a
bit to learn from friends and to see what six
baritone players would sound like." O

N AN AGE where things come into
existence without having a tangible
presence, virtual reality is not only a modern-day buzzword, but a new order for the
times. In art, for instance, new forms of
creativity have emerged as totally abstract
constructs devoid of concreteness, even
immediate spectator contact. In the case
of music, audio recordings have been a
virtual reality long before the term ever
came into vogue. And one could argue the
same for film. Given the state of
development reached by new interactive
media and a simulated immediacy of
experience which ensues from it, somehow
the urge to experience a performance first
hand is stilled. After all, with a decent
sound system in our living rooms, many of
us are content to enjoy our own private
concerts, unfettered
by chatting
or
wheezing neighbours. Given this state of
affairs, it's no surprise then that the live
music scene of today pales in comparison
to those of earlier times. In many cities
where nightclubs literally lined streets, now
only a handful of them present regular
stage acts, others now long gone or turned
into bars with numbing top-40 fare blaring
over speaker systems.

Such has been the fate of the music scene
in the city of Montreal. Once renowned for
its night life, the city has seen its live music
scene dwindle over the years. Whereas
there were almost a dozen clubs with some
jazz on a regular basis right up till the late
70's, nowadays they just about cover the
fingers of one hand - though the current
situation is in fact brighter than it was, say,
four orfive years ago. Add to that, persistent
economic
doldrums
and political
uncertainty, and it would be easy to
conclude that Montreal is a musical
wasteland.

L__I

_SC_EN_E_S
&_S_OU_N_DS_O_F
_A_CIT___JYI

two night weekend stand. As the jazz test's
machine gears up in Springtime, there is
the usual seasonal spate of clubs boarding
the jazz bandwagon, only to jump off as
the party winds down for another year.
Another major irritant is the lack of space
devoted to jazz in the local media: and
when there is, a newspaper staffer more or
less interested in the music is handed the
assignment to write a pre-concert plug
(with nary a concert review to be read the
day after). But is Montreal really any
different from other mid to large size urban
communities on the continent?

Despite such a gloomy picture, Montreal's
jazz scene has not withered away: instead,
it has found some new outlets. One of
these has been a program of events billed
as "Saison Jazz Montreal".
From its
beginnings five years ago, when its shows
mainly focused on local groups, the series
has now shifted its priorities to American
acts. But, once again, the local scene has
to keep scuffling around for the few gigs
offered in those rare places which present
the music on more or less of a regular
basis. Fortunately, Montreal is brimming
with musicians of high calibre and who
cover a broad range of styles, some even
quite unique. Not only that, but the city's
jazz scene is quite unlike any other in the
country, if not the continent. And one of
the reasons for that is tied in to its cultural
specificity.

A

t the heart of the matter, the FrenchEnglish duality cannot be overlooked.
Whereas most musical communities in
other cities are primarily organized along
generational lines, the linguistic factor does
have an added impact. On the one hand,
the English music community
has
developed a community of players very
closely related to the established models
Far from oblivion, the reality (virtual or
of the American jazz mainstream. Both
otherwise) belies such a conclusion. On
English-language universities, McGILLand
the one hand, it sports one of the biggest
CONCORDIA,act as catalysts, their jazz
jazz happenings in the world, the ten-day
education programs spearheaded by a
early July extravaganza of the FESTIVAL number of Americans expatriates.
INTERNATIONAL DE MONTREAL. As its
organizers channel all their energies into
The Francophone community, for its part,
this single jazz event they do precious little
lacks the same calibre of training in its own
else in the rest of year (except to prepare
universities. Nevertheless, musicians of this
next year's bash). As for the club scene, it
milieu make up for this in a number of
concentrates
on local acts, with the
musically creative approaches, some more
occasional appearance of a guest soloist
conventional, others quite eclectic. Leadfrom Toronto or New York, at best for a
ing the way in this latter category is a

By Marc Chenard
collective of musicians who have documented their work on their own "Ambiances magnetiques" label. Very much influenced by the progressive rock wave of
the 70's, their music draws on the extended forms of 20th Century music, a
rhythmic impetus from jazz, the openness
of free improvisation and the abstractions
of pure sound experimentation. For wont
of a better term, their music has been
dubbed as "musique actuelle", a term best
known to readers of this publication from
the annual festival in Victoriaville. Two
musicians in particular have achieved a
level of international recognition, the first
being guitarist RENE LUSSIER (also a
composer of note) the other being
saxophonist-flutist JEANDEROME(profiled
respectively in issues 219 and 258). Of
note as well are the ever inventive and
ubiquitous drummer PIERRETANGUAY,the
clarinet improviser and frequent film
composer ROBERTM. LEPAGE,trombonist
extraordinaire TOM WALSH(the city's top
slide man to this writer's ears and others,
too) as well as composer and electric bassist
PIERRE CARTIER.Closer to the art-rock
aesthetic are saxophonist-singer JOANNE
HETU, sampler player DIANE LABROSSE,
percussionist DANIELLE P. ROGER and
turntable whiz MARTINTETRAULT.
Beyond these players, there are many more
noteworthy players whose interests are
more closely aligned to the mainstream
jazz idiom. Baritone saxophonist CHARLES
PAPASOFF,
for one, is a first rate player, not
just locally but nationally. A recent spate of
recordings in the last three years has cast
him in settings as diverse as a free-bop trio,
a musical score for a ballet, a couple of
movie soundtracks and, not the least, his
sextet of baritone saxophones (including
Hamiett
Bluiett),
presented
at the
Victoriaville festival in 1995 and released
on its own label (see review of the
"International Baritone Conspiracy" in issue
272). Two more neo - or post-boppers if
you wish are bassist NORMAND
GUILBEAULT, whose pianoless quintet
featuring a front-line of clarinet, trombone
and trumpet
won the 1994 Jazz
Competition organized by the FIJM, and
pianist JEAN BEAUDET, an individualist
whose style ranges from Powell to Monk to
Bley and beyond.
>>>>>>
CODA 13

-------

T

he jazz mainstream has a very strong
foothold in this city. Of the instruments heard most prominently in town,
the guitar has no shortage of practitioners
- a rather obvious choice in this age of
rock and pop. Of the veteran players, there
always is the legendary NELSONSYMONDS,
back on track after a serious heart operation a year ago. At 62, he has only been
recording since the beginning of the decade, best heard on a pair of discs headed
by altoist DAVETURNER.Also a legend of
the strings is the inimitable SONNYGREENWICH, a musician who enjoys a degree of
international recognition amongst jazz aficionados. Inspired by the spirituality of
John Coltrane, his once emotionally intense forays have subsided into mellower
moods of late, as evidenced on his selfproduced discs on the Cleo label. In their
footsteps, there are oodles of plectrum
pickers, ranging from the very straight
ahead to the unavoidable masses of
fusionists. Running a close second to the
guitar is the piano and it has its fair share
of traditionalists, from the well-known
OLIVER JONES to the overlooked WRAY
DOWNES and on to more established
modernists like LORRAINEDESMARAIS
and
STEVEAMIRAULT.
Returning to the academic scene for a
moment, it is quite stubbornly anchored
to the values of the musical mainstream. In
fact, one should distinguish two levels here,
the first being the instructors and faculty,
the second, its graduates.

o round off this list, there are the
marginal, or unclassifiable, whose
visions do not really fit neatly in any of the
previous categories, but whose original
approaches still enrich the scene. Two
examples here are the guitarist RAINER
WIENS - a sonic explorer who taps and
strums while altering the timbres by sliding
sticks under his fretboard, and drummer
MICHELRATTE,a philosopher-king of post
free-jazz improvisation.

For over a decade, those institutions have
been churning out more able bodied
musicians than the scene can handle. Not
unexpectedly, this breed of younger talents
may have the basic wherewithal, but few
have yet to show some vision beyond the
role models assimilated in their studies.
Musicians like alto saxist REMI BOLDUC,
reedist JENNIFERBELL and her husband,
trumpeter BILLMAHAR(co-directors of the
half-repertory and almost big band Altsys)
are not only products of that system but as
instructors themselves, they have become
part of it aswell. Of other graduates gigging
around town, tenor saxophonists KELLEY
JEFFERSONand JOEL MILLER are slowly
building their careers, the latter having
been awarded the prize during last

Of course, many more names can be added
to the list here, but suffice to say for now
that the Montreal scene, for all of its woes
and lack of audience support, is still capable
of producing some of the most creative
and challenging music in the country while
providing a fair amount of consistent
mainstream talent. Also important in this
development are the better opportunities
given to musicians nowadays to selfproduce, as evidenced by the incredible
proliferation of artist-created labels - an
obvious consequence of today's affordable
mechanical reproduction technologies. In
this age of virtuality, Montreal's jazz scene
has in effect become more audible than
visible, a reality that is better suited for the
mind's ear than its eye. 0

MAGNETIOUES

LA BASTRINGUEMIGRATOIRE (Volume 1)
HOURRA POUR LA BASTRINGUE(Volume 2)
Samplers of the artists of this label. Nicely packaged, budget price
and good cross-sampling, too. Good place to start for any newcomer
to this label.

NU IAZZ RECORDS
JOESULLIVAN - Rumors From The Soul
Mid-sixities hard bop in a late 1990's wrapping. Good writing
and blowing but no real surprises either.

PIERRECARTIER- Les Fleurs du Tapis
Lyrical but as jazzy a group as you'll get on this label with two saxes
bass and drums. A 1989 sessionjust issued for this first time.

STEVEAMIRAULT - Reflecting Images
Finely honed Jazz Piano trio ... right down the pike.

LA VIE QUI BAT - Chevre
Delicate free improv in the Derek Bailey-John Stevens lineage
courtesy of ReneLussierand Pierre Tanguay. No pyrotechnics here,
but plenty of timbral and sonic detail. A companion volume of more
structured pieces entitled "Chevreuil" is due for release by early
1998.

FREDERICALARIE- BasseSection
An unusual quartet with bass, bone, tuba and drums. Nice
attempt at getting away from tried and true formulas, but
lacking a bit in edge or instrumental fireworks.

DSM RECORDS

Analekta

CHARLESPAPASOFF- Painless
Post bop with baritone maestro Papasoff and regular cohorts,
bassist George Mitchell and drummer Martin Auguste.

JEANBEAUDET- Musiques interieures
A two-tiered program ranging from quasi-bop revisitations to
neo-free form explorations.
RECOMMENDED
READING:
John Gilmore's
"Swinging in Paradise" Vehicule Press1988.

REVIEWSBY DAVIDLEE

STRUCTURE
ANDINFRASTRUCTURE

T

RE.MlBOLDUC - Fable
Altoist Bolduc measureshimself with New Yorkers Ben Moncier
(guitar), Mark Johnson (bass) and Canadian expatriate Owen
Howard (drums). Mainstream modern but somewhat tentative
sounding.

RECORD

LES DISOUES NISAPA - Distribution

-ACTUEL-LPowell River and the Pender Harbour School
of Music in Madeira Park, a town so small
that people drive past it, even through it,
without
knowing that it's there. No
Vancouver concert, none in Victoria.
Meanwhile, CODA has just asked me to
confine my CD reviews to about fifty words
per recording - because so many CDs are
coming out that they can't keep up with
them. Where the hell are all these people
playing? The music is healthy, the
infrastructure is manic-depressive.

I

don't really care what "infrastructure"
means to you; the term is now used all
over the place, in such a way that my
Websters definition
"permanent
installations required for military purposes"
- is obviously clueless. Myself, I define it
as a structure of relationships - and that's
something I think about a lot.
Take Guy-Gustafsson-Strid for example. I
heard a very impressive concert by this trio
last summer in Vancouver, but I find that I
think less about the music - even though
I reviewed it in a recent CODA- than I do
about the infrastructure that supported it.

LES DISQUES DU SILENCE

OFF THE
AMBIANCES

Summer's jazz competition at the FIJM. To
add to the list, trombonist KELSLEY
GRANT
is an up-and-comer as are pianists ALEX
CLEMENTS
and TILDENWEBB,with a nod to
the fine-toned sopranoist MONIKNORDINE.

To name only a few of the former category,
there are McGill University's KEVINDEAN,a
died-in-the-wool hard bopper out of the
Kenny Dorham
mould,
and Polish
expatriate
pianist
JAN JARCZVK, a
consummate harmonicist with definite
rhapsodic leanings. In its other English
counterpart, Concordia University, the jazz
studies program is headed up by Ellington
and Mingus scholar ANDREWHOMZY and
trumpeter CHARLESELLISON- a charter
member of Henry Threadgill early small
band, Air. On the collegiate scene, there
are a number of prominent local performers
as well, pianist LORRAINEDESMARAIS
and
trumpeter JOE SULLIVANbeing the most
notable names here.

And a crummy
infrastructure
it is.
Internationally acclaimed as a genius trio,
on this trip from Europe the ensemble
played iri exactly two cities, thousands of
kilometres apart, Chicago and Vancouver.
Talking to Guy during his visit he described
his previous effort with Evan Parker and
Paul Lytton - a genius trio if there ever
was one - to make their way down the
coast from Vancouver to San Francisco,
weighing the economics of playing in tiny
clubs that usually present folk singers and
rock bands, a prospect that, combined
with the usual problems of crossing the US
border, was just too daunting to undertake.
This is not just an avant garde problem.
Our local music society just brought in
Don Thompson's trio with Buff Allen and
Ken Lister. With months of advance
planning the trio managed to arrange
exactly two gigs: Don's home town of

For months now - months in which
working on two very different books,
helping to organize a small-town jazz
festival, playing bass on some extremely
corny gigs and trying to make a living have
all been small parts of life's wonderful daily
adventures - I have been trying to write a
"Women in Jazz" review for CODA.
Women in Jazz.At first it seemed irresistible
to use the title's sheer banality as a fulcrum
to contrast women's small, if growing role
in improvised music with larger female
tendencies to emphasize, nurture and
cooperate - just what's needed in
improvisation. To probe the incongruity of
minority
female involvement
in an
essentially feminine pursuit. However, that
very incongruity
gutted the attempt.
"Women in jazz" are still enough of a
minority to place the leading female
improvisers on the same level as their male
colleagues. In other words, when artists
have transcended categories, to insist on
returning to those categories to interpret
their work can only belittle them.
The French double bassist JOELLELEANDRE
seems to have burst on the scene in the last
few years, but she has been active in
contemporary music for over twenty years.
Her newness is a gap in the infrastructure
-an illusion created by a burst of recording
activity,
but how else would North
Americans ever know about her? She is
very much in the league of bassists such as
Barre Phillips, Barry Guy and Peter Kowald,
for whom jazz is only part of a large
individual vocabulary in which theatre has
at least as significant a role.

The theatrical element as well as the
feminine element is nowhere more to the
fore as in "Les Diaboliques,"
(LES
DIABOLIQUES,INTAKT CD 033) Leandre's
collaboration with pianist IRENESCHWEIZER
and vocalist MAGGIE NICOLS.The music
ranges from sheer abstraction to nouveau
cabaret, with Leandre's rippling and
sensuous bass touching and supporting
the ever-delightful Schweizer as well as
Nicols, whose role as "vocalist"
encompasses singer, actress, poet and trance
medium conveying wishes of the departed.
A similar range of sensitivity, if not stylesthe music is consistently far more abstract
- is demonstrated on 18 COLORS
/ LAUREN
NEWTON/JOELLELEANDRE(LEOCDLR245),
a duet for double bass and voice.
PALIMPSESTE
(HATARTCD6103) is a dynamic
and highly effective pairing of Leandre
with pianist ERICWATSON,whose romantic
yet clear-eyed and percussive playing at
times brings to mind Anthony Davis. Yet
my favourite among these disks turns out
to be PASCALCONTET/ JOELLELEANDRE
(GRAVEGRCDI).
If you grew up associating it with school
recitals and Lawrence Welk, there is no
musical renaissance more surprising than
the re-emergence of the accordion. Pascal
Contet's
background
seems overwhelmingly classical and .academic; he
lectures at the Bern Conservatory, and the
only names I recognized among the many
cited in his brief c.v. were Vinko Globokar,
Pierre Boulez and Joelle Leandre. For all
that, his approach to improvising on the
accordion is sexy and exciting, and so is his
duet with Leandre. Against her fluid free
improvisations his instrument pits extremes
of pitch and timbre bending, as much like
the squeezebox
of the tango, the
bandoneon as like an accordion. Imagine
if Astor Piazzolla had accepted an invitation
to Company Week. In a saner, better world
it would have happened - there's that
infrastructure problem again - but surely
the Contet/Leandre duet is the next best
thing. 0

I PHOTOGRAPHBY LAURENCESVIRCHEV

book,
CODA 15

NEWS FROM THE SHED

JOHN BUTCHER
AN ARTICLE BY JON MORGAN

I

T

drummer / bandleader
John
Stevens had a keen eye for talent. In 1992, Stevens, whose
Spon-taneous Music Ensemble
had through the years enlisted
the talents of saxophonists Evan
Parker and Trevor Watts, guitarist Derek Bailey, bassist/cellist
Kent Carter to name but a few,
was seeking a replacement for
violinist Nigel Coombes. After
attending one of John Butcher's
performances, it became immediately apparent to Stevens that
this soprano/tenor saxophonist
was ideal. For Stevens, Butcher
was a natural selection, for the
saxophonist's
own music resembled the ideals of Stevens'
pioneering SME, in which conscious measures were taken to
establish a distance between
their art and that of the jazz
tradition. Instead, emphasis was
being placed on the individual's
re-evaluation of their roles as PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL SMITH (Vancouver Festival, June 1997)
players, both as soloists and in
ensembles, as well as the examination of the instrument's capabilities
BY THE TIME BUTCHER and Stevens
outside the lineage of the established techniques. Furthermore, Stevens
met, the 43 year old saxophonist had
unabashedly dynamic personality ensured that Butcher's venture would
already developed his unique style which
be worthwhile.
he has used to assert himself as one of
HE LATE BRITISH

"I think John was phenomenal
at
bringing together two often incompatible things," Butcher recalls. "He
could generate terrific propulsion and
momentum, and at the same time, leave
space, both literally and conceptually,
for the music to be an interactive, group
activity, where the players didn't have
to adopt roles."
Initially, the Butcher edition of the SME
performed as a quartet with guitarist
Roger Smith and flautist Neil Metcalfe.
However, the last handful of concerts
were done as a trio of Stevens, Butcher
and Smith, as documented on A New
Distance
(Acta 8). Even though
performances
for the SME were

18 CODA

infrequent, Butcher learned an important
lesson about musician / audience interaction.
"In concert he had a manner that forced
the audience to concentrate
on the
smallest details. The circumstances
around some of the gigs were not ideal,
but when it came to the music, he
communicated the feeling that this is
what we're doing at this moment, and
it's important. At the last SME concert,
he'd had some transport problems and
only brought his pocket trumpet, no
drums. I thought it would be a difficult
gig but his sense of the uniqueness of
playing music that evening made it
magical."

the most original saxophone voices of
the late 20th century. Not merely content to find a niche within the developments of Evan Parker, Steve Lacy and
Anthony Braxton, Butcher has opted to
choose his own path.
"I'm not a good post modernist," Butcher
admits. "My own route into improvising
was quite convoluted, but I was very
drawn to the idea of trying to start from
scratch. Part of this was a way of trying
to deal with my musical enthusiasms at
a subconscious level and not explicitly
refer to them in my own playing. I love
a lot of jazz, but for a European of my age
it makes no more sense to work with
those models explicitly than to try and
write songs like John Lennon."

PARTOF ME LIKESTO STARTA PIECEAND NOT KNOW WHAT IT'S GOING TO SOUND LIKE
AND PARTOF ME WANTS COMPLETECONTROL.

P

LAYING BOTH the soprano and
the tenor saxophone, Butcher finds
that his choice depends largely on the
situation.
"I think each instrument
suggests its own music and approach. I
prefer the tenor for more polyphonic
playing and for trying to work with
different ideas simultaneously. It's also
better for working supportively in a
group, rather than in the foreground,
and has an enormous range of dynamics
and attack. The soprano is easier to
integrate into a group as a voice of its
own, but is more prone to cliches. It has
a superficial agility which I need to guard
against. In solo concerts I often actually
find the soprano more challenging,
because you have to invent something
as an alternative to the richness of the
tenor."
FINDING HIS OWN VOICE on his
instruments can be attributed to being
largely self taught. While attending some
rudimental summer jazz schools as a
piano player, Butcher was mostly
interested in chord changes. He was also
attending many British jazz concerts and
slowly being introduced to improvised
music. However, it would be several years
before Butcher would cave in to the
seduction of "new music."

"I think the ?O's in London was a good
time musically, with many of the exiled
South Africans playing, and people like
John Surman and Tony Oxley around.
Also, you could go to what was ostensibly
a jazz concert and find Derek Bailey
somewhere on the bill. This was how I
first came across the English improvisation scene, which I didn't really follow
then, but it nagged away at the back of
my mind for a few years. My involvement
with jazz was really a learning activity. I
felt both jazz and composition
had
largely
run
their
course,
and
improvisation was clearly where people
were creating something new."
AFTER SEVERAL YEARS of convent-

ional saxophone playing, Butcher found
himself seeking a more existential role,
consciously avoiding solo statements,
playing underneath other instruments,
and in general, trying to alter the role to
which the saxophone was traditionally
limited.

"In leaving my student jazz days behind,
I tried to improvise by discarding 90% of
what the saxophone usually does. I
learned a lot looking for replacements.
After a few years of this I felt I could
bring
other
material
back, but
transformed
with different connotations," Butcher explains. Both of
Butcher's solo discs, 1991's Thirteen
Friendly Numbers (Acta 6) and 1996's
London And Cologne (Rastascan 26)
document his solo saxophone developments.
a risky venture,
for Butcher, the art of solo performances
can be rewarding. "Some of the best bits
come when you're playing near the edge
of your control and knowledge. On the
saxophone there's quite a thin line,
physically, between getting a miserable
squeak or a fabulous chord. When the
music's working, I think it creates its
own connections and shapes that are
more interesting than ones you might
have tried to consciously impose. Could
I play a melodic line that didn't suggest
a particular idiom but wasn't pointlessly
abstruse."
WHILE SOMETIMES

FOR BUTCHER, the real challenge is
the fine line that exists between spontaneous creation and preconceived
settings. For him playing solo incites a
mental tug-of-war between playing what
he already knows and instant composing.
"This ties in with what I think solo
improvisation
should avoid, that is,
being a sequence of routines or a
presentation of techniques. If you're
interested in using new instrumental
sounds there's a danger of just playing a
rather decadent set of aural treats. Much
of the adventure in European improvisation has come from players advancing
through the feedback between their
musical and instrumental imaginations.
However, I don't want to draw the
listener's attention to the mechanics of
what is going on and, because I'm so
intimate with my own musical material,
I have a tendency to move away from
what I know will easily work. Like most
musicians, I presume, I practice to try
and achieve complete control of what I
want from the instrument. This is so I
can then hopefully release that part of
my thinking in performance and just

worry about the music. In a sense the
performance is 90 percent preconceived
except for the actual music."
ON THE TWO SOLO DISCS Butcher

delves into the process of over-dubbing
and multi-tracking. Originally stemming
from an aversion to saxophone quartets,
Butcher's initial explorations involved
the sonorities of one player recorded
multiple times, significantly different
compared to the embouchures and oral
cavities of four different players. "Since
then the works had two main strands,
using synthesis, like the first part of Bells
And Clappers on Thirteen Friendly
Numbers, and amplifying and revising
an improvisation each time you add a
new part, like Two Up, Two Down, from
London And Cologne. Recently I've been
using multi-tracked pieces on tape to
improvise
to in performance.
The
problems here are leaving enough out of
the tape to make a live voice feel
necessary, and how do you deal with
one partner not interacting." Due to its
preconceived nature, such an approach
lands Butcher in between composition
and improvisation.
However,
the
saxophonist seems uninterested in such
distinctions. "Many Improvisers are in
fact such strong stylists that their music
overlaps what's normally expected from
composition."
IN A GROUP CONTEXT, he is a much
sought after partner, equally adept at
listening and knowing when to adapt.
"How players relate, ideally, works on
many levels at once; or at least varies
moment by moment. The important
thing, for me, is to let your decisions/
reactions come out of listening. I think
group improvisation should force the
individual players beyond their own
conceptions. I value pieces that couldn't
really have been imagined by any
particular player. I tend to like the kind
of group interaction where any one of
the players could, if they wanted to,
change the direction of the music at any
instant and it would still make sense."
AS AN ALTERNATIVE to performing
with one standard group, Butcher is part
of many projects, periodically playing
with several cooperative aggregations.

CODA

19

~

NEWS FROM THE SHED

JOHN BUTCHER
"You can sometimes actually experiment
and push things more in a long-term
group. I rather like regular groups that
don't perform very often. There's a lot of
shared experience, but methods haven't
become formalized."
HIS TRIO, with violinist Phil Durrant

and guitarist John Russell, with whom
he started Acta records in 1987 to release
their Conceits recording, has been
loosely working together for thirteen
years, yet the playing still proves
stimulating.
"I'm still fascinated by
trying to work with two acoustic string
players,
and ostensibly
melody
instruments. The saxophone can feel very
primitive in such company," Butcher
explains.
RECENT RECORDINGS have featured
Butcher in the company of vocalists.
Respiritus (Incus 21) is a duo with
Vanessa Mackness, while A Mouthful Of
Ecstasy (Victo 41) finds the saxophonist
as part of the Phil Minton quartet with
pianist Veryan Weston and percussionist
Roger Turner. "I especially like working
with the voice, Vanessa Mackness brings
a very direct emotion to the music, and
connotations that aren't touched on in
instrumental improvisation. For some
people it sounds too personal. Of course,
Phil Minton is the vocal innovator and
any group with him is a pleasure.

include
the octet Ensemble, with pianist Chris
Burn." Ensemble (Acta 5) tries to address
some of the ever-present problems of
large group improvisation, like the more
players, the more every piece sounds the
same." News From The Shed (Acta 4)
adds percussionist
Paul Lovens and
trombonist Radu Malfatti (with whom
Butcher has appeared on Malfatti's
Ohrkiste (ITM 951103)) to the trio of
Durrant
and
Russell.
Frisque
Concordance, a quartet with bassist Hans
Schneider, pianist Georg Grawe and
drummer Martin Blume is heard on
Spellings (Random Acoustic 1). Also, a
document of Butcher's trio with Derek
Bailey and tubist Orren Marshall, Trio
Playing (Incus 28), was recently released,
keeping Butcher's musical itinerary full.
Nevertheless, Butcher welcomes the
opportunity to play with new players.
OTHER COLLABORATIONS

20 CODA

"You have to allow for, in my terms a
probably increased failure rate, but
improvisation isn't about presentation
of product."

haiOLOGY
Hat Hut's newJazzseriesin ecologicallysoundpackaging!

-

North America
this past summer, playing in various collaborations and impromptu groupings
with Grawe, bassist
Barry Guy,
percussionist
Raymond Strid, reed
players Mats Gustaffson
and Luc
Houtkamp, and percussionist Gert Jans
Prins during Vancouver's jazz festival,
percussionist
Gino Robair in San
Francisco,
cellist Matt Turner in
Milwaukee and with cellist Fred LonbergHolm, trombonist/guitarist
Jeb Bishop
and violinist Terri Kapsalis in Chicago.
Continuous opportunities to play with
new players, in new settings, probably
accounts
for Butcher's
optimism
regarding the creative improvised music
scene. "I think that some musicians have
shown that if their discoveries in 'free'
playing go deep enough, there's a whole
lifetime of music to make. The challenge
is not to dilute the original motivation
in the face of lack of money, media
indifference and vagaries of fashion."
BUTCHER

_.i£t:.

TOURED

' J~'N{"'
)~
u1
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hat0LOGY
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Mastering
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Discs

A prospect that holds much promise for
enthusiasts of creative improvised music,
indeed. D
ABOUTTHE WRITER: Jon Morgan writes for
several publications including Cadence, and
is working on a collection of interviews, essays
and reviews to be published in 1998. He
resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

RECORDINGS DISCUSSED IN THIS
ARTICLE ARE AVAILABLE FROM
ON THE VERGE & CADENCE

THIS SECTION IS FOR INDIVIDUALS & ORGANISATIONS TO ADVERTISE NONDISPLAY ITEMS. COST IS 75 CENTS PERWORD.($15.00 MINIMUM);
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RECORDINGS

AS AN ARTIST, Butcher is not discour-

aged by occasional
setbacks, still
approaching the music one development
at a time, learning something new at
every step, without compromise. "I like
the idea of trying to do everything you
want on one instrument. I think having
to struggle communicates and throws
up things you can't foresee. And not just
instrumentally, I'm drawn to the sensual
and emotional qualities of music but
want to avoid the cliches they so often
come with. Part of me likes to start a
piece and not know what it's going to
sound like and part of me wants complete
control. In general, I hope not to recover
too much old ground and to avoid quick
solutions."

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CODA 21

I

N

HEAi:>

~N

INTERVIEW & ARTICLE BY STEVE VICKERY

COAT COOKE INTERVIEWED
My parents were both very musical, my mum sang in the Winnipeg
Philharmonic Choir, she also played piano, my dad played a bunch of
instruments, cello, viola. Every Sunday at our house, he would have his
quintet over and they would play Mozart quintets; there would be cello,
viola, flutes, clarinet. That was normal around my house, music all the
time. By osmosis, the influence just crept in, like life isn't normal unless
you have these things in it.
This positive cultural encouragement in
my house made me curious about art
and the effect it has on your life. I started
picking up the guitar in the sixties, that
was my first instrument; I had a not so
great teacher who made it seem really
difficult. So I thought I would go to an
instrument that just had one note at a
time. I started playing the tenor in my
midteens and after almost thirty years,
it's home for me. I've been playing alto
for about seventeen years, clarinet and
flute were later additions, also baritone.
You get the craving to express different
things with your voice, and the ranges of
those instruments give you that ability.
The first music that really turned me
around was Jimi Hendrix. Hearing his
music, those first three records, opened
up the possibility of sound for me, his
whole technique oflayering sound, using
feedback. The first Coltrane I got into
was Meditations, that and Ascension
were my first two real loves. From there,
I got turned on to Pharoah Sanders who
became my inspiration to start playing
the saxophone.
His sound
was
everything, just incredible, he and Trane
were all I listened to for the first five
years of playing.
There was so much in the music for me,
I listened to Coltrane's out stuff and just
thought, oh yeah he's just doing what
Hendrix is doing, it didn't seem more
complex or inaccessible.
I didn't
understand everything I heard, but I
could feel where it was coming from
emotionally, it just hit me where I lived.
Monk was also a hero to me through
those years, and still is. Monk is the
essence of simple beautiful sculpting, I
think of Rodin's sculptures, these strong
beautiful lines, clear gorgeous shapes of
sound, pure vision.

26 CODA

When I moved here (Vancouver) I started
meeting people like Paul Plimley and
playing in the local scene that Lisle Ellis
and the NOW guys started. They started
in 1977 and I caught up with them in 78,
working with the CORD Orchestra. That
was boggling, one of the most exciting
things I've ever been involved with. I
learned so much, it was the foundation
for my understanding of how to work in
large ensembles. It also directed my
research at that time, listening to large
and small ensembles, people like the Art
Ensemble of Chicago who were exploring
compositional improvisation.
Just as large an influence for me is the
music of James Brown, and George
Clinton, Public Enemy, Prince, since I
began to think more about putting music
on tape, all these things come in, like
Varese and the pioneers in that line too,
different things feed into each other. I
started exploring sampling recently,
more out of an awareness of how people
are hearing things in the world right
now. People do this naturally, in a room
with the TV on and the radio playing
while they're talking on the phone, you
know, five things going on at once in a
polytonality (laughs). I've always heard
multiple keys going on at the same time,
it doesn't seem at all strange, and I think
now people are accepting that more, the
fast pace of change, things going on
simultaneously in different keys.
We have worked with a lot of people
over the years: Marilyn Crispell, Freddie
Studer, Hans Koch ... quite different
things, there are a lot of people who
have their own approach to how they
would use a large ensemble. I'm always
curious about how people respond given
the situation of a seventeen piece
ensemble. By engaging with people of

very different sensibilities, like Barry Guy
and Rene Lussier, it is a chance for us to
learn from them what their take is on it
and what their process is. By engaging in
other peoples processes it enriches your
own.
It's about opportunity and educating
myself and getting exposed to other
people. I feel blessed that I've had the
chance to work with George Lewis. Seeing
someone like George and how he treats
the ensemble with such complete respect
as people and as artists, he knows how
hard it is to be an artist especially in this
music - which isn't particularly
acknowledged
in the world, that
generosity - I've learned a great deal
from that, never mind the fact he is just
one of the heaviest trombone players in
the world, also a great composer. We
talked about everything.
It's the same thing with Barry Guy who
started the London Jazz Composers
Orchestra, it must be thirty years ago
now, it's a tremendous opportunity to
get a chance to work with someone who
has tried that many different kinds of
pieces and ways of developing a large
ensemble, to get to talk to him about
that process and to be inside what he
creates. Rene Lussier and Pierre Tanguay
come to us with their own unique
perspective on sound which is a blend of
Quebecois folk tradition, rock, new music
and tape music, all these different things
put together, totally different than these
other aesthetics,
with incredible
discipline and beautiful choices. The
decision of who to invite is based on
wanting to work with people that I really
want to work with. With Ron Sam worth
and me, that's kind of our vision with
which we get to put our stamp on the
ensemble.
Ron and I first started playing together
in 1985. He played with my group Lunar
Adventures for six, seven years. During
that time what we developed besides the
music was the process. Playing a lot but
also talking about the music, about where
we were trying to get to, the whole
process of discovery and the respect of

listening to each other, that really has
translated well into the two of us coleading NOW. We talk through ideas
until we get a clear understanding of
what's going on, we make choices that
reflect our shared vision of what we
would like to be able to do. It takes time
to have these decisions evolve, but that's
how it ends up working, a lot of
discussion.
It helps that Ron and I have played
together a lot. We've collaborated with
improvising for dance for nine going on
ten years and that informs a lot about
our choices for improvising ... it's shaped
both of our aesthetics a fair amount I'd
say. We started that in about 1987, it was
just happenstance that through one of
the dancers I wound up talking with
Peter Bingham the artistic director and
we just started doing regular sessions
with EDAM.They do a thing called Forced
Issues in the spring and fall which
featured works in progress from around
the community, and we would play the
show just totally improvised.

As we went more into research we would
meet two or three times a week and work
with the dancers. We found as we did
more work and research with the dancers that improvising dancers have different things that work, in terms of what
works with the body, and in terms of
communicating between the dancers,
the same way that certain things work
with musicians in communicating
within the music. We started to think
about what worked with music and
dance, what devices musicians used that
would work well with dancers. We started
to develop a language.
As in a lot of music it's in pairing away
the extraneous, a lot of times it was
learning to use silence in the right ways,
using that spareness and clarity. That
less is more also filters into my writing,
there was composed music from Ron
and I and a drummer named David
Macanulty for a show called Dream
Tigers, six dancers and three musicians,
it was largely composed
through
listening to it, you wouldn't know it. It's

been a really exciting process for me to
work with the dancers because with that
discipline, there is such a different aesthetic. You have to examine what you
are doing and how it effects the work.
That kind of examination really enriches
your other work.
My vision for the future involves new
influences in an active way; I feel drawn
to go back east and be involved in what
is developing there in Toronto and New
York. Europe beckons to me in a lot of
ways too, NOW has many connections
there that have developed over the years,
in
Amsterdam,
Germany,
and
Switzerland. I am hoping next year to do
some work in London but we'll have to
wait and see. I already have my hands
full, starting a production company with
a friend I met a couple of years ago, and
I want to start producing some of the
younger players.
There's so much to learn and be exposed
to, it's just an endless pleasure to be able
to do that.
>>>>>>
CODA 27

HEAR IT

cN=OW

1
NEWORCHESTRA
WORKSHOp
~20TH ANNIVERSARY
I

Retrospectives and birthday parties are risky undertakings: good for a few
surprises and hopefully a sweet conclusion. NOW Orchestra's 20th
Anniversary celebration was all that and more, an affair that capped two
decades of creative music here on the west coast. The surprises came when
HEAR IT NOW premiered new commissioned works from guests Paul Cram,
Vinnie Golia, and George Lewis as well as from NOW directors Coat Cooke
and Ron Samworth.

W

hat NOW still represents is the spirit
of discovery and exploration. It is
amazing to think of the genesis of a music
community here in Vancouver, the music
and energy something that was dreamed
and realized by a circle of musicians,
listeners, and artists in a process that
became synergistic. The connections made
under the NOW umbrella during the festival
were memorable, like the return of founding
member
Paul Cram whose
tenor
saxophonics in tandem with alto/tenor Coat
Cooke tore up the house. Their Sunday
afternoon
improvised
set before an
unsuspecting audience will pass in NOW
legend. Another moment was the elation
created by Cooke's Wowowwith its howling
vocal chorus, a refrain repeated throughout
the event.

Japanese or Siberian singing, a growling
presence in tandem with Lewis' trombone.
Peggy Lee's work here as a soloist made
clear her foundation as an improviser. A
later set featured Paul Cram meeting Saul
Berson, the haunting
blues of two
saxophones, with interpolations of Dylan
Van der Schyff and Paul Plimley.

Brass Roots opened Thursday's bill at the
Roundhouse, Brad Muirhead's low brass
pulling multi-reed
Graham Ord and
baritone saxophonist Mike Braverman into
the deep end, with support rhythms that
combined drummers Dennis Burke and Jim
McGillveray.
Double threat
piano/
saxophone Ross Taggart and trumpet Bill
Clark generated bright sounds on Number
Of The Beast. Muirhead's time turns the
funky second line sound into something
elastic and springy. NOW history came up
in the set as the Roots played a Mingus
composition debuted at their first show ten
years ago at the now long gone French
Cultural Centre.

Vinnie Golia's longtime interest in NOW
helped pull the unit into the public eye (via
his 9 Winds imprint). His breakneck Ted
Williams Calls The Mick And Renders Touch
Sensitivity Useless must have been a
nightmare for the ensemble to work out in
a few rehearsals though in performance
they navigated his work with clarity, the
horns and rhythms thundering
to a
complete stop on a dime. Golia's playing
was also exceptional, his reeds felt like
essential components of the ensemble's
palette.

The music created by NOW Orchestra has
a sound of its own, a telepathy moving
through each improvisation/action,
the
speed of the process caught in an
acceleration of becoming, the compositions
as free as the improvisations themselves.
During the nightly free sets after the formal
composed programs, the music was
eventful, flowing. Ron Samworth, Kate
Hammett-Vaughan, Peggy Lee, and George
Lewis opened the free program by bringing
the focus of the music inward, the sounds
intimate and personal to the moment. KHV's
vocals continue to change, conjuring

George Lewis displayed masterful technique
on his horn all weekend, warming to the
task of dealing with the large ensemble by
conducting his classic theme, EndlessShout.
Lewis' laid back manner and humour were
a delight for the audience and band, though
he was deeply serious in his direction of the
music, opening an extended tonal setting
on Shadowgraph that set the pace for some
challenging new music over the weekend.

Paul Cram's The Tyranny Of Interest gave
the west coast a rare look at the reed man's
ensemble writing, the unit in twos and
threes through its main sections, with its
hypnotic polyphony of three clarinets
(Cram, Fran~ois Houle, and Vinnie Golia).
As Cram finished a solo that brought to
mind Hawkins and Ayler, Vinnie Golia stood
beside him shaking his head as though to
say, not much more you can say there.
Cram's playing throughout the improvised
sets kept the energy level high, the horn man
rarely getting far from the stage area before
being corralled into another impromptu
sound painting.
The Yellow Sound, Ron Samworth's nod to

the artist Wassily Kandinsky, exposed the
composer's modernist thinking featuring
soloists Vinnie Golia, George Lewis, and
Saul Berson. Samworth's writing featured
Berson's alto ghostly over an almost New
Orleans vamp derailed by Paul Plimley's
piano undercurrent. The piano in the depth
of the orchestras texture was fresh air,
giving the music an unsettled feeling. Dylan
was far enough back that his sound spread
out right for Samworth's take on the Blaue
ReiterAlmanac, the rhythms of the orchestra
moving air around, creating a deep swell of
sound. Everything became enhanced, like
flowers drunk on the oxygen in the room.
Dirgehorns in stop-time section led into a
John Korsrud solo, itself dissolving into
cluster tones from clarinets and flutes
bringing in that colour yellow so clearly, a
real tang to it, finally closing with George
Lewis solo over conducted ensemble.
Coat Cooke's Wowow showed off the wealth
of improvising talent in NOW's ranks. The
section work of Bill Clark with John Korsrud
was seamless. Clyde Reed's subtle shading
behind Golia and Cram segued into Peggy
Lee and Paul Plimley in a short passage of
beautiful stillness, a desert music. The bopinflected third section of the piece shook
loose a handful of possibilities; the duo of
Ralph Eppel and Dylan Van der Schyff, Brad
Muirhead's punchy solo, Paul Blaney's
sustaining the drive of Vinnie Golia's raucous
baritone solo.
After three nights of heavy music, Sunday's
program the Wild Card Sessionsurprisingly
was full of energy and creative drive, the
players looking worse for wear but the
music still formidable. Graham Ord and
Bruce Freedman's reed work throughout
the session was absorbing, as was Gregg
Simpson's
powerhouse
drumming
alongside Blaney and Reed.
After a series of quintets had taken the
stage, the afternoon finale with all musicians
on stage at once began as a free-for-all
blowing session. Just as it edged towards
anarchy, the session ended with a blast of
conduction, first John Korsrud, then after a
time Vinnie, and later George, the audience
revelling in the sound of so many musicians
pulling out all the stops. Tony Wilson played
his wild card late in the day. In the final
moments as the orchestra spiralled out into
space, the guitarist
quoted Ornette
Coleman's
Lonely Woman, the only
composed work performed that day. Its
effect was akin to Monk's famous axiom,
Lift the Bandstand, a moment not soon
forgotten. 0

COMPACT DISC REVIEWS

MINATURES

IN A JEWEL CASE

BY STUART BROOMER • FRANK RUTTER • JAMES HALE

IRECENTREISSUES
I There are all kinds of musical
stimulation in this collection of reissues, and one is
sorting the genuinely durable from the period pieces.

STEPHANEGRAPPELLI

CLIFFORD
JORDAN

Sweet Georgia Brown
Black Lion BLCD 7602
(54:42/58:24/ 72:53)

Cliff Craft
Blue Note 56584

Jordan, Art Farmer, and
Louis Hayes were all members of Horace Silver's 1957
quintet when they were
joined here by Sonny Clark
and George Tucker. Bop was
still hardening, and Confirmation and Anthropology
add to the period flavour.
The band doesn't have the
distinctive
mark Silver
would have put on it, but
high spirits and determined
swing prevail.
Jordan's
sound is gorgeous
on
Sophisticated
Lady, and
Clark stands out.

This set simply boxes three
available CDs recorded in
London in 1973. It's all
tuneful and romantic. Duets
with pianist Alan Clare
emphasize
the violin's
melodic melancholy almost
to a fault, while a reconstituted Hot Club of France
recalls
the speed and
vibrancy of Grappelli's early
recordings. The highlight is
a virtuosic
quartet with
Roland Hanna, George Mraz
and Mel Lewis illuminating
Parisian Thoroughfare and
other great material.

JACKIEMCLEAN

COLEMANHAWKINS
Encounters BENWEBSTER

Swin'g, Swang, Swingin'
Blue Note 5 65 82 (38:15)

Verve 314 521 42 7 (46:53)

The two tenor titans were
still in their prime in 1957,
and their
wonderfully
grained sounds are now an
exalted antidote to Robert
Altman's Kansas City. Oscar
Peterson and Ray Brown
provide vital support in a program of
ballads, blues and swing tunes that are all
one might expect, surmounting
the
occasional stiffness of Alvin Stoller and the
irrelevance of Herb Ellis. Hawkins' honkwhistle combination on Blues For Yolande is
a great moment in tenor sonics.

(43:30)

expansive, while Brown's masterful bass
lines fit Webster's playing perfectly.

CHARLESMINGUS Mingus Three
Roulette CDP 5 7155 {38:23)

The great bassist and his perennial
drummer Danny Richmond make a fine
BENWEBSTERMeets OSCARPETERSON trio with Hampton Hawes, as Mingus tests
Verve 314 521 448 (36:46)
the limits of the beat with his lumpy,
combustible swing and Hawes is masterful
There's more larger-than life tenor playing
in the pure bop idiom of Bud Powell.
in this 1961 session that emphasizes the
Summertime
gets some interesting
ballads that were Webster's forte. His sound
atmospherics added, including piano
and phrasing were unique, and this is
strings, but generally it's the drive and
another reminder that Peterson has been a
edgy inventiveness that distinguish these
great accompanist, as sensitive as he is
bop blues and standards.

Blue Note created a remarkable consistency, but their
best dates resulted from the
chemistry and cohesion of
strong soloists and sometimes impromptu rhythm
sections. Five standards,
Stab/emotes and a McLean
blues provide the groundwork for a very
strong quartet session from 1959, the
critical axis running from McLean to
drummer Art Taylor. McLean swings
incredibly, with his unique sound making
deeply personal statements of What's New
and I Remember You.

GRANTGREEN The Complete Quartets
with SONNYCLARK
Blue Note 5 7194 (70:11/64:54)
The real question is why this first-rate 196162 material only began to surface in 1979.
The guitarist
and pianist were both
elemental players, and this generous
package presents their clean-edged music

28 rODA
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ding, Wheeler is joined by vocalist Nonna Winstone, pianist John
@¢ Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Greg Carter. One highlight of
cording is that th�s()mpositions (except for one by Taylor) are entirely by Wheeler - a
occasion indeed, as his wonderful writing has been insufficiently recorded .

.fuatname nor any of the rhup.
• ked to define the workor ••

ying is powere
,i�grge

treal, Quebec, Canada H4P 1P7
ttp://www.justin-time.com
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