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MONDAY, JULY 3, 2000

THEVANCOUVER
SUN

B11

azz fest records boom year
The festival would likely have broken the 400,000 barrier with a little more sun during free outdoor concerts
on the weekend, but attendance was still up by about 50,000 over last year.
MARKE ANDREWS
SUN JAZZ CRITIC

W

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ith the help of
good weather
early in the festival and astute
band-venue
matchups, the 15th du Maurier
Vancouver International Jazz
Festival, which concluded Sunday, set a new attendance
record of "just below 400,000,"
according to festival estimates
on Sunday.
"It's been a big success," said
festival marketing and promotions manager John Orysik.
"Crowds at the Orpheum, Commodore, Performance Works,
and all of the outdoor venues
have been very good. T-shirt
sales and merchandise sales are
way up from last year. Everything points to a record year."
The festival got off to a fast
start with sunny, hot weather for
the two-day open-air Gastown
Jazz concerts. Orysik estimates
crowds there at 120,000,almost
double that of last year, when
cold, rainy weather hampered
the street party. If the sun had
shone for the past weekend as
well, Orysik said attendance
would have been over 400,000.
He estimated it was up about
50,000 over last year.
The return of the Commodore to the roster of festival
venues helped bump attendance up, and Performance
Works had a large increase in
CRAIG HODGE/Vancouver Sun
attendance
with its New
OUTSIDE
SOUL:
Vancouver
jazz
group
Soul
Crib
played
to
a
sparse
but
loyal
audience
under
cloudy
skies
at
David
Lam Park on Saturday.
Groove program of funk and fusion bands. "The New Groove
series has found the right home drums, the four turning in a set whispered phrases to the ac- Baca gave sensual interpretations Cooke played an inspired set on
at Performance Works," said that was energetic, creative and companiment of two bowed of songs from her albums. At alto saxophone.
times, the music was hypnotic.
Jane Bunnett's show Thursday
Orysik. "We've found the right lyrical.
basses and piano.
ambience, the right bands and
The Vancouver East Cultural
Cook's piece, entitled Flux, One song drew its inherent power at the Commodore was underthe right audience to make the Centre was only half full Satur- featured electronic samplers, from a bowed-bass figure, with attended, which is too bad beday night for a concert pairing bowed strings (including the percussion lapping at the song's cause the soprano saxophonseries work."
Vogue crowds were down guest composer and multi-in- electric guitar) and much trum- edges. As Baca sang, the other ist/flautist and her Spirits of Hafrom last year, owing partly to strumen talist Wadada Leo pet soloing by Smith, who was musicians answered her in a call- vana band played with skill and
the return of the Commodore. Smith with Vancouver's 16- both jagged and fluid. The piece and-response style that resembled passion. Maybe the missing festival goers were experiencing
Orysik maintains, however, that member NOW Orchestra. The was mostly interesting, and a kind of musical prayer.
A highlight from Thursday
Cuban music overload, but they
crowds at the Vogue met the or- program consisted of two ex- there was an inspired section
tended pieces, a three-part
that had Smith's trumpet and night was Vancouver guitarist would have heard vibrant perganizers' projections.
One of the best shows of the work by Smith and a composi- Ron Samworth's guitar wailing Tony Wilson's tribute to late formances from musicians such
together, but the musicians oc- saxophonist Albert Ayler, held as Bunnett, pianist Hilario
week occurred in the wee, small tion by NOW's Coat Cooke.
Smith's piece opened with casionally fell into free-music at midnight at Studio 16.
Duran, and percussionist Panhours Saturday when Per
Wilson led a band with two cho Quinto. Singer Dean Bow"Texas" Johansson and his all- mournful sounds from cellist cliches, such as the drummer
Peggy Lee and vocalist Kate rimming the grooves of his drummers, two bassists and, man also contributed enjoyably
Swedish quartet entertained
eventually, two saxophonists.
idiosyncratic vocals.
with a form of music rare at this Hammett-Vaughan before the cymbals for effect.
Peruvian singer Susana Baca The band was true to Ayler's
festival; hard-blowing post-bop. entrance of horns and rhythm
•
section (the latter term some- played a subtle,low-keyset Friday music and spirit, giving a clinic
Brazilian singer Behel GilberJohansson
and Fredrik
to had to surmount two annoyLjungkvist played all forms of thing of an oxymoron in the at the Commodore. Backed by a on how free improvisation
reeds, Dan Berglund was on free-playing NOW world). At full-sounding quartet consisting works when musicians really ances during her performance
of guitar,bass and two percussion, listen to one another. Coat Saturday at the Commodore:
bass and Mikel Ulfberg played one point, Hammett-Vaughan

DeGeneres triumphs with
gentle comedy routine
ELLEN DEGENERES

she was dolled up in an absurd Lucy Ricardo get-out, a peasant dress with an overQueen Elizabeth Theatre
size pregnancy pouch underneath. Friday,
she wore a simple grey sweatshirt, blue
jeans and black boots bought earlier that
ALEX STRACHAN
VANCOUVER SUN
day at Leone's.
She has been through some stuff in those
t was March 11,1998 when Ellen DeGeneres walked off Disney's sound- two years. "Ultimately, I decided not to talk
stage No. 7 in Burbank for what would about it," she said. "Instead, I'm going to
be the last time. She thanked her Ellen express it through an interpretive dance."
And then she did just that, to a medley
cast and crew for being part of "this very
controversial show" and told them it had of disco, show tunes and Wagnerian opera.
been a wonderful run. "The fact that Before she became Ellen the Crusader, Deyou've supported me through all of this Generes had been an unaffected and unmeans a whole lot to me." Jess Cagle, derappreciated comedian, and that is the
deputy managing editor of Entertainment world to which she plans to return, focusWeekly and a media columnist for Time, ing good old-fashioned, gentle comedy was one of the few outsiders allowed to not the mean-spirited kind.
In its early days, Ellen played on her gift
witness the moment. It was, he would latfor physical comedy, and Friday's "interer write, a sad moment.
There was nothing sad about DeGeneres' pretive dance," free of self-consciousness
triumphant return to stand-up comedy Fri- and see-what-I-can-do showmanship, was
day before a sold-out, racially mixed audi- as inspired as it was affecting. Just 15minence of twenty- and thirtysomethings, gay utes into her act, just in case there were
and straight alike, at her one-woman show still any doubters, she owned the room.
For the next hour, she held that room in
at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. It was her
first stand-up performance in seven years. thrall with her homespun routine about
And while there were times when she was fear, depression - "Being down there is
very, very funny, it was an evening of the scariest thing in the world," - and the
whimsy, warmth and an innocent wonder little things in life ("Do we still need diabout the vagaries oflife. Those expecting rections on the back of a shampoo bottle?
a tirade would be disappointed. "I am a co- Shampooing for the first time, anymedian," she began simply, in front of an body?"). It was a brave and telling perforaudience so quiet you could hear a pro- mance. Brave, because she skirted the obgram drop - this after a thundering, min- vious jokes about sex and bodily fluids
utes-long ovation that seemed to take her and instead had some important - and
genuinely by surprise when she first funny -things to say about religion, spirREUTERS photo
walked onto the bare stage. This was Ellen ituality and a love for all creatures great
unplugged, DeGeneres the minimalist. For and small, even spiders ("When you kill BACKTO THE BACSICS:Ellen DeGeneres, shown here in a file
1...,.,..............
- _ ...
_.J
...,,...__
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bad sound and loud chatter
from people who were likely
there for headliners Mo' Funk
Collective. But the daughter of
bossa nova co-founder Joao
Gilberto persevered and delivered a strong set.
Gilberto's clear tone and confident stage presence made up
for the aural shortcomings.
While her quartet memb.ers
didn't exactly reproduce the beguiling electronic textures on
Gilberto's debut Tanto Tempo
CD, they still conveyed the
rhythmic and harmonic vitality
of pure Brazilian music.
- Chris Wong,
Special to The Sun
Even a broken guitar string
didn't detract from Sue Foley's
powerful set, which preceded
Jonny Lang's show Saturday at
the Orpheum. Foley broke a
string on her trademark pink
paisley Stratocaster halfway
through a guitar solo on Willie
Dixon's Same Thing, but she
merely switched to country
gear with her "big old Memphis
Minnie" stand-by guitar. The
Ottawa native who relocated to
Austin, TX for eight years let fly
with strong, husky vocals and
soulful, charismatic blues guitar. Foley understands
the
strength of empty spaces, and
her songs display a wicked
sense of rhythm, depth and

style.Tlieonlyclrawback
was
that she didn't play a full set.
Teenage phenomenon Jonny
Lang was the night's main attraction, however, and the QTip thin guitar: ,Vsinge .. delighted his audience with his
growly vocals and languid finger work. Lang is technically a
brilliant guitarist, but exhibited
an amazing lack of soul on slick,
tedious songs that took up the
first half hour of the show.
- Kerry Gold,
Sun pop music critic

Daily
Specials
Film
RegHarkemamade his feature
debut, A Girlis a Girl,in his own
image.Havinghoned his skills
editing for Canadianfilm
luminarieslike BruceMacDonald
and GuyMaddin, he introduced
this explorationinto the pitfalls of
dating in one'stwenties.The
result is what TheSun's Katherine
Monk called an "unpolishedgem
full of believable
characterizations."At Tinseltown,
88 W. Pender,through Thursday.
Call 806-0799 for show times and
admissionprices.

Friday, July 30

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p_•

Television
A Survivorwho didn't survive,a
wannaberockerwho fell short of
Making the Band and a woman
who jumped from Who Wantsto
Marry a Multi-Millionaire?to the
pagesof Playboyarguethe pros
and cons of living life in
television'sfish-bowl with Bill
Maherin tonight's reality-TVthemed edition of the often edgy,
occasionallyfrustrating,always
entertainingPolitically
lncorred.
NewJerseychemistand chronic
malingererRamonaGraywas the
secondmost recentcontestantto
be voted off the island on CBS's
Survivor,
while BryanChanmade
a tearful departuretwo weeks
ago from ABC'swannabehit
Makingthe Bandafter missing
the cut. And DarvaConger
outlived her 15 minutesof fame
by what seemslike 15 months
after she marriedquasi-millionaire
Rick Rockwellon Who Wantsto
Marry a Mufti-Millionaire?Ms.
Congernow saysshe resentsher
loss of privacy.If Maheris true to
form, he won't exactlybe
brimmingwith sympathy.Comedy