Ken Waxman

Pierre-Yves Martel. Mer Bleue: Music for Solo Viola da Gamba Adapting and altering the parameters of an instrument first created in the fifteenth century, Montreal’s Pierre-Yves Martel creates a brief (under twenty-five-minute) sound picture of Mer Bleue, a sphagnum bog near Gloucester, Ontario where he often hikes. No watery or moss-like[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 146

Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra. Voices—A Musical Heritage. Assembling twenty-six of the city’s finest jazz-oriented improvisers and composers in various formations, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra’s twenty-fifth anniversary session collates ten arrangements which reflect the varied heritage of the Prairie city and beyond. The tunes range[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 145

Robert Diack. Small Bridges With energized minimalism, Toronto drummer and synthesizer player Robert Diack reconstitutes fragments of other genres into this fourteen-track CD, using repetitive textures driven by his solid drum beats to create resourceful if somewhat claustrophobic pieces.   With[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 144

Matt Choboter’s Hypnopompia. Sleep Inertia Aiming to portray hypnopompia—hallucinations that occur while waking up—Vancouver pianist Matt Choboter has created an eight-part auditory suite that turns subconscious dreamscapes into musical exploration. Featuring clarinetist François Houle, guitarist Jacob Wiens,[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 144

Gordon Grdina. Oddly Enough: The Music of Tim Berne. During COVID-19 lockdowns, Brooklyn-based Tim Berne began sending idiosyncratic compositions to Vancouver guitarist Gordon Grdina. As soon as one of the interpretations was recorded and emailed back, Berne dispatched another. This back-and-forth continued for a year until enough music was[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 143

Double Review: Joane Hétu. Tags; Ensemble SuperMusique. Sonne l’image. Joane Hétu is the codirector of Montreal’s Ensemble SuperMusique (ESM), but that doesn’t mean she overloads the contemporary ensemble with her own works. She also composes for others. Each of these wide-ranging recordings contains only one Hétu–ESM[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 142

René Lussier, Érick d’Orion, Robbie Kuster, and Martin Tétreault. Printemps 2021. A notable blend of noise and nuance, this Québécois quartet soars through seven live improvisations without ever fraying the sonic thread that holds them together. Veterans in this context, René Lussier (guitar and daxophone) and Robbie Kuster (drums) add just enough[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 141

Gordon Grdina and Jim Black. Martian Kitties. Canadian Gordon Grdina and American Jim Black cannily invest this album’s thirteen tracks with multiple textures from two instruments each: Grdina playing guitar and oud, and Black using drums and electronics. The augmentation doesn’t follow the expected course though, with the[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 141

Ocelot. Ocelot. A program of carefully assembled small-group jazz and improv, Ocelot, the eponymous debut from the new trio Ocelot, features playing and composing by British-born reedist Yuma Uesaka, Vancouver pianist Cat Toren, and American percussionist Colin Hinton. Throughout, the near-gossamer sheen of[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 139

Lina Allemano Four. Vegetables. The Toronto-based Lina Allemano Four—the experienced musical chefs who sauté the ingredients in this six-course musical feast—have been cooking on trumpeter Allemano’s originals since 2005. Alongside her gritty and dulcet trumpet textures are reed garnishes from[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman

ITACA 4et. Vortex. Reflecting the breezy looseness of Vancouver, the city in which it was recorded, Vortex by the ITACA 4et moves with the lightness and ebullience of cool West Coast jazz, with jagged sonic shoals just beneath the surface. Formed in 2016, ITACA 4et comprises two Canadians, clarinetist Fran[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman

Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby. Offering. Bolstering his skills as an improviser and composer, Toronto bassist Rob Clutton reconstitutes some of his previously recorded improvisations as notated kernels for this program with New York saxophonist Tony Malaby. No rote recapitulations here, those themes and others are stretched and[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman