-The first one was Felix Stüssi's quintet performing at the Scène General Motors. The band played an hour long set showcasing tunes off their most recent album "Give me Five". This quintet consists of Felix Süssi on piano, Bruno Lamarche on tenor sax, Alex Côté on alto & soprano saxes, Clinton Ryder on double bass & Isaiah Ceccarelli on drums. They offered an extremely dynamic set of tunes. In each composition there is balance between expected jazz form (swing, progressions, blues etc.) and unexpected somewhat more experimental drifts to different feelings be it rock, funk or ambient sounds. Something I really like about this quintet is that both saxes often solo together creating some sort of "sax conversation" that builds up, intensifies and explodes in beautiful colors on most of the tunes. My favorite tunes were Zoé Félicia and Seven to Twelve (i'm not sure about the second tune's name). The former is a tune written by Félix Stüssi for his daughter who was born a few days after 9/11, it therefore blends in feelings of joy and happiness with feelings of fear and terror. The saxes joint solo was very intense and so was the unconventional piano comping throughout the entire tune. The latter featured the drummer Isaiah Ceccarelli. Despite the awkward time signature of this tune, it was really grooving. The tune started with a great fat bassline in 7/4 on top of which the drummer was improvising and moved on to saxes improv. I was blown away by the experimental structure of this tune and by the versatility of the drummer that could go in and out of time while maintain a head nodding feeling. Anyway, I think i'm gonna check out their album "Give me Five" which is on sale in all cd stores in Montreal.
-The second band is the Brandi Disterheft trio from BC. The group consists of Brandi Disterheft on Double bass, Chris Gale on tenor sax and Sly Juhas on drums. This modern jazz trio gave a fresh and energetic set last night consisting mostly of tunes free of rigid form where painful sax lines were laid on extremely dynamic basslines and versatile drum beats. Once again, I witnessed a band where the traditional jazz form was challenged which gave rise to a lot of space for improvisation both for the sax and the rhythm section. I particularly like Brandi's style of playing. Many of her basslines are based on one-note pedals that are sustained for a little while which gives a lot of harmonic freedom for the sax player to explore. This style of bass playing reminds me a bit of Dave Holland which is one of my favorite bassists of all time. Brandi also succeeded in making her compositions extremely dynamic just by altering her way of playing the bass in those tunes (from walking bass to pedals to rhythmic grooves). The drummer was extremely responsive to the changes in the basslines which made this trio's rythm section extremely tight.
Both those concerts were free outdoors events. If you like young modern jazz, keep an eye on the Club Jazz TD Canada Trust stage (parc Hydro-quebec)this is where the Brandi Disterheft trio was performing and that's where most young international talents will be performing throughout the festival.
Enjoy !!
nad
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