The Live Music Report
September 2007 |
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| The Guelph Jazz Festival & Colloquium |
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| Exploding Star Orchestra |
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...Superlative, mesmerizing and hot to its core, Exploding Star Orchestra gave what amounted to one of the very best shows within Mitchell Hall’s confines...
> report |
| by Tom Sekowski & Dougal Bichan |
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| Anthony Braxton – Diamond Curtain Wall Trio |
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...writing and talking about Braxton's music is an understandable and all-too-human attempt to crudely impose order...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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| Anthony Braxton Tri-Centric Modeling |
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...In many ways, this Address felt like an aesthetic summation based on 40 years of living, performing, and research...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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| Plenary Panel The Future of Jazz |
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...On the matter of social change, Amiri Baraka answered that you first have to get together with others and organize...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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William Parker Ensemble
The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield |
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...On paper, this concert resonated so damn grand and inviting to say the least. The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield is how the show was billed...
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| by Tom Sekowski & Roger Humbert |
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William Parker Ensemble
The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield |
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...with a driving and funky call-to-arms — William Parker, Amiri Baraka, and the ensemble, 'got political' with Curtis Mayfield's songs...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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| Anthony Braxton – The AIMToronto Orchestra |
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...As any bunch of good music students would, this bunch listened and watched the master’s directions with baited breath...
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| by Tom Sekowski & Roger Humbert |
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| Anthony Braxton – The AIMToronto Orchestra |
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...it was a prime example of how Braxton brings people together to play music. They have free agency and they have to make choices...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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| Trio M |
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...The push-pull trajectory had a dozen shining moments throughout the concert. Everyone looked as if they were having an exorbitant amount of fun...
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| by Tom Sekowski & Roger Humbert |
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| Trio M |
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...Dresser would often start off tunes and thereafter animate the space with his burning and deep windmilling sounds...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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| Liberation Music Orchestra |
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...The orchestra's eerie rendition of Pat Metheny's "This Is Not America" (from the film The Falcon and the Snowman) opened the set...
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| by Laila Boulos |
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| Liberation Music Orchestra |
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...I'm saying that the politics — and music — of the Liberation Music Orchestra were all about pause and reflect...
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| by David Fujino & Roger Humbert |
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| Saturday In The Tent |
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... there are many free workshops, presentations and performances around town, including the all day performances in the Upper Wyndham Street Tent...
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| by Laila Boulos & Roger Humbert |
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| Toronto International Indo-Jazz Festival |
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| Shantanu Bhattacharyya | Tasa |
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...Durba’s voice, whose timbre varied between a warm, easy flow and a brassy, nasal ribbon...
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| by Tova G. Kardonne & Roger Humbert |
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| Monsoon | Indo-Pak Coalition |
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...Monsoon is led by tenor saxophonist and festival founder Jonathan Kay, his brother Andrew Kay and bassist/co-founder Justin Gray...
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| by Sebastian Cook & Dougal Bichan |
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| Small World Music Festival |
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| Plan C |
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...As the music flowed from cumbia to jazz to afrobeat during the course of the evening, the bandmembers glided freely across the stage...
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| by Laila Boulos & Roger Humbert |
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| Brina |
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...Pliant as a willow in a musical thunderstorm, she lived out not only her own lyrics and embellishments, but the improvised solos...
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| by Tova G. Kardonne & Roger Humbert |
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| Marcel Khalifé |
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...It was so heartwarming to hear Khalifé begin singing a few bars of a song only to have the crowd carry the rest of the vocals...
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| by Laila Boulos |
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| Concerts |
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| Björk at the Virgin Festival |
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...Like a carefree child of six, the forty-one-year-old explosively hops and skips, sways and jumps while she sings...
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| by Ori Dagan |
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| Claire Jenkins Avec Band |
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...Jenkins’ theatre background is amply evident throughout the concert. Props such as homemade-paper-sailor’s-hats...
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| by Andy Frank & Mike Colyer |
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| Eugene Chadbourne & Jimmy Black |
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...Blues, country, folk, rock, jazz and free, it was all there in the music of Eugene Chadbourne and Jimmy Black...
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| by David Fujino |
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| Blue Martini Jazz |
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...As a vocalist, Mackie reminds her audience, in this fast and frantic age, of the power of intimacy...
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| by Carol Lipson & Roger Humbert |
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| Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch & Fats Kaplin |
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...folk music with an orchestra’s dynamic of nuance, an intricate and intensely delicate sound comprised of many simple, moving parts...
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| by Sebastian Cook |
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| Pedrito Calvo and Hilario Duran |
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...For many Cuban-Canadians the show summoned the glowing heat of nostalgia as Pedro and Mayito sang hits from Los Van Van and Beny Moré...
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| by Joyce Corbett & Roger Humbert |
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| Profile |
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| Danny Brooks No Easy Way Out |
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...he can easily take his band to the Sunday morning service at the Ebenezer Baptist church, and then take the same band ...
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| by Bill Thames & Roger Humbert |
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