2 jazz accordionists walk into a strip club

1

Pianist-accordionist Ben Rosenblum's Nebula Project, from New York on a tour I just wrote about in the free weekly, filled Tyrant Studios last Friday. I was delighted to see that after worrying about the draw of some recent Tyrant tour stops, as you might remember. Even more delightful was that Taras Luka, our resident jazz accordionist, came down right after his own gig at Zameen Art House and sat in for a tune. He borrowed Rosenblum's accordion instead of unboxing his own and launching into an accordion duet. Oh well! They jammed on "Bluesette", despite the horn players admitting to not really knowing it.

The Nebula Project – a sextet with trumpet, tenor, guitar, bass drums, and the leader – was a fun band and covered pan-Latin to reggae and New Orleans styles. Rosenblum flashed a beaming smile often at various moments of groove and checkpoints. I'm bound to appreciate that.

2

Infidels Jazz sold out Jeff Chen's band Chen Baker at the Fox last Saturday. The band played city pop, the Japanese post-disco pop of decades past. The two vocalists, Mia Wang and Xirui Wang, were both strong. As for the band, including Chen on guitar, smooth saxophonist Neal Wang, keyboardist Justin Juan, and drummer Dario Acosta? Wholesome and awkward, which made for a lighthearted, enjoyable show. The band members expanded the range from strictly city-pop hits to a bit of anime music (Neon Genesis Evangelion's "A Cruel Angel's Thesis") and Taiwanese pop; their next Infidels show features Mandopop music at Hero's Welcome in June.

3

Bassist Isaac Story brought his chordless trio with saxophonist Connor Lum and drummer Jordy McIntosh to Frankie's After Dark last Friday. Two weeks before that, they had played Tyrant to celebrate their brand-new album Wabbit Hunting.

I missed both shows, but we can listen to the album. It's a raw live recording that you need to turn up your volume to hear, but the three musicians carve out clean spaces for their sounds. As the title suggests, we get cartoon-related themes, juxtaposed against standards (and a tune called "Rosalina in the Observatory" from the game Super Mario Galaxy). I asked Isaac for more information about the album, because no details appear anywhere I could find. Here's what he wrote me back:

"We set up in the studio room at cap university mid February of last year [i.e. 2024]. I had my brother record it while he was visiting town with an old Sony 2 track reel to reel and an 8 channel mixer. There's just one original by Connor called "Millmans Mimic" in dedication to [their friend the pianist] Ben Millman, all the other tunes we just sorta picked in the moment to do."

I enjoy the informal, down-to-earth approach.

4

In Surrey, "Programs that may be on the chopping block include Grade 7 band," wrote Sarah Grochowski of the Vancouver Sun on March 1.

"The Surrey Board of Education says it is facing a $16-million budget shortfall for the 2025-26 school year. It has already reduced bus services and has been closing down learning centres," CBC News reported.

Concerned members of the Semiahmoo Secondary music community started a petition, "Prevent Surrey School District from Cutting Grade 7 Band", on February 26:

Sign the Petition

Prevent Surrey School District from Cutting Grade 7 Band

Change.org

In a March 1 update, the petitioners claimed 1,300 signatures. Now, they have around 4,000. Members of our scene who teach school in Surrey, including Mackenzie Tran whose posts about it caught my attention, have been sharing this petition for a few weeks.

The petition includes information about providing feedback on the budget by April 6. According to CBC News, "The board has a legal obligation to pass a balanced budget by June 30, 2025."

5

Lisa Buck's jazz presentation initative BuckingJam Palace, run in Calgary as the BJP Music Foundation non-profit, released its 2023-24 impact report last month.

Some points to my personal interest are:

• Aimee-Jo Benoit, an artist I've covered here, has been working as executive director for BJP since October 2024. I like that she says they "aim to become self-sufficient" and that they pre-sell memberships, offering early access to limited seating at chez BJP.
• They've sold over $5,000, or over 100, of those memberships. We love to see it – I'll get there too eventually.
• BJP presented 10 shows. They didn't list them in the report. Here's what it looks like they were in 2023/24, in reverse chronogical order; Benjamin Deschamps' No Codes, Marianne Trudel and John Hollenbeck (two shows), Sienna Dahlen and Bill Coon, Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magdelys Savigne's OKAN! project, the Jodi Proznick / Audrey Ochoa Quartet, the Kate Wyatt Quartet, Caity Gyorgy and Mark Limacher (two shows), and Aretha Tillotson. Cool, I covered many of them.
• BJP spent a reported $16,887 in artist fees. Because they state a mission of "fair pay for all", I'm going to assume for now that they pay each band a per-member fee based on $x per member, but also that some extra donations topped up the artist payouts as they went from show to show. I think I count 30 musicians across those 10 shows, so I'd guess that they're paying $500 plus GST per band member, if not more. Pretty good!

6

Again in the Vancouver Sun, Tim Reinert and Nina Horvath gave quotes to Stuart Derdeyn's March 5 piece on USD-CAD exchange rates and tariff uncertainty. Tim highlights (among other things) the escalation of risk, i.e. how the supply side gets compromised in tough times:

"You already have to figure out a way to sell an additional 30 per cent more tickets to cover the additional cost from the exchange rate. And, the more that goes up, the more you are pushed to move into larger spaces than may be possible for that artist to sell.

“So now, you are looking at another added expense that you may not be able to recover to pay the artist what they are asking.”

While Nina speaks to how Coastal Jazz might be forced to compromise demand:

“We have a bit of extra privilege being a non-profit with funding by government and donors, which means that we can fight raising ticket prices a little longer. But we have had to incrementally increase some prices.”

As for whether or not Canada should make it more onerous for US-based musicians to cross the border for gigs, personally that wouldn't be my cup of tea. I don't have a particular desire to make Americans' performances up here rarer than they already are versus domestic ones (or versus other nations'), assuming the musician(s) want to come here and a presenter feels confident enough to sign on.

7

Seattle trumpeter Thomas Marriott held down all of last weekend at Frankie's, playing three dates. (I didn't make it out there. Did you?) His album Screen Time with pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Robert Hurst, and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr. came out in January. He brought all of them to Vancouver.

I'm no child of television, so Marriott's album theme of compositions for TV didn't hit with me. But I love the playing, from the burning "Summer Nights" and roiling "Goodbye / Love Theme from "Predator" to my favourite track, "It's Such a Good Feeling" from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The softness of Marriott's low notes on his Harmon-muted horn up to the mic, and the rub of a high note beautifully out-of-tune with the chord, are something special. He also cut two originals: "Skip Intro" and the title track. They're the most swinging tracks in the collection.

Of course, Hurst's bass playing is out of this world with a beautiful sound, elevating this record to similar heights as those '80s Wynton and Branford records he played on.

8

Speaking of trumpeters, hearing Rosenblum's band led me to check out the trumpet player from that night: Wayne Tucker. He's a longtime collaborator of Cyrille Aimée, and in 2022 they played together for Emmet's Place as you see above.

Tucker's discography lately is a lot of bedroom-R&B music that I don't love. But then I listened to his 2017 album Wake Up and See the Sun (Spotify and Apple, or your streaming of choice; no Bandcamp that I can see). It's a sprawling collage. There's a Frank Ocean song and a James Blake song off the top, then later an arrangement of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" as a groove tune with a rap verse. Tucker himself said "Little Buddy" featuring Cyrille Aimée is his favourite track, and it dances along just fine.

Some of my favourite bits are the quiet moments when Tucker interacts with none other than Sullivan Fortner, his contemporary who has since become arguably the world's most celebrated Millennial jazz pianist. The rhythm team of Yasushi Nakamura on bass and Jonathan Pinson on drums is also first-class. But man, this album is a dog's breakfast.

9

Montreal vocalist Ayelet Rose Gottlieb has a band called Dream Keepers with Bernard Falaise on guitar, Stéphane Diamantakiou on bass, and Hamin Honari (known to me for his many Gordon Grdina collabs) on percussion. Gottlieb launched a Kickstarter for their album Dust, which she describes as "[b]lending Persian rhythms with Jewish music, Jazz and Rock". They shared a track from the album here.

An interesting thing about the Kickstarter: it's not to pay for producing the record, Gottlieb writes, but instead "to cover our essential touring and promotion expenses". The record is done; the release date is set for April 25. Apparently they're planning to play in Vancouver.

10

Here are two non-announced jazzfest shows that I've seen in the wild:

• Kneebody. They posted their June 21 date in their tour poster, dunno which venue. Do we want to guess – either the Georgia Street stage downtown or Performance Works? They're releasing a new album called Reach on April 18. They last came in 2019 and played Frankie's during jazzfest time.
• Suin Park. June 27 unless I noted it down wrong, Ocean Artworks. A keyboardist who appeared on my radar via Gordy Li and Feven Kidane's co-led projects, Suin led a Frankie's After Dark last weekend with Wynston Minckler and Kevin Romain.

11

This week marks the third anniversary of the subscription side of Rhythm Changes, which launched on March 12, 2022. Grateful to have you as we keep moving in what I feel is the right direction. Special shout-out to the longtime folks still here!