He's one of them now

10 Things: Bona & Frisell, Arooj Aftab, Elisa Thorn, Stephane Wrembel, Hugh Fraser, Stacie McGregor, and an initiation

He's one of them now
L-R visible: Julian Borkowski, Eric Alexander, & Cory Weeds at Frankie's Jazz Club on January 17, 2025

We have, once again, a healthy amount of stuff going on:

1

Coastal Jazz announced two headliners at the Vancouver Playhouse for this year's jazzfest: Richard Bona in his Asante Trio on Monday, June 23 and Bill Frisell's trio with Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston on Tuesday, June 24. Here's an All About Jazz piece to catch up with Bona's work; Frisell's trio released Orchestras last year. 2024 metal-band headliner Sumac and featured collaborator Moor Mother – whose show I didn't attend myself but included in our coverage, thanks to Todd – also just announced an album together called The Film for release on April 25.

2

Hollywood Theatre this past Monday: I heard Arooj Aftab on tour with her album Night Reign. Aftab headlined the 2023 jazzfest as part of the Love in Exile project with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, the latter of whom came back to be in residence at last year's festival. Dressed in all black with sunglasses and a big jacket, she delivered a winning mix of humour and prince-of-darkness disposition. She had a full band – drums, upright bass, and acoustic nylon-string guitar with a lot more Paco de Lucia and Al Di Meola flavour than I expected – and the instrumentalists had great rapport despite this show being an early stop on their tour. The live show added dynamic range to an album that I found sometimes sleepy and ambient.

3

Frankie's last Friday: Julian Borkowski played trumpet with Mike LeDonne and Eric Alexander's Heavy Hitters, alongside Cory Weeds on alto and the rhythm team of John Lee and Jesse Cahill. Some of you went to most, if not all, of the four LeDonne/Alexander nights: well played! This one drew me in the most; I wanted to hear Borkowski step up to solo after Alexander and watch his presence on-stage alongside the veterans. You can see one of the resulting initiations in the photo above, where Alexander and Weeds watch on after finishing a hit of backgrounds behind the young trumpeter, who has newly established himself back in town after grad school in Eugene, Oregon. I had an interesting view to how well he did...

The music was demanding, and everyone stepped up to the plate admirably, Borkowski included. He took care of business and had a cool demeanour, even though he got caught in the crossfire of LeDonne and Alexander's disagreements over how often those background figures should happen, and for whom. The pianist didn't want them behind his solos and told Borkowski that in no uncertain terms. The trumpeter seemed unfazed. He went on to play an Infidels Jazz show at the Painted Ship on Tuesday and has his own date at Frankie's next Friday.

4

While I was at Frankie's watching Borkowski become one of the cats, many of the cool kids were at Hipposonic Studios for another iteration of their live music series, which a variety of independent artists use to produce videos of their bands while covering the costs. Violinist-singer-songwriter Wallgrin and harpist Elisa Thorn carried the night; this subscene might include friends like Roisin Adams, Beatings are in the Body, and Only a Visitor. On Tim Reinert's Infidels Jazz Show, I learned of a 2019 project by Thorn called The Other Side: Afterlife Sessions that is anything but the stereotype of a harpist's album. It rocks with the rolling improvised gait of bassist James Meger and has cool vocal lines. Thorn's ensemble on this record, Hue, is one I haven't heard live yet but have seen on the gig list a couple times. I hope I get to sometime.

5

Cheers to Tom Keenlyside for packing Fabrique this past Saturday and to Karin Plato for sharing some footage, I wish I could've made it. The monthly Anvil Theatre series that Keenylside instigated in my beloved New Westminster features the Brad Turner Trio Plus One – Turner on piano with Darren Radtke and Bernie Arai, plus Jack Duncan om percussion – coming up on Tuesday.

6

On Nou Dadoun's A Trane last Friday, I heard about French guitarist Stephane Wrembel, who plays the Kay Meek tonight in an ensemble that features Jean-Michel Pilc. Djangoesque for sure. His group is called Triptych.

7

Nou also played "Dusk" by the Hugh Fraser Quintet, the same track that Cory spun on Condition Blue, from Hugh's last record Gastown Chronicles, Cory is in the quintet with Jimi James Fraser filling his late father's piano chair at Frankie's this Friday and Saturday. It's sold out.

8

On Saturday Night Jazz with Laila Biali last weekend, Laila paid tribute to Stacie McGregor, who passed away on October 30, 2024. Laila talked about how the Winnipeg-born McGregor, who to Humber like she did but about 20 years earlier, inspired her own moves as a young woman playing jazz piano in Canada. SNJ played two compositions by Artie Roth from the band Kollage, featuring McGregor's piano: "Blues for All That is Left Unspoken" and "Not Gone" on 2018's No Fuss, No Muss (Is Kollage something like a Toronto Messengers?); the title track from Wait, There's More! by bassist Henry Heillig's well-named Heillig Manoeuvre group; "Top Cat" from the Stacie McGregor Quintet's Straight Up; and "Kapoy" by Madagascar Slim, with whom she won a Juno. A lot of these recordings aren't on streaming, and as with far too many important figures in our music, McGregor was someone whom I'd never listened to before – but that's why I'm grateful for the DJs in our scene, right?

9

The new release Trapo Casual by The Magic Triangle is interesting but maybe not up-to-spec for me to write a full feature on. It's a saxophone-bass-drums jam band that takes more from the rock band Morphine or the Malleus Trio than from State of the Tenor or Way Out West. The recording is a live-off-the-floor capture with no editing, only splits of the continuous performance into 7 tracks. The first and only time I've heard the band live so far was at the MacLean Park concert series, a small community one in Strathcona, last summer. They've also played Tyrant Studios and (as poor a fit as I imagine it'd be) 2nd Floor Gastown as recently as January 4th.

10

Here's a video of some first-year students riffing on an Ahmad Jamal transcription when they were home for the holidays: McGill drummer Sadie Koshan and bassist Erin Kim with Berklee pianist Anthony Yuen. From the tiny backroom venue of Aperture Coffee Bar, their "But Not for Me" comes with all the caveats about phone live sound capture that you'd expect. I met Sadie and Erin at the Surrey Slam Jam Youth Showcase last year. Sadie's YouTube channel is a growing archive of her playing, something which she'll appreciate more every year in my opinion. Speaking of McGill, the next Rhythm Changes Podcast episode features an alum.

11

Behind-the-scenes story for you: I put out a call on Instagram two weeks ago where I was "looking for someone in town who really knows and loves R&B / alt-rnb and can write" – hoping to find a contributor to cover a particular album. In a true demonstration that you can't assume any context gets through on social media, most of the replies I got were from musicians thinking I wanted to collab on an R&B track. Eventually, I got a reply from someone who I really hope contributes here someday. (For the sleuths, he's a former podcast guest.) He ended up turning down this album because he said he didn't 100% love the music, to paraphrase. I think I'll skip covering the album in deference. Oh well!