Thad Bailey-Mai plays c.a.f.f. at UNIT/PITT

"I'm gonna hope that this next one works," trumpeter and composer Thad Bailey-Mai said to the audience before blowing soft air into his mouthpiece, awaiting a response from his electronics. His two sets with Thomas Hoeller on guitar and Kevin Romain on drums at the UNIT/PITT Gallery, 2954 West 4th Avenue, on Tuesday, April 7th were a slow-burning experiment.

No response came through the stereo speakers from the computer. "Maybe it won't work," Thad laughed with the audience. Then it worked; the breaths looped into a beat with octaved horn and guitar dancing atop.

Anyone who enjoyed the concert I wrote about in the previous Subscriber Friday would like this one too. The self-echoes, the stacked flugelhorn harmonies, and whatever Thad was doing with his foot pedal made for an eclectic improv soundscape. Loudness came from the buildup of his loops and playback. Before starting the last of the five pieces, he drew waves with his arm, seeming to indicate that the band should play in the shape of waves.

"It felt almost like the perfect Tangent gig," Thad told me over text yesterday, referencing the venue that was home for our generation coming up. (I rewrote all the names in this story last night because my last-name-basis rule felt off, given how long I've known some of these people.) "People who were clearly there to be fully present, and parse through the big picture and the little details, in such a refreshing way. It felt really comfortable and exciting at the same time."

Thad kept a gadget near the grip of his left hand while playing. "The device velcro’d to my horn was a This.Is.Noise NM2 bluetooth midi controller that I was using to trigger pitch shifters in MainStage. I built the pitch-shifting system and came up with a palette of voicings that I liked. Took quite a few revisions to optimize a layout that felt intuitive."

Thomas was an ideal guitarist for the plan. Having no charts, for one piece he employed a small notebook with seven slash chords written across its two-page spread. He brought a pedal through which he could warp his instrument's pitch with his foot. He sustained drones with his lowest string, sometimes detuned, and used muted pick scrapes to add texture.

"It felt incredible to get swept up in all that sound that Thad was building," Thomas said to me afterward. "I was trying my best to listen carefully and fit in the ensemble in a supportive way. There seems to be a lot of possibility for the unexpected in that music, and there were some moments where the energy really took off. I'm so grateful to have the chance to rock out with both Kevin and Thad like that."

Kevin similarly provided texture, not firm time, with his ride cymbal. The rapping of his bass drum resonated nicely in the small room. He switched to brushes, mallets, and mixed one of each. He had layers of handheld and drum-rested percussion elements at his fingertips.

"It's like, it's technology music, but not stupid," Kevin said before the show. "You can quote me on that."

Trumpet/guitar/drums is one of my favourite lineups to hear. Thad, Thomas, and Kevin landed closer to Faro, the younger local trio of Jack Lee, Jake Kostuchuk, and Chavo Gomez, than to the more acoustic sounds of, say, Ambrose Akinmusire's Owl Song or Ron Miles' Circuit Rider. I could still compare Thad's music to that of Akinmusire, who visited Capilano University's jazz program in 2017 around the time of Thad's graduation. Imagine his latest album honey from a winter stone without the piano or the rap verses, and you're vibing with parts of the show on Tuesday night.

Thad's recent graduate studies at UBC have influenced his concept. "I thought UBC would be rigid in how they approached musical freedom," he said, "but it's been the opposite. All of my advisors have been pushing me to broaden my scope beyond strict ‘classical’ and ‘jazz’ idioms and try to just forego labels altogether. It’s been a blast."

This show was the sixth monthly edition of a series called c.a.f.f. ("calling all friendly faces"), booked by composer and trumpeter Ben Frost. The room was full at perhaps 20 to 30 seats.

"I'm really pleased and encouraged to see that we either sold out, or almost sold out, every show so far," Ben said to me on a phone call Wednesday.

"I've known Thad for a very long time," Ben continued, "and this was very different than anything I've seen him do before, which is very cool. And I'm really glad that through UNIT/PITT, I can provide a space for my friends to do exactly that: something that they might never otherwise get to do. That's what's special about the place, is it's just a gallery, so you can do whatever. There's no expectations from me booking the thing. I thought it was a huge success in the sense that Thad got to experiment, and as I had no doubt he would do, he played some really beautiful music on the trumpet. It was awesome."

The UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness has been in Kitsilano since the fall of 2023. According to a history by the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres, the gallery began its life in 1975 in Gastown as the Helen Pitt Gallery, named after a scholarship patron at the nearby Vancouver School of Art. VSA students kept it alive after the school moved and rebranded under Emily Carr's name. They merged it with a Unit 306 Society, hence UNIT/PITT. The gallery's name got several tweaks as it moved from building to building,

Ben wasn't first to bring the music to UNIT/PITT. In 1993 and 1994, Coastal Jazz presented two festival shows per night (9:00 PM and 12:30 AM) at the Pitt Gallery, 317 West Hastings. The improv-minded acts included John Tchicai and Marilyn Crispell, Gerry Hemingway, Ken Vandermark, Wayne Horvitz's Pigpen, and Myra Melford, plus many of the locals of that era you'd expect.

Coastal Jazz also booked Ben himself in 2017 to play the Granville Island market stage. In his early twenties and graduating from CapU, he brought a quartet of Jenny Xu on piano, Eli Davidovici on bass, and Miles Wong on drums.

Ben released his only album to date as a leader, Pixies, in 2022 around the time of his first appearance on the Rhythm Changes Podcast. He made a second appearance on the show last year, hosted by Chris Fraser.

Alison Bosley, the current executive director of UNIT/PITT, is a friend of Ben's. She coordinated an evening of Ben's music in the gallery about a year ago, on March 28, 2025. Ten days after guesting on Chris' podcast, Ben called him to play guitar, along with Miles Wong on drums.

UNIT/PITT then invited Ben to book a monthly series beginning in November. Noah Franche-Nolan played first, with Ben and Miles. A series of duos then followed; Cole Schmidt and Mili Hong, Shruti Ramani and Chris Fraser, Brad Turner (on trumpet) and David Caballero, and rebsha, the duo of Feven Kidane and Nebyu Yohannes.

Ben recalled how well the space accommodated the first of those duos. "Mili got sick," he said, "and we were able to simply postpone it and still have people show up. It was all great and fine and dandy. Maybe this is some flexibility that isn't afforded at some other places."

c.a.f.f. will likely continue with one more spring edition on the first Tuesday of May. (A different sound art series with three dates will also take place in late April and early May.) After that, and following another summer break during which Ben might have a big gig, the series will likely return for another run: one more chapter in UNIT/PITT's half-century at the vanguard of local experimental art.