Festival of New Trumpet Music, Canada: 2nd edition
The Festival of New Trumpet (FONT) Music was founded by Dave Douglas and the late Roy Campbell, Jr. in New York City twelve years ago. FONT Music Canada, now in its second year, was imported roughly 375 miles due north by Ellwood Epps and Bill Mahar, aided by former Montrealer and current NYC FONT organizer Aaron Shragge. This year’s festival was dedicated to the recently departed Canadian composer, arranger and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, whose music was prominently featured over the four day event that took place March 12-15, 2015 in Montreal, Quebec.
The festival obviously exists to showcase the trumpet, but given the wide range of genres featured, could easily be mistaken as a new music festival that so happened to have at least one trumpet in each band.
The first night opened with Jake Henry’s Sweet Talk, with the leader on trumpet, guitarist Dustin Carlson and drummer Cody Brown. The trio is based in New York, although Henry is originally from Toronto and studied at Montreal's McGill University. The guitar and drums laid down successive beds of scratchy funk rhythms, noise and even metal, over which Henry played angular lines. Tonal and noise languages alternated, a recurring theme throughout the festival. The 12-piece Altsys Jazz Orchestra followed. Directed by Jennifer Bell with arrangements from Mahar, the set started with Wheeler's “Solo #1,” here arranged for three otherwise unaccompanied trumpets. Other pieces featured solos from everyone in the band, and included other works from Wheeler and two by Don Cherry. The overall feel was one of joy and celebration.
Trumpeter Stephanie Richards is another former McGill student, whose Urban Surveyor Project includes James Carney on keyboards, the bass of Sam Minaie and Andrew Munsey on drums. Richards is prominent on the New York scene, having collaborated with Henry Threadgill, John Zorn and Anthony Braxton, among many others, and is also involved with the organization of FONT NYC. The quartet opened the second night of the festival with one long set where improvised interludes separated several compositions. The music ranged from chamber music to funk, showcased in works such as “Welcome to my Kitchen.” Extended instrumental techniques were also at play, with inside the piano strumming from Carney and various scrapes on cymbals from Munsey. Of particular note was Richards' use of close miking of her trumpet valves to gain an extra layer of sound, inserting a mute to balance the horn with the quieter valves. The evening proceeded with the Joe Sullivan Quintet, which included the leader on trumpet, Lorne Lofsky on guitar, André White on piano, Alec Walkington on bass and Dave Laing on drums. Their set of be-bop and slower ballads mixed covers with original material. Pink Saliva, a trio featuring Epps on trumpet, Michel F Côté on drums and controlled microphone feedback, and Alexandre St-Onge on bass and laptop, ended the evening with a bang. They opened with a huge blast and did not let up through a set featuring a non-stop variety of mutant sounds, free improvisation sculpted into a coherent slab of noise by close listening.
The first two evenings were hosted by Café Résonance, an artist-run vegetarian resto-bar that features music almost every evening throughout the year. The next two concerts took place at a nearby loft space. Opening the third night, Frédéric Demers' cycled through many trumpets accompanied by Sonia Paço-Rocchia on live sampling and electronics. The first composed piece remained sparse throughout, while the second improvised number was noisier. Demers played within a clockface outlined on the floor, adding a performance art aspect to the set as he marked time walking around the floor. Next up was Shragge’s duo with Ben Monder. Shragge combined meditative slide trumpet and shakuhachi with Monder's guitar played through heavy delay and reverb, creating a dreamy vibe. Most of the compositions were based on poems from Charles Bukowski, as discussed by Shragge during the set. The final set of the third evening was performed by the Ingrid Jensen’s Quartet, which included the leader on trumpet, Monder on guitar, Fraser Hollins on bass, and the drums of Greg Richie. Jensen mixed originals with Wheeler compositions that were re-arranged to the point where they were barely recognizable. This is a decidedly modern brand of jazz with Monder keeping his processed sound but varying his playing approaches compared to his earlier set, adding faster runs between chords and playing unison heads with Jensen, who also made subtle use of electronics.
Craig Pedersen launched his Berkeley Press publication titled “Sound Effects Trumpet” in an afternoon workshop on the final day of the festival. Pedersen demonstrated the extended techniques the book focuses on to fellow trumpet enthusiasts. The final two sets of the festival were presented later that evening. Trumpeter Amy Horvey played two compositions, one by Isak Goldschneider and one from Matthias Maute, the latter with three movements named after districts in Montreal. Horvey was accompanied by the Warhol Dervish string quartet, displaying a more classical side of the trumpet. FONT Music Canada ended with a blowout improvised session from a quintet including Epps, Shragge, violinist Joshua Zubot, Scott Thomson on trombone and Lori Freedman on clarinets. Their set started with piercing blasts from Freedman and Epps, but soon fused into a single complex drone of subtly moving textures. A second piece was less minimalistic with everyone contributing dense pops and burps.
If the goal was to showcase the varieties of modern musical environments where trumpet music is heard, then mission accomplished.
Source: Lawrence Joseph, professor in Division of Clinical Epidemiology at the McGill University Health Center, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec