Bill in the Kootenays

Colin Stetson

He uses a couple of dozen microphones placed around the room and on his body and on his instrument and he walks around among them while playing. I don’t know what else he does, but whatever it is, it’s unbelievable that he can do it live– there is no overdubbing or layering.

Colin Stetson…

The two pieces in this podcast of Giant Steps are fairly tame compared to some on his CD New History Warfare Vol 2. I am talking about the startlingly original saxophonist Colin Stetson, who has collaborated with Bon Iver, Broken Social Scene, and Arcade Fire. And he has a solo career playing music that is quite radical (despite some roots in Evan Parker.)

…with Bon Iver 

On this edition of Giant Steps (new jazz and its relatives) I played two Stetson pieces alternating with two tracks from Bon Iver’s latest CD. Stetson plays on that Bon Iver CD so I thought it might be an interesting mix. I think it works. The show airs Mondays at 3 pm and Wednesdays at 5:30 am.

Miles from India

The show starts out with the sound of a lonely solo Indian violin. Kala Ramnath. She’s one of a bunch of Indian musicians collected a few years ago by producer Bob Belden to collaborate with a group of Miles Davis alumni to create Miles from India– Miles’ music through an Indian filter. It’s a fascinating concept and it works. One of the best things about it is that Belden does not ignore Miles’ funk period. The piece that Kala Ramnath introduces is Ife from Big Fun.

Kala Ramnath

A rich cast of Miles alumni

The only surviving member of the band that made Kind of Blue– drummer Jimmy Cobb– is on the record along with an unlikely cross-generational mix of others: Michael Henderson, Dave Liebman, John McLaughlin, and many more. It’s a double CD full of riches. Trumpeter Wallace Roney has been criticized throughout his career for sounding (too much, say some people)  like Miles Davis. On this album his job is to sound like Miles, and he pulls it off in fine style.

Vijay Iyer

Also on the show another take on India with the pianist Vijay Iyer and his piano/guitar/tabla trio from the CD Tirtha, which one critic has described as “not Indian jazz, and not not Indian jazz.”

Tags: Bon Iver, Colin Stetson, Giant Steps radio, Kootenay Co-op Radio, Miles from India, Vijay Iyer

Most artists on any weekly edition of my Giant Steps radio show (new jazz and its relatives on Kootenay Co-op Radio) are still “Alive. Alive and living” as my daughter Laura said in a poem to indicate not just alive but also dealing in the world of the present and future tense. Sometimes doing a music show you put together a set that just works, a little suite of songs that travel between each other so well, and on this show (live at 3pm December 19) the first three here are the perfect set, but first, click here to listen to a podcast of this show.

Tom Waits: Spare Parts from Nighthawks at the Diner

This album has a deliciously live feel to it with lots of audience interaction, regardless of the fact that the live-ness was manufactured—the producer hired some jazz musicians and a room, invited his friends and bought them beer. In 1979. Tom created a real-or-pretend late-50s beat jazz club feel. And this brilliant, poetic, relaxed record is the result.

J.D. Allen: Mr. Sleepy from Victory

And rolling in already at full tilt from the applause at the end of the Waits piece, Greg August (bass) and Rudy Royston (killer drummer) at a good clip, ready for Mr. J.D. Allen and his tenor saxophone, a short but dug-in piece of work, exhilarating.

tUnE-yArDs: Bizness from whokill 

Merrell Garbus

And out all the windows of the deep city J.D.’s bass and drums have built right now in our friend 2011, bright electronic rhythm and then Merrill Garbus. What a hardcore woman, creative shouting force in this turning and twisting band consisting otherwise of a bass player and two saxophones. I like the way she programs the drum loops on her snare before each song, just matter-of-factly, nothing mysterious about it (see video below). OK that’s the end of this memorable set.

Francois Houle and Benoit Delgecq: Binoculars from Because She Hoped

Francois Houle, from Vancouver, classically trained and working the fields of improvised music, new composed music, world music, for the past couple of decades. I used to be a clarinet player and I know what good tone sounds like. With the refined Benoit Delbecq, piano, from France. Just the two of them in 2011.

Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal: Future from Chamber Music 

Kora from Mali, cello from France, lovely, recorded this year, setting up a friendly string landscape for more strings, but this time more spiky, namely the basses in

Ornette Coleman: Sleep Talking from Sound Grammar 

This is from 2006, Ornette’s group with two basses, Greg Cohen plucked and Tony Falanga bowed, and Ornette’s son Denardo with his personal rattley sound on drums. The basses take us into some sort of string thicket, then when Ornette plays the first phrase of this aching song, it’s everything Ornette ever played and it’s naked.

Ornette Coleman

Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi and Organic from Koyaanisqatsi 

Low, low male voice choral chant. The deserts in Hopi country maybe, pre-history. The dawn of something. Conducted by Michael Reisman.

Jason Moran: Crepuscule with Nellie and Study #6 from Ten 

I first got interested in Jason Moran some time ago when I learned that he was a student and sometime emulator of the great Jaki Byard. Both can move across several centuries of jazz piano in a single song.

Crepuscule, which means twilight, the song named by Monk for his wife Nellie who travelled with him and looked after him (paid the musicians, helped him get dressed….) in his last few years. Maybe we owe Monk’s last few records to her.

Jason Moran’s cover of Monk (the most-covered jazz composer ever maybe except Ellington?) is like eating a hearty thick soup. Here is the tUnE-yArDs video.

Tags: Benoit Delbecq, Francois Houle, Giant Steps radio, J.D. Allen Trio, Jason Moran, Kootenay Co-op Radio, Merrell Garbus, Philip Glass, Tom Waits, Tune-yards

Giant Steps is my music show on Kootenay Co-op Radio. I subtitle it New Jazz and its Relatives, which means made my musicians who are still alive, mostly all recorded since 2000, new styles and concepts, not classic jazz. By “relatives” I mean music that overlaps from jazz into classical, world music, blues. This show needs your feedback. You can listen to the podcast here and you can comment below. There is no annoying log-in procedure– just start writing.

Go here to listen to the podcast of the November 21 show. Here’s the playlist.

Ben Allison: Third Rail from Peace Pipe (Palmetto). Allison is an American bassist who has incorporated a player of the kora (west African harp) into his otherwise standard group, and it changes the sound in a great way.

Kris Davis: Paradoxical Frog  from Paradoxical Frog (Clean Feed) Kris Davis is a Canadian player working in New York. She joined here by tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tyshawn Sorey.  Ground-breaking, not on the beaten path, thoughtful.

Steve Coleman: Atilla from  Harvesting Semblances And Affinities  (Pi). Steve Coleman has been philosophizing, inventing, and conceptualizing, not to mention playing great alto saxophone, for several decades. This is truly amazing music  for sextet and there is nothing like it. A highlight is vocalist Jen Shyu, who sings wordless lines along with the horns. See video below.

Digable Planets: The Rebirth Of Slick from Reachin (Capitol) The first time this show was played, Digable Planets were playing in Nelson that week. They, along with US3, invented sampling classic jazz into hiphop in the 90s. This was their hit. Then they broke up, to get back together more than ten years later, this year.

Benoit Delbecq Trio: Poursuite from  The Sixth Jump (Songlines) Beautiful piano trio from France, the unique feature being the drummer Emile Bayenda from the Congo, who brings Africa into the music. The bassist is Jean-Jacques Avenel, the long-time bassist for the late Steve Lacy.

Masada String Trio: Tabaet  from Azazel (Tzadik) This is part of the huge output of John Zorn’s record label and imagination. This music crosses traditional Jewish music with avant-garde jazz, played by Mark Feldman, violin, Greg Cohen, bass, and Erik Freidlander, cello.

Masada String Trio: Ahiel from Azazel  (Tzadik)

Lizz Wright: When I Fall from The Orchard (Verve) This is a nice new singer. Folk or jazz or blues? Hard to tell.

Paul Reddick: Villanelle from Villanelle (Northern Blues)  This is a great album of mostly acoustic blues. Paul Reddick is one of my favourite live performers.

Tags: Benoit Delbecq, Bill Metcalfe, Giant Steps radio, Kooteney Co-op Radio, Kris Davis, Lizz Wright, Masada, Paradoxical Frog, Paul Reddick, Steve Coleman and Five Elements

I started up my music show Giant Steps on Kootenay Co-op Radio again after about two years off. It was on the air for many years before that. It is a jazz show, but I only like about 10% of the jazz that I hear. People say, ‘Hey, you’re a jazz fan, you’ll like this.” Probably not.

I am not really a jazz fan. I know a lot about it though, especially the music from the 50s through the 70′s. In those days I thought about almost nothing else.  I can recognize most musicians from that period after a few bars. I am actually pretty up on present-day stuff too, but it’s like everything else: back then you could keep up with everything; now there is so much out there, you just can’t.

On Giant Steps everything I play will be post-2000 and it will not be a rehashing of older styles.

Most music  is not classifiable any more. There is lots of music that is both jazz and world music. Or both jazz and classical. I am going to play some of that.

Mondays at 3pm. I pre-record the show and post the playlists in advance on Facebook.

Next week I am going to play the amazing pianist Vijay Iyer. It’s a trio, piano bass drums, and it is pretty knotty, and  brilliantly vital, and in some places funky in a complicated sort of way, and incredibly present. It’s bracing. It’s not predictable, and that’s good, I’ve had more than enough of the beaten track.

I borrowed this photo from my niece Suzie Raudaschl's Facebook page. Those are her hands. She is a very cool girl.

Tags: Giant Steps, jazz, Kootenay Co-op Radio, Suzie Raudaschl, Vijay Iyer