Improv Notes: August 2012
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 IMprov Notes: News of the Moment August 2012 2012 Guelph Jazz Festival announces Nuit Blanche program! Early Bird Pass deadline extended.
 Photo of Peter Brötzmann Hear the world in one night! Nuit Blanche program announced. Returning for its third incarnation, the Guelph Jazz Festival is proud to announce that its 2012 Nuit Blanche program will be taking place on Saturday September 8th. From dusk until dawn, the event will showcase over 50 additional performances to the already substantial 2012 Guelph Jazz Festival line up. Performers are joining us from South Africa, Brazil, India, Germany, Norway, Israel, France, the USA, and Canada, making this year's program a truly worldly undertaking that is sure to enthral those in attendance. Projects at this year's Nuit Blanche include São Paulo Underground, who will be playing at St. George's Church Mitchell Hall at 2:30 AM. Formed around the talents of leading edge Chicago musician Rob Mazurek, and Brazilian musicians Mauricio Takara, and Guilherme Granado, their combination of laptop, cornet, drums, cavaquinho (the 'miniature guitar' of Brazil), percussion and keyboard evoke characteristics of noise, electronica and experimental rock brightened with complex Brazilian rhythms. Voted one of the best concert performances of 2011 by the New York Times, German saxophone ‘firebrand' Peter Brötzmann and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz will enthral audience members with their dynamic yet sensitive exploration of improvisational jazz. Performing at 1 AM at the Guelph Youth Music Centre, this is a must see addition to the 2012 Nuit Blanche line up. The 2012 ICASP Summer Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, an international pool of artists, poets and musicians, will present a series of small ensembles showcasing the unique cultural backgrounds and performance styles of its participants. Closely associated with the festival's Colloquium program, the project, entitled Sonic Alliances, explores dynamic forms of community building. Happening at the Ballroom Class Studio (26 Eramosa Rd) at 10:30 PM, the group will demonstrate group improvisation strategies that will enhance the connections between audience and performers, making it a fun and inclusive activity. Guelph resident and respected folk artist James Gordon will be joined by context artist with a passion for dancing, Tanya Williams, for their Tuned Casseroles project. A structured, improvisational, participatory score with sound, movement, verbal rants, call-and-response sections as well as improvised solos will be a part of the proceedings, and the event will conclude with a ‘soap box' improv, where the ‘orchestra' responds to short spontaneous phrases by audience members about current issues. This interactive multi-media performance will take place at midnight at St. George's Square. From 7 PM Saturday night, until 7 AM Sunday morning, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre will host Musicircus, an elaborate, multi-faceted sound installation and performance project curated by Darren Copeland and Ben Grossman. Filling the various galleries of MSAC with performances and installations that celebrate the work and philosophy of John Cage in honour of the 100th year of his birth, a wide scope of his work as well as the work of his collaborators (namely David Tudor and Merce Cunningham) will be presented. Participating artists and musicians include Ben Grossman, Scott Thomson, Quartetski, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Nobuo Kubota, Susanna Hood, Lynette Segal, Matt Rogalsky, Germaine Liu, Gregory Oh, Parmela Attariwala, Christine Duncan, Heather Segger and Doug Tielli. Returning projects this year include the CFRU Silent Dance Party, Whitestone Gallery's Bring on the Night activity series, a solo performance by clarinettist François Houle, and trombonist Scott Thomson's Riveradiant river-side late-night brass performance.
~~~ Early Bird Passes cost $150 for students and seniors, and $175 for adults. The price will jump to $215 for students and seniors, and $250 for adults as of August 15th. Passes and tickets for individual shows are available at the River Run Centre Box Office (519-763-3000 or toll free 1-877-520-2408). Oral Histories Project
Oral Histories is a showcase of interviews, performances, and articles by and about improvising musicians, artists, writers and scholars. This new monthly feature will offer an intimate look inside the minds and practices of some of the many dynamic, innovative people whose energy and ideas make improvisation studies such a vibrant field of inquiry. The Oral Histories project provides a space for improvising artists to be heard in their own words, often in dialogue with other improvisers, scholars and practitioners.
AUGUST 2012 FEATURE:
A GOOD PERSON AND A GOOD ACADEMIC: A CONVERSATION WITH TRACEY NICHOLLS Dr. Tracey Nicholls is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lewis University. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship with ICASP in the 2009-2010 year based out of the Centre de Recherche en Éthique de l’Université de Montréal. Dr. Nicholls has recently published a book entitled: An Ethics of Improvisation: Aesthetic Possibilities for a Political Future. Dr. Elizabeth Jackson has recently taken up a Postdoctoral Fellowship at McMaster University with the Centre for Leadership in Learning . Previously, Dr. Jackson worked with the ICASP project as the Website Content Coordinator. The video documents a conversational interview conducted by Dr. Jackson over Skype with Dr. Nicholls. Dr. Nicholls discusses her newly published book, identifies some core values of improvised music and art-making in regard to politics conceived at a broader level, improvisation in the classroom, social privilege, Cartesian dualism, notions of justice versus charity, and the positive possibilities of an audience’s role in relation to improvised performance. A full transcript of the interview is available here. Quote of the Month: In music, I don’t see too much difference between head arrangements and written arrangements. The jazz musician, though he practically never receives credit for it, is constantly composing during his improvisations, and most of the melodies he creates are never set down on paper, nor on record […] If they had those midget tape recorders on the market back in 1942, I could’ve written a song a week without taking off time from what I believe is the essence of jazz composition, playing and improvisations. -Dizzy Gillespie, To Be or Not to Bop
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This Month's Featured Artist(s):
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Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and, occasionally, singer. Gillespie was a virtuoso on trumpet and a fantastic improviser. He was a major influence on subsequent trumpeters such as Miles Davis, Fats Navarro, and Clifford Brown, among many others. Gillespie’s playing largely built upon the prodigious style of Roy Eldridge, while adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. In the 1940s Gillespie, together with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop (music and style) and modern jazz.
