François Houle: Insider Listening that Makes You Clever

Those tunes that I'm writing do they connect today convey any kind of emotional state or feelings or so I played the music to a number of friends. Lara, in particular, you know, I would play a tune, whatever stage of composition it was at, just to see how she would react. And I did that with a number of people that I trust. And it was probably a paradigm shift in my development as a musician as a composer that I was actually able to construct something that was emotionally charged.

And to me, that was a huge victory. It was that I felt like 'oh, I've finally reached a point where I have some notion of what I'm trying to do, and how that connects to other human beings,' right? And I think ultimately, all these things put together when you listen to that music, or at least when I do, I get a sense that it has a purpose. Which might sound really ambitious and conceited...

AAJ: No, it does not sound conceited, but the work does indeed, it does have purpose.

FH: But isn't that what we all thrive for, as artists, as musicians, is that we want to put something in the world that people will look at and be moved by it. It might get angry, or they might cry, doesn't matter. But if music leaves you indifferent, then there's a major failure in how it's conceived. Because music in itself should be about a lifting of the spirit. Right?

And if you don't have that, and I struggled with that in my music for years, where it's just felt like, I'm not getting to the point, it's not working. It's, yeah, I'm failing so badly, but I just keep trying. And this is probably the first time where I feel like, there's some hope. (Laughs.) Really, yeah. And it's a good feeling. Like, I feel like I need to do more. I want to do more.

AAJ: Do you think you had set out to orchestrate emotions. Yes, perhaps that sounds strange. But you're talking about connecting with emotions and losses. And you're talking about structuring them, actually. But it's bigger than that, you know, it's... it's hard to articulate, because it's yeah, these types of things. They just happen. One can't really articulate them.

Further to comment, just to get your thoughts. There was kind of a regal aspect to the album. It was like everybody had put themselves aside, their egos aside, (and so they should), to kind of come together as a unit, as a band, to play. It was all very thoughtful. But you know, the music is also composed. And yet the listener couldn't always tell where things were composed, and where they were improvised. That is something that you both, you and Benoît do very well.

But it seemed like that a lot of the music was composed. Of course, there were the improv. parts of it, too. How long does this take you to write? Were you surrounded by scores? Were there a lot of free sections? How were you handling the structure? That's interesting, too.

FH: Yeah. And that was a big question like, like, how do you structure it? Some of it was already from A to Z-structured. Okay, other stuff we got into the studio, we're rehearsing, we're doing takes. And this is the beauty of having a good band of musicians that you trust that would say, 'Hey, Frankie, what if we did it this way? And what if we skip that B section and save it for later?' Or whatever they were doing?

And, ya know, they're all thinking, again, providing feedback and making suggestions. And it became... I think the success of the music. The reason it's so satisfying to me to hear the music is that I felt that all the musicians had a lot of input. And as a bandleader, or as a composer I was confident enough, having done all that work, to go into the studio and say, yeah, maybe, yeah, that could be better, you know, you get so wrapped up into your own thoughts that sometimes you miss the point of what the music is about.

And the other musicians have a perspective that the composer doesn't have and was like, well, 'Frankie, this is great. That's a great idea. You got to do more.'

AAJ: Can you reflect about the friendship you had with Ken? It was deep, but it sounds like you guys met for many years, as friends? But did you spend a lot of time together?

FH: I mean, we didn't spend a lot of time together but it was steady, you know, and from the onset, I think Ken heard or recognized something in my approach, and who I was and how much music meant to me. And my history and all my studies and everything. He made and created opportunities for me to showcase my music. And it worked out pretty good.

Like I had some good shows, you know, and then he booked me again, and he would book me again and every time he would invite somebody, some artists to come and play at the festival. He would sort of tell me, give me a heads up so Oh, such and such a coming? You gotta check out this musician. 'You gotta check out this band.' And I would do it. And, and almost every time like he was right, I was like, mind blown, where did that music come from?

I was putting together a music series where it was all solos, solo artists at the Or Gallery, which was in Gastown. And I remember asking Ken if he knew of any musicians who are coming through town and that we'd like to play solo, let me know I had said, and I'll book and will do the publicity and raise the money. And Ken said, 'Well, there's this Swedish saxophonist. He's never come to Canada before. And maybe you should book him for a series.'

And I said, 'Yeah, sure who is that?' You know?

So it was this guy, Mats Gustafson, so I booked Mats. He did the same thing. One jazz festival. So this this guy from Chicago, Ken Vandermark. 'You should check them out.' Yeah. And Ken and I played together and we click my first sextet gig, my first band, etc. I played him some of the music. He came to one of my rehearsals at the Glass Slipper at the time. And he said, We should book that for the festival. That was my first festival, my first festival gig in 1991.

AAJ: Talk about your compositional process.

FH: ... I have little notebooks and I just keep track, or sometimes I'll just record a little tunes or an idea, you know. And then when I have the time, or the inclination, I'll sit on my in my studio, and I'll start hammering away at these little ideas.

AAJ: You just start going into them and pulling them out and kind of experimenting?

FH: Yeah, exactly. Especially if it's an idea that keeps reoccurring.

AAJ: That keeps coming, then you know, you have to get to it. Right, exactly.

FH: And there's some other ones you know, like, I've had these notebooks since 2000. Even before that, like maybe 92, where I have tons of these little notebooks with ideas. And sometimes I'll just go back and out of nostalgia and look at these old notebooks and sometimes I see an idea and I go, 'Oh, because I remember that one,' and I pull it out of the book. So yeah, there's a whole compendium of these things. sometimes is just starting with a blank piece of paper.

But now I'm doing a lot of stuff as a composer, my processes, there's, there's a series of compositions, it's called Secret Lives of Colour. And for that one, I pick a color. And then I research the history of that color, where it came from, what kind of pigments or herbs or whatever materials, whatever, you know, makes the pigmentation go blue, or green, or whatever. And, and I research it, and there's a book. And it's all inspired by this book that I found, by chance in a bookstore, called, Secret Lives of Colour.

It's by a British author named Kassia St.-Clair. And she writes for various magazines, and it's published by Penguin, where she's a historian of colors, like she's retraced the source of colors, where they came from, the name of the color where that color was applied, where the great artists used that color in paintings. So, she's written a book that's got something like 50 or 60 different colors, and all their histories and anecdotes and historical facts associated with music. like, yeah, and then I set them to music, so. Yeah, so I've written a bunch of compositions, and it's an ongoing practice.

FH: For some people it's very tangible. Like they hear very specific colors. So I've done a bunch of research in that project related to that. Like perception and cognitive patterns and the way the brain understands colors.

Well, it's culturally, it's it becomes like, why is the sky blue? Culturally, we see it as blue. But there's other cultures where they don't recognize blue. So there's all these things about the connection of colors, the visual cortex, the brain and culture.

In North American culture, black is associated with death and was associated with funerals, while in other parts of the world when you have funerals everybody's wearing white, so there's all these cultural significance signifiers that are connected with colors. And there's music that's connected with colors as well. A lot of musicians talk about hearing certain colors when they hear certain sounds. And colors are also associated with emotions. There's calming colors, it's violent, bright, vibrant colors,

Auras are described as different colors. It's a work in progress. I started three years ago, and it was a commission. And now it's evolving.

if you go to my website, you'll see there's a whole page connected to it. And it's being very well documented. There's pictures of the scores that I've created.

But compositionally, I started writing down the music with Sibelius. And then instead of saving it as a PDF or as a printable score, I save it as graphic files. And then I import those files into Adobe. Illustrator. And I take them apart. So I use the visual symbols of music, like treble clef, black notes, white notes, or whatever stems, no stems, staffs. And I manipulate those shapes, and I changed their colors and everything. So I build scores that are more graphic. Visually they become like a graphic score, but using traditional musical notation. And then I mix it also with different ways of notating through history.

Okay, when you go to my website, go to Secret Lives of Colour in my ensembles, and my projects. You'll see examples there of the scores that I've made for this project. They're very, very different than what I do with Genera, for example.

And Ken he knew how much I love Steve Lacy. And Steve Lacy was touring that summer with his sextet. And he said, Well, we're going to put your octet in the first part. And then Steve Lacy's second, so I was opening for my idol. Wow. And, and the beautiful thing about it is that he listened to my music. And then we listened to their set, and they were all hung out drinking wine. And there was a jam session that went on till five in the morning, Steve Lacy was hanging there and we had the most amazing time. It was beautiful. And so he made that connection with Steve Lacy happen. Yeah, same thing with Evan Parker a number of years later, you know, and Evan became a very important figure in my life too.

AAJ: Important work. You don't hit rising star unless almost all the critics know who you are.

FH: Taylor, we talked about a little bit, Michael. Well, Michael Bates and Harris Eisenstadt Canadian expatriates, now they live in New York, they've collaborated with a number of people. And when I connected with Sammy with Samuel Blaser, I didn't realize that him and Michael Bates were collaborating a lot together, I think, yeah, they had a band and, and Michael love working with Samuel.

AAJ: When did you start working with Samuel? Because he had been produced in concert in Nanaimo. Were you with him? He is adored. Or was that with the phenomenal master drummer-percussionist/composer and former Glass Slipper Vancouver creator/manager Roger Baird? That was maybe 2011, or 2013?

FH: With Benoît, Sam, and Gerry Hemingway. That's right. Yeah. They had a trio. And I sort of tagged along. Yeah. And yeah, we did a thing at the TV station was, that was fun. I still have the footage of all that stuff in the photos. Geez, that was good. That was a fun tour of the island.

AAJ: Yes! So many in Nanaimo loved hearing that band perform, it was said to be so special. The performances were truly brilliant. Can we talk about your current sextet and your choice and bringing them in for the album project? So this was originally Ken's choice? You're bringing them here to make this tribute? And what were their thoughts? What were they saying to you about the work?

FH: Just for starters, like Michael Bates. He was really well established in New York. He was a student of Michael Bates. That's the same Michael Bates. And who plays amazing double bass and does brilliant compositions he's just a fantastic musician. So anyway, so that's the connection there. Harris had a band called Canada Day. He still does.

AAJ: Yeah, he does great work.

FH: And you know and so it was on Songlines Recordings, [Tony Reif's Vancouver record label] then on Cleanfeed, that I listened to a bunch of that stuff after Ken introduced me to it, I thought it was very beautiful. And I love his sensibility. Yeah, as a drummer, he's not a drummer-drummer he's much more of a composer-drummer. He thinks about music first. And then the drum fits in there and the textures, and it's very beautiful, a very tasteful player, and, but also a personality that Harris is just a wise old soul. And a very, very calming presence in the band.

AAJ: Gerry's deep.

FH: And Harris is from that same cloth. Definitely. I would think and I'm sure Harris would love to hear that. And I've worked a lot with Gerry recently. You know, we have a bit of a history now. And he's definitely, you know, he definitely epitomizes the history of jazz drumming, and free jazz drumming, you know, he's a beautiful musician, and a very beautiful intellect and a beautiful human being. Sammy, I said, we met in Bremen, and it was the connection, Michael. Yeah. And he's probably the hottest trombone player in the world right now. Taylor Ho Bynum. The connection with him was via Anthony Braxton. He was he was at the head of the Tri-Axium Foundation.

I did the one thing with Braxton during the 2009-2010. For the cultural Olympiads, we did the Sonic Genome Project in Vancouver. That's the only time I've had the chance to interact with Anthony. But I studied his compositions for eight years. Yeah, I was like a Braxton head I read all his philosophical writings, all his compositional notes. I read everything and listen to everything. Because at the time, I had an opportunity to record with Marilyn Crispell, who was a member of his Classic Quartet. That's how it's referred to now in the 80s and early 90s. And I did a duo with Marilyn and then later I did a John Carter project with Dave Douglas and with Mark Dresser, who was also a member of the Braxton Quartet.

AAJ: The amazing Canadian producer Tony Reif at work once again in action.

FH: Yeah, it's Songlines Recordings' In the Vernacular: The Music of John Carter. I had played with Marilyn Crispell, with Mark Dresser. And I've studied all of Braxton's compositions, but I had never actually had a chance to work with Gerry. But we met at the Jazz Festival a number of times. I love his playing. And I really liked it, our interaction, you know, so I knew that sooner or later I would get to work with him.

Eventually I did.

A few years ago when I moved to Switzerland, I really connected with him because he teaches in Lucerne now in Switzerland. So I put my quartet, my recorder quartet so that I could get to play with Gerry. And so, I've worked with all the members of the Anthony Braxton Classic Quartet. Except that I've never recorded with Anthony himself. Yeah, so that's sort of like a dream of mine. But Taylor is the connection between me and Braxton and Taylor has recorded with Braxton a lot and worked with him and led the society.

AAJ: Next album, right?

FH: If he hears that or reads about it, maybe shout and say 'Frankie, let's do it.' I would love that. But that's certainly a bucket list item now like to record with duos with Anthony Braxton. It would be so awesome. But anyway, so that's the connection with Taylor. And then of course, there's Benoît.

When I was in Switzerland, and I made a really nice connection with Marco von Orelli, who is a cornet player, trumpet player, and we did a duo album and a bunch of concerts in Switzerland.

And so it seemed like a no-brainer for me to ask Marco to sit in, in the band to take Taylor's seat, as Taylor was focusing his creative energy on his own music in addition to teaching at Dartmouth. And so that's how the switch came along. But I wouldn't rule out having Taylor in the band in the future if he's available. Because, yeah, he's such an intricate part of the group, and also with the very strong connection that he had with Ken Pickering as well. So the band is all about, they're all people that have benefited from interacting with Ken Pickering as an Artistic Director. And so it's what ties the whole thing together, you know, is that we all had very, very strong connections, you know, to Ken Pickering. And amongst ourselves, we've built these connections amongst ourselves that maybe might, geographically speaking might not have happened. If it wasn't for Ken. Right.

AAJ: When did you record this album?

FH: This new one, [In Memoriam]? Last year.

AAJ: Really?

FH: Yeah.

AAJ: Where was it done

FH: In Lugano, Switzerland, at the Swiss-Italian radio station RSI.

AAJ: Just last year, in Switzerland.

FH: But I hired Benoit to do the mixing and mastering.

AAJ: Yeah, and he did a really nice job. All right. Yeah. He's always so good at that. Can you comment on some reflections about this ? Or maybe going forward? You know, where you want to take this project, but with the span?

FH: I want to get it out there as much as possible. And it's challenging these days post pandemic to get a sextet done on the road. A band that's international in nature, it implies a lot of travel, a lot of flights and this day and age, almost, it almost goes against the grain of what is deemed as possible or acceptable these days. But I have high hopes that we can do that and I'm working towards it.

AAJ: And maybe you can try even if that's the goal.

FH: That's the goal. I would like to for as many people as possible to be able to hear this band. Yeah, well, the project has just been documented. So yeah, haven't performed it.

We're doing the world premiere, so to speak. We're scheduled to play at the Guelph Jazz Festival in September 2023. Other fall activities that I'm playing include three concerts of The Secret Lives of Colour with a residency in Rimouski, organized by Tour de bras and Quebec Musique Parallèle. And then there is also booking in 2024 for the Jazztopad Festival in Poland. Piotr Turkievitch [Artistic Director of Jazztopad and Pierre Boulez Saal Jazz & Improvised Music], who was a good friend of Ken, actually runs this amazing festival. And I played there with my trio with Gordon Grdina, and Kenton Loewen, a few years ago. And I'm hoping to take the sextet over there and build a European tour around that. So that's for 2024.

AAJ: That's a good and solid, exciting band. You guys are really working great together.

FH: Yeah. And you know that their reaction will be chemistry, right? When people see the lineup, they go, "Oh, my God, like, I gotta hear that." So it's just a matter of keep working really hard trying to get it out there.

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