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TD Ottawa Jazz Festival 2016

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The closing "A-List," also from Super Petite, was introduced by Hollenbeck as: "If you have a party, you have an A-list. I don't know if there's a B-List, but the visual for this song is: just imagine five really good-looking guys walking down a red carpet someplace....and we are those five guys." It was an appropriate closer, a largely through-composed piece with rich rhythmic and melodic content, and hints of minimalism over a propulsive groove that gradually intensified as a throbbing pulse gradually emerged...first on vibes and horn but ultimately joined, in unison, by bass, drums and accordion for a definitive conclusion.

With a strong standing ovation, the group returned for an encore introduced by Hollenbeck as: "this is a good one because it's short, so everybody's happy: those who want an encore get an encore; those that don't won't have to wait for very long to get outta here." Barely making it to four minutes, the group finished with Claudia Quintet's "Thursday 3:44PM (Playground)," another largely through-composed piece where a defined pulse from Hollenbeck led to a series of gentle chords from Wieringa, before Moran and Speed (on clarinet) joined in to deliver a slow, snaking melody that was anchored by Gress halfway through, with Speed taking a relatively short but soaring solo that led to a thematic reiteration and rather unexpected conclusion. It was a great way to end a set that may go down as the sleeper hit of the festival. Certainly having Claudia Quintet at the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival was a check-mark against many concert-goers' bucket lists, but there's little doubt that they'd be there in a heartbeat, were Claudia to be invited back to the festival in the future.

Anat Fort/Gianluigi Trovesi
Discovery Series
National Arts Centre Back Stage
June 30, 2016

One of the highlights of the 2014 festival was Anat Fort's captivating solo performance at the Fourth Stage...particularly special since she's yet to record a solo piano album since joining the ECM roster in 2007 with A Long Story, a strong debut that teamed the Israeli pianist with bassist Ed Schuller, the late, great drummer Paul Motian and clarinetist Perry Robinson. Since then she's released two additional recordings on the label with her longstanding trio featuring bassist Gary Wang and drummer Roland Schneider: 2010's And If; and Birdwatching, the pianist's 2016 release that augments her trio with the superb Italian clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi, who has his own ECM discography starting with 1999's In cerca de cibo, featuring his now-longstanding duo with accordionist Gianni Coscia, through to his most recent (also with Cosca), Round About Offenbach (2011).

While the majority of Fort's North American dates this summer feature her trio plus Trovesi, her TD Ottawa Jazz Festival appearance was a more streamlined duo with Trovesi. Prior to the show, there was, perhaps, some disappointment (mixed with the eager anticipation of seeing Fort and Trovesi) that it was a duo rather than a quartet, but after Fort's 85-minute set (including encore) at the NAC Back Stage, not only were any initial trepidations gone but, as good as her trio with Trovesi undoubtedly must be, the opportunity to hear Fort in an even more intimate, exposed duo setting turned out to be a very special experience.

Beyond the clear chemistry shared by Fort and Trovesi, and beyond the sometimes mischievous playfulness demonstrated by the pair, the duo's mutual respect and admiration was clear from the start, only getting stronger as the set progressed—largely drawn from Birdwatching, but also including a couple of compositions either written or arranged by Trovesi, and an encore arrangement of a song by pivotal Israeli rock star Shalom Hanoch (whose music Fort arranged for festivals performances in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with her trio, but with Hanoch joining them at one concert).

While the set leaned more decidedly on melodic music that, as open as it was to interpretation, was consistently compelling, there were moments of greater abstraction...sometimes in the midst of a deeply melodic composition. During "Not the Perfect Storm," for example, Fort and Trovesi were closely connected as they began with a turbulent introduction, Trovesi layering lines that built to climatic peaks followed effortlessly by Fort. Rubato, with Trovesi often cueing Fort as it moved from lyrical form to more expansive liberties, the duo also demonstrated its absolute (and equally facile) control over dynamics, as the piece traversed territory ranging from gossamer-like to more stormy, dark and brooding, with a surprise ending that took the largely minor-keyed piece to a more optimistic, major-keyed conclusion.

With Birdwatching's overriding theme about birds, Fort's introductions often provided welcome context for the music. "Murmurations," she explained, referred to the movement of birds—how they can be moving, en mass, in one direction and in a specific pattern only to shift, on a dime, towards a different direction and with a different overall shape. "How do they know where to go? And why? A wonder of nature," Fort reflected, as they played a tune initially based on an ascending series of two-note motifs from Trovesi over which Fort layered a counter-melody until the two began to open up to collective improvisation around the base form, with Trovesi ultimately soaring over Fort's ebb-and-flow foundation. The subtlety of Fort and Trovesi's engagement was a marvel—the kind of connection where each player was capable of picking up on the slightest turn of phrase as a means of shifting the music's direction, and the kind of interaction where nuanced surprises drove the music and where the connection shared by Fort and Trovesi was often so delicate, so near-elusive as to be more felt than heard.

"Oseh Shalom," a popular Hebrew song meaning "Prayer for Peace," couldn't have been a more appropriate choice, considering the disturbing tenor of our times. One of a handful of pieces not drawn from Birdwatching (from which Fort and Trovesi played a total of half a dozen compositions), it was a beautiful arrangement written, perhaps surprisingly, by Trovesi rather than Fort, and seemed to somehow join the folk traditions of Israel and Italy in a performance dedicated to to the Israeli Embassy, who has helped (along with the Italian embassy) make Fort's North American tour possible and whose ambassador was, along with Italy's cultural attaché, in the audience for the duo's Ottawa show.

For a pianist who has, at least on an international scale, only been visible for the past decade or so, it's been a marvel to experience her growth since A Long Story...since, in fact, her solo performance here in Ottawa just two years ago. Both on Birdwatching and in performance, Fort's skill, intuition and ability to play form-based music with the kind of freedom that makes each night unique, has continued to evolve...and rapidly. There are traces of Keith Jarrett, especially when Fort is playing solo, but those traces have long since been subsumed in her own recognizable combination of touch, pedal work and harmonic sensibilities.

Paired with Trovesi—long a legend in his own country and throughout Europe, and last seen at Stavanger's 2014 Mai Jazz Festival with fellow Italian, keyboardist Mario Piacente, and a group that featured Trovesi regular Roberto Bonati on bass and occasional ECM recording artist (with Misha Alperin) Arkady Shilkloper—Fort was afforded a particularly attractive opportunity to demonstrate her improvisational abilities, in a duo context where every phrase, every note was completely exposed. Her solo show in 2014 was, of course, even more exposed but having another musician with whom she could interact made Fort's 2016 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival even more compelling.

If much of this sounds serious, however, one of the feelings overarching Fort and Trovesi's show was the joy they shared in playing together...and at times, just plain, sometimes mischievous, fun. One of Trovesi's contributions, "Villanella," was predicated on a clarinet-driven theme, with Fort accompanying Trovesi until suddenly...they stopped. Trovesi looked at Fort; Fort looked at Trovesi; Trovesi looked at his watch; the pair shrugged...and resumed playing. This became the tune's modus operandi, as the two stopped and started continuously, with dissonantly harmonizing lines, until they finally stopped, looked at each other...paused...and nodded, as if to say, "That's it." And that was it, in a tune whose mischievous tone in some ways felt a bit like French composer Erik Satie's more playful, comedic music.

It was all part and parcel of a show that kept the audience gripped throughout Fort and Trovesi's set. It may have seemed unfortunate, up front, that Fort was not coming to Ottawa with her trio plus Trovesi, but by the time their wonderful duo show was over, there was a different feeling: that the Ottawa audience was treated to something special, something audiences at other North American dates will not have the chance to experience: two musicians, telepathically connected, delivering music with the kind of complete freedom and personal interaction that cannot help but change when more musicians are added. Her trio dates with Trovesi will, no doubt, have their own appeal and demonstrate a different kind of communication, but for Ottawa, it was as exposed and open as it gets. And for that, they can consider themselves particularly lucky.

With July 1 being Canada Day, and the festival providing free programming to the public starting at 2PM, there are still two more days of shows as the festival concludes on July 3. But in preparation for heading to Montreal for five evenings of music at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, calling it quits after Fort and Trovesi's performance was a necessary decision...and a good place to stop. The five shows seen at the 2016 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival demonstrated the terrific ongoing cross-section of programming provided by Festival Director Catherine O'Grady and Programming Manager Petr Cancura. It may be increasingly difficult to run a festival, with the Canadian dollar dropping, festival support more challenging to acquire, and the need to create a program that will satisfy long-time attendees as well as drawing new fans in.

That said, the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival—its core permanent staff and far larger number of volunteers—continues to deliver the broadest cross-section of jazz possible, along with some quality extracurricular acts that help to bring some larger numbers to Confederation Park's Main Stage. Rare in delivering lineups that seem to get better and better every year, it's truly a luxury to live in a city where the jazz festival has remained unequivocally a jazz festival (despite making the leap into extracurricular programming in 2011)...and in the broadest possible sense.

Roll on 2017!

Photo Credit: John R. Fowler

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