He's one of them now
10 Things: Bona & Frisell, Arooj Aftab, Elisa Thorn, Stephane Wrembel, Hugh Fraser, Stacie McGregor, and an initiation
We have, one again, a healthy amount of stuff going on:
1
Coastal Jazz announced two headliners at the Vancouver Playhouse for this year's jazzfest: Richard Bona in his Asante Trio on Monday, June 23 and Bill Frisell's trio with Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston on Tuesday, June 24. Here's an All About Jazz piece to catch up with Bona's work; Frisell's trio released Orchestras last year. 2024 metal-band headliner Sumac and featured collaborator Moor Mother – whose show I didn't attend myself but included in our coverage, thanks to Todd – also just announced an album together called The Film for release on April 25.
2
Hollywood Theatre this past Monday: I heard Arooj Aftab on tour with her album Night Reign. Aftab headlined the 2023 jazzfest as part of the Love in Exile project with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily, the latter of whom came back to be in residence at last year's festival. Dressed in all black with sunglasses and a big jacket, she delivered a winning mix of humour and prince-of-darkness disposition. She had a full band – drums, upright bass, and acoustic nylon-string guitar with a lot more Paco de Lucia and Al Di Meola flavour than I expected – and the instrumentalists had great rapport despite this show being an early stop on their tour. The live show added dynamic range to an album that I found sometimes sleepy and ambient.
3
Frankie's last Friday: Julian Borkowski played trumpet with Mike LeDonne and Eric Alexander's Heavy Hitters, alongside Cory Weeds on alto and the rhythm team of John Lee and Jesse Cahill. Some of you went to most, if not all, of the four LeDonne/Alexander nights: well played! This one drew me in the most; I wanted to hear Borkowski step up to solo after Alexander and watch his presence on-stage alongside the veterans. You can see one of the resulting initiations in the photo above, where Alexander and Weeds watch on after finishing a hit of backgrounds behind the young trumpeter, who has newly established himself back in town after grad school in Eugene, Oregon. I had an interesting view to how well he did...
