Opposite postures

It's good to be back after Easter weekend! I have a feeling that 10 Things will become a monthly segment here, rounding up shows and other news. This one does the trick for April:

1

At Hero's Welcome back on April 9th, I heard Gordon Grdina and Christian Lillinger play duo in a one-off Infidels Jazz presentation. This show capped off a one-week American tour they did, joined along the way by guests like Tim Berne, Tim Lefebvre, and Myra Melford.

Grdina and Lillinger played one long improv set, which meant we went home earlier than we usually would from an evening show at Hero's. It was satisfying regardless. The music was less rock-and-roll, and more glitchy and spacious, than their album Duo Work. Grdina went from guitar to oud then back to guitar; Lillinger had a foot pedal to trigger electronic sounds as he used his immense technique to match Grdina's energy.

I've never seen a duo who have such opposite postures. Grdina leans forward and downward, excavating (or burying) noise, but the younger Lillinger sits straight upright like he's riding a horse and makes wide arm movements.

2

At Mariner Brewing the next day on April 10th, I caught a casual set by Amanda Cabralda, who sang alongside keyboardist Marta Kalmar. This taproom series, booked primarily by fellow CapU student Nolan Crooks (who has worked at the brewery for a while), is one of the few things in my home city of Coquitlam that makes the gig list. I sat at a table of students who were eager to unwind on the last day of a jazz-school semester. Cabralda drew from a Samara Joy sort of bag, like I heard her do at Presentation House recently. The Mariner series happens roughly once a month, but I don't know yet when the next one will be.

3

On the Saturday that week, April 12th, I heard my close friend Gabriel Dubreuil lead his current band called Collage Trad at the Rogue Folk Club. It'd feel weird to write about Gabriel's music. (Similarly, there's a handful of my dearest people whom I avoided hosting in my time on the Rhythm Changes Podcast, and there's at least one high-potential episode that we could've done this month but the current host and guest turned down for the same reason.) Shout-out to Brent Gubbels for subbing for Wynston Minckler and playing great bass on short notice and part-reading.

I still recognized a bunch of Gabriel's material from our former band together, Early Spirit, and from the North Shore Celtic Ensemble that he now leads. He did invite guests and present a closing number with the touring band who played the first set: Hildaland, the duo of Scottish fiddler Louise Bichan and American mandolinist Ethan Setiawan. Hildaland has vocals and instrument switches (banjo and octave mandolin, respectively) by both members. The duo played neo-traditional fare with an exciting mutual timefeel. When I listen to trad-folk, that's one of the first things I tune into: how the musicians feel the movement of rhythm and time across the static melodies. Hildaland's latest album, Sule Skerry, came out in 2023.

4

At 8EAST this past Tuesday, April 22nd, I heard improv by two cellists, two reedists, and a guitarist: Matthew Ariaratnam who has been studying cello with Marina Hasselberg, Haley Bird and Aidan Edwards on oboe and clarinet respectively, and Madeleine Elkins on guitar. You could call it a recital for Ariaratnam, but the mood was much more casual than that, and the vibes were good. The improv ended up patient and atmospheric instead of noisy and aggressive. Ariaratnam played a set of solo cello up-front where he explored extended techniques, like using both sides of the bow all over the instrument and plucking with his left hand while holding down other bowed notes. Sometimes the cellists sounded like good bass players, plucking low notes through their amps.

I mused with a friend about which new instrument I'd arrange lessons for, and who my teacher would be, given grant funding to pursue the studies. Drums with Kenton Loewen?

5

I also went to something this month that will appear in a future free weekly, but you heard it from me here first...