Some varied experiences and outlooks
An idyllic Saturday afternoon in Guelph’s downtown core may seem an unlikely setting for one of the world’s most famous avant-garde jazz festivals. But it doesn’t take a jazz scholar to notice how the sights and sounds of a community in motion perfectly capture the aims of the festival and its three-day educational colloquium.
On its 20th year straight, the event is as much about community practice as it is about free improvisation and avant-garde music. To cover the events on Sept 6, the Ontarion took to the market square to interview a handful of people and gather some different experiences and accounts. In the spirit of the festival, these interviews were conducted “on the fly” and with little preparation.
For the afternoon’s first interview, Daniel Kruger (guitar) and Andrew Liorti (keys) from Guelph and Toronto based Manatee, had some time to discuss their creative process and the importance of personality.
AP: How do you strike a balance between structure and spontaneity? What comes from practicing that?
DK: That’s a great question. I think the first thing about that is that spontaneity often comes through structure when you improvise. So, there’s that whole thing, I think [Charles] Mingus said, “you have to improvise on something.” I don’t think he was necessarily referring to strict structure, but at least an idea, and often the ideas that we use to improvise are quite structured. So, you’re right that there is a process in which we try to strike a balance between those two things, but at the same time the spontaneity comes from the structure, and vice versa, because we understand the structure of each piece. Sometimes something will happen in the piece that will lead naturally into one of the more structured sections, you know?
AL: Yeah, spontaneity can breed structure in that sense. You create an idea that came from improvising over a different idea. I think that’s one of the most fun things about it.
DK: So, I guess part of the balance is just realizing that those two things are so interconnected. If you separate them too much, then I think you lose the balance.
AP: So, with a lineup this big I imagine it changes often. What kind of changes come from who can make it to a gig, and when?
DK: We are all different personalities and have had different musical experiences, and like any improv group, we all bring our own desires and goals. So, I guess it changes in that regard. You have a different set of personalities that are more comfortable or less comfortable doing different things. So, we really do structure a lot of what we do based on who is there, both improvisationally and the more nitty-gritty “who is playing what part.”
AL: It does feel like, when playing in a smaller group, people feel less obliged to put 110 per cent effort into coordinating performances and rehearsals. In this group, it feels like everyone realizes, “Well, there’s like 11 of us,” so we have to make sure that we at least put in that organizing effort. It feels like we all realize that, because with any other four-piece or three-piece group I wouldn’t expect that level of devotion to organizing.
AP: Know any good jazz jokes?
AL: I’ve got one. How do you make a buck in music? Start with a million.
Shortly afterwards, Dr. Ajay Heble, musician, program director of the Guelph Jazz Festival, researcher with ICASP (Improvisation, Community and Social Practice), and professor of English at the University of Guelph, spoke about the festival’s history and current state.
AP: Generally, how have the goals and aims of the jazz fest changed over the last 20 years, if at all?
AH: I think one of the main changes has been the development of an educational program. When we started out in 1994 it was a three-day music festival, now it’s a five-day festival with a three-day scholarly conference. And we are one of the only festivals in North America, if not on the planet really, that has an academic conference as part of its regular schedule of events. So, I think there’s certainly been development in that area, and it’s certainly taking off. It started out as a one-day [regional] conference and became a three-day international conference. So, […] the main thing I would emphasize is the development of the educational portion. The goal from pretty early on was to try and do something different from other festivals in the region or even in the country. And that’s really a vision that I think has flourished; that over the years it’s become known as an international destination for avant-garde jazz and improvised music. We’ve secured our reputation as literally one of the best places to play this music in the world. Now we have artists from all over the world […] tell us that we have the best audiences anywhere they play in the world. These are artists that are huge in Europe, where there’s an incredible scene, and they say this is the festival they most love to play. So when I hear that, I think, “Wow, something’s happening here that’s really great.”
As the festival is as much about community and social engagement in a real sense, it followed that it would help to gain some input from someone “outside” of the jazz community. Thomas King, author, photographer for the festival, and First Nations activist, sat down at the Bookshelf to offer some of his thoughts on literature, social realities, and the creative process.
AP: As a writer, does improvisation fit in with your work at all? Like, as a practice or as a means to an end?
TK: I don’t think of it as improvising, but I don’t plot my stuff out. The only thing I plot out are my mysteries. I do a mystery series. There I have to plot it out so I don’t get myself into a hole. But for my literary novels, normally I start off with a chapter, or a scene, or a character, and I have no idea where it’s going to go. As I begin writing about, let’s say, a character or incident, I try to feel my way and see what the possibilities of the story are. And at some point, there’s a kind of fail-safe line that either I decide “I’m going to turn this into a novel,” and I go ahead and spend years on it, or it hasn’t got the legs to interest me. So, I don’t have much in my drawers that are finished novels that were just crap. I’ll take care of that in the first two or three chapters. If it doesn’t grab my imagination in two or three chapters, it won’t grab anybody else’s imagination.
AP: How do you think improvisation in a social setting can improve the condition of marginalized people, if at all? And considering the nature of your work, First Nations people in particular?
TK: I don’t really know how improvised music works in native communities […] But I know we’ve been doing improv for the past 500 years in a real sense [laughs]. “Oh, they’ve got to move us to Oklahoma, oh okay, we’re gonna have to improvise on that. Oh, they’re going to take our land away from us? Oh my god, a pipeline’s coming through! More improvisation.”
AP: That’s very striking.
TK: Yeah, it’s over and over again, we keep having to try to figure out ways to maintain ourselves in the face of this juggernaut that is bound and determined that we are going to assimilate and just sort of vanish. So, that ideal Indian that Canada has, and the U.S. too for that matter, will be untainted by real contemporary Indians. A lot of people feel like it’s an embarrassment that we’re still around. They don’t say it, but they prefer the guy on horseback. And I’d like to be that guy, but I can’t ride. And I look terrible in leather.
After another successful year, and featuring world-class musicians such as Vijay Iyer, Barre Phillips and the Sun Ra Arkestra, the 20th Guelph Jazz Festival was yet another an inspiring and beautiful celebration of improvisation’s endless possibilities and the undeniable power of a strong artistic community. For local, regional, and international artists, there are few better showcases of art music at its most cutting edge.