Vancouver International Jazz Festival listings: yeehah!

Ah, the jazz fest approaches... Y'all know already that McCoy Tyner is coming. I might go, actually, but try this on:

Zu!

(Plus they’ll be opening for Nomeansno’s June CD release party - question: what happened to John?).

The Nels Cline Singers and Mats Gustaffson/The Thing!

Rova!

Tobias Delius (with Han Bennink in tow... should make up for my having missed Ab Baars at the Ironworks this week)!

Fe-Mail!

(I hung out with Maja Ratkje a bit around the Merch tables at Vancouver New Music’s Vox Festival awhile back. She looks like a vaguely Satanic Pippi Longstocking and made music that had Paul Dutton and Koichi Makigami retreating into the merch area in fear (prompting me to go check it out). Noisy vocal/electronic experiments, in duo format with this project. Seems like a really interesting person).

Also exciting, tho' I don't know their music well enough to use exclamation marks just yet, are
Hilmar Jensson/Skúli Sverrisson (from Iceland) and AACM member Nicole Mitchell -- related to Roscoe? -- who will be taking over for Mwata Bowden as the High School Jazz Intensive educator... I might consider the cleverly-named Unconscious Collective (harmolodics, eh?) and the Joost Buist Astronotes.


Canadian-jazz-wise (since I may be perceived to be dissing the locals above), I'm hot to see Masa Anzai perform with Almost Transparent Blue (more here), and I don't just mean the free show! Haven't heard Masa blow since the Sugar Refinery days, unless you count the Black Mountain disc... I'm also curious about the Existential Angst Party and Field, mostly because I quite like some of Chris Kelly's sax work on the Little Stitches CD I have (noisebludgeon.com appears to be down, so I can't give y'all a link). Never have seen the Inhabitants, either... Like the name... Peggy Lee has been impressing me more and more in recent years (I loved what she did when she played with Torsten Mueller, Phil Minton and Maggie Nichols at a jazz fest awhile back -- was that only last year? -- and with Evan Parker and Fred Frith at respective shows)... but I've seen her a bunch of times -- maybe I'll check her out with Tony Wilson and Jon Bentley at Rime... and I'll definitely check out Torsten Mueller's solo show, and maybe the trio he's in... or the other trio that he's in... Maybe I'll do the NOW orchestra with Marilyn Crispell, too...

They aren't Vancouver-based, but I'm also keen to see Bourassa/Derome/Tanguay, especially Jean Derome, whose facility with little instruments at last year's Fred Frith concert really caught my ear, enough for me to check out Le Magasin De Tissu, a delightful album he put out awhile back focusing on unusual sounds made by unusual means. He's a fine sax player, too, don't get me wrong...

Anythin' else I should be excited about? (afternote: I missed the Yusef Lateef listings, cleverly hidden in the program under the Belmondo Brothers or somesuch...).