Oli Astral is a musical universe where the sound of modern jazz guitar merges with digital music technology and visual projection. The group keeps a balance between technology and a more organic approach to music. There are computers on stage, virtual instruments, MIDI controllers, and Frederic’s Modular Synthesizers that serve the imagination. The musical values thought, are still deeply rooted in the tradition of Jazz. Things like Improvisation, group interaction, and risk-taking are very important in the creative process. The importance of Melody might be the number one thing. If poetry is the only truth in the world of words, then Melody is the only truth in the world of sounds. During the production process of the album, digital audio processing techniques were used to create musical textures. The audio artists who worked on that are Thibaut Quinchon, Derek Orsi, and Olivier Grenier Bedard. Creative mixing, creative editing, computer sound design. The purpose of these is to widen the sound of the Trio with musical textures, loops, and overdubs.The Live experience is a little more immersive. After recording, the group worked with Visual Artist Bruno Scabini, From Buenos Aires. He illustrated and animated the music with creative drawing techniques and cinematic effects. In addition to the rest, there is a video image on stage that merges with the music. A video image that transforms the Live experience into a journey into the universe of the group.
Originally from Yarmouth Nova Scotia, guitarist Greg Amirault has been living and performing in Montreal for over 30 years. A long time faculty member of the jazz programs at McGill and Concordia University, Amirault is a past winner of the Grand Prix de Jazz at the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Prix d’Opus. For decades, he has been a mainstay of the Montreal jazz scene, and one of Canada’s most notable guitarists. News Blues is Amirault’s third recording as a leader. It features three of Canada’s finest jazz musicians: pianist (and Greg’s brother) Steve Amirault, bassist Adrian Vedady, and drummer Jim Doxas. This recording consists of nine tunes: seven of Greg Amirault’s original compositions, and two classic jazz standards. This album offers a variety of moods and textures: there are straight ahead swingers like News Blues and Uninvited, more modern sounding pieces like Tribute Tune and Meeting the Master, and the folk influenced Song for Nova Scotia, an homage to Amirault’s birthplace. The recording also features two solo guitar arrangements of a couple of Amirault’s favourite jazz standards, the ballads If You Could See Me Now and Embraceable You. These four musicians have been playing together in a variety of formations for over twenty years. This albums is a testament to the strong connection they’ve nurtured together.
Toronto based pianist Noam Lemish celebrates the release of Erlebnisse, a piano solo album of improvisations that blurs the lines between jazz, western art music, Eastern European Jewish music and Israeli popular song. It may be that Lemish’s hyphenated identity as an Israeli-American-Canadian has helped inspire his multiplicity and general disinclination to follow stylistic guidelines. In Erlebnisse we encounter an artist who clearly enjoys living “in between” genre boundaries and embraces the liminality inherent in improvisation. Each note is an affirmation of the present moment, each moment of silence and pause an inviting space vibrating with possibility. Erlebnisse is German for “deeply felt experiences”. Each piece is completely improvised, recorded in a single take, and played in “real time”. Each selection serves as a sonic portrait that captures a unique “deeply felt experience”: an Erlebnis, all told through spontaneous improvisation. The music traverses wide ranging emotional terrain and Lemish’s pianism is at once deeply lyrical and fierce, displaying textural richness and dynamic variety that masterfully exploits his instrument and exhibits a fearless, adventurous spirit. Following six previous recordings under his name, Erlebnisse marks Lemish’s first piano solo release. As a recording that whole-heartedly embraces free improvisation as process and artistic expression, it manifests Lemish’s long held belief in improvisation as a practice that is simultaneously inwardly and outwardly revealing and rewarding. Erlebnisse thus invites the listener into an intimate, vulnerable and open space that is filled with the joy and excitement of in-the-moment creative expression.
Montreal’s JAZZLAB ORCHESTRA has been a Canadian jazz institution since 2004. For over 15 years, the multi-generational ensemble of Montreal’s finest improvisors has explored a wide variety of musical styles and approaches to writing and playing. Always original, every project they’ve undertaken has been inspired and audacious. Practically the only group of its kind in Canada, the group has released seven albums and performed more then 300 concerts at many of the most prestigious festivals and venues across North America and Europe, including New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New Morning and Café de la Danse in Paris, Casa del Jazz in Rome, the Grande Teatro in Sicily, the Jazz Station in Brussels, and at the Budapest Music Center. Over the years, their concerts have featured guest appearances by many of jazz music’s leading lights, including Donny McCaslin, Mark Feldman, Ted Nash, Michael Blake, Zhao Ke, Francois Théberge, Stephane Belmondo, and Don Thompson. LOGUSLABUSMUZIKUS – Jazzlab’s newest opus – features nine new pieces by bassist and composer Auguste Le Prez, all of which reflect the spirit of modern jazz today. It’s an exciting and dynamic record executed masterfully by the band. Each member manages to simultaneously lift the band up while also staking out their place as a distinct individual voice in the group. As Jazzlab Orchestra continues to evolve, the temperature continues to rise…
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