Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday May 21st, 2014 with Bernard Stepien
TD Ottawa Jazz Festival preview part II

This week we will sample the music of four groups performing at the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival: • Canadian but New York residing pianist Jon Ballantyne has been immersed since age 5 into Jazz history either as a listener or as a performer. His exposure to Jazz is of a wide spectrum nature. From Thelonious Monk to Cecil Taylor as mentors to a wide variety of Jazz heavy weights as a sideman recording with Joe Henderson, Phil Woods, Jimmy Giuffre, Joe Lovano and countless others. This of course could only result in a personal style that sounds like a melting pot. However, don’t expect clichés. His rendering of Monk is very personal, not a carbon copy and his “processing” of Jazz standards is both disorienting and reassuring. • Israeli Trumpeter Itamar Borochov is involved into a rather unique and very adventurous melting pot: Jazz and middle-eastern traditional music. Israel based, surrounded by Arabs that local politicians consider as enemies. Instead, Itamar Borochov reaches out to the Arab cultural world because he knows that both constitute one quasi-monolitic culture together. We always knew that musicians were way ahead of politicians, but this case is extreme. • Nigerian trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire studied at Berklee School of Music and since then lives in New York City. His perfect technique allows him to compose complex phrases but also leave plenty of room for silence. Texture is also one of his main characteristics which give him a new Miles Davis status. Missed last week’s RWAC show featuring TD Ottawa Jazz Festival featured unbelievable Indian saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa? Get it from the CKCU archives on this link: http://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/95/17014.html