shelley fralic, one of the caring and sensitive editorialists at the vancouver sun, has particularly hateful pearls of wisdom to share with us about the downtown eastside and the recent plans to redevelop the woodward's building. in retrospection on her youth in vancouver almost half a century ago, and how the social landscape appears today, she has this to say:

It was downtrodden, to be sure, home to a generation of mostly harmless old men, victims of industrial accidents, failed marriages and faltering resource industries, who gravitated to the area for the cheap single rooms and like-minded company in hotel beer parlous.

But that was then, and this is now.

Now, most of the drunks are gone, long dead, their rooms and bar stools overtaken by violent, opportunistic crackheads, hookers and junkies who have turned Hastings street into a dangerous, lawless war zone.
...
Because while everyone is busy congratulating themselves for custom-fitting the Downtown Eastside in a classy new designer suit, no one seems to want to talk about scrubbing it clean first.

that's the kind of hyperbolic piss and vinegar that i hardly expect on the front page of a purportedly non-tabloid newspaper. what i find stunning is fralic's lack of connection between the drunks of years-gone-by and the addicts of today. she recognizes that the drunks come from troubled backgrounds, but prefers to wash over that in her intellectually stunning and intensely constructive assessment of the area's current social problems. is the section editor on holiday, either mentally or physically?

fralic is confusing her idealized memories from nearly 50 years ago with the reality of urban development. she's also mistaking her half-cooked, quasi-journalistic meanderings for social criticism.

cc: patricia graham, editor-in-chief

the day after i posted the image of the new shaw tower, the vancouver sun had an article about how it's sad that the marine building is now landlocked.

i took some photos of one of vancouver's most beautiful buildings the same day i shot the shaw tower:

these photos don't do much to capture the beauty of the stone work. if you aren't familiar with the building you should seriously pay a visit to the nw corner of hastings/burrard. a few years ago i helped build a network that runs right in front of the building, and was glad to spend a few days staring up at vancouver history.

there was no subtle audience reaction to this group. the venerable françois houle, peggy lee, dylan van der schyff, sylvie courvoisier and mark dresser offered something challenging and not entirely successful. houle had been asked to make a dream-team up, and this was it. i have to agree that this was a nice lineup, and this was one of the shows i was most looking forward to.

something didn't go right, though. courvoisier's piano was too quiet through much of it (until several people in the audience pointed this out by yelling). houle had difficulty finding his entry into the performance, and seemed a little shaken by the vicious audience reaction to courvoisier's piano being amped too low. i'm not sure why it didn't gel - van der schyff, houle, and dresser have all played together before i believe. i guess sometimes the magic isn't there, or players are exhausted from several days of jazz, or i'm an idiot and the performance was brilliant.

sylvie courvoisier
on a completely unnecessary side note, i feel really awful that every time i hear sylvie's last name i hear "pass the courvoisier" in my head. i hope this can be twisted into a compliment somehow. nonetheless, i look forward to seeing her play again some time when i can actually hear her performance. she's supposed to be fantastic, and i liked what i could make out.

mark dresser
i was also tickled to get to see mark dresser, who's another one of those musicians i've heard and enjoyed but never seen. dresser is an aggressive bass player. he has the outward appearance of, say, your grade ten math teacher. but when he gets playing he looks like a man possessed. it's as though all of the secret violence within mark dresser is unleashed on audiences via the bass. seeing some of his techniques in action has put the recordings i've heard in a new light.

dresser also did an excellent performance earlier in the day with guitarist andreas willer and percussionist tom rainey. willer did some fantastic guitar processing, dresser was maniacal, and i think rainey entered another dimension for the duration of the performance. that is to say, it was brilliant.

shows at the roundhouse performance centre, vancouver, july 4, 2004

besides seeing mark feldman play with evan parker, we also went and watched him put on a workshop.

he's a hilarious guy with intense skill. during the workshop he answered general questions about his education (studied violin until he was 19, then from the age of 40-45), his background (spent many years in nashville playing with notables), and his more current work (masada stuff with john zorn, as well as work with his wife, pianist sylvie courvoisier). he also discussed technique and shared anecdotes. feldman is a no-bullshit kind of guy and the group of us all enjoyed the event.

mostly, though, he played a sampling of various styles. nothing like a small room audience with someone who screams it out like feldman. seeing his playing style has added a nice level of visualisation when i listen to albums he's on.

feldman and the rest of the new york jazz scene makes me want to visit the city some day soon.

workshop at the roundhouse studio, vancouver, july 3, 2004

although most of the jazzfest we took in was free/improv, there was one group that did a structured set. lucas niggli, who i swear i've seen before, has a new group called "zoom".

with nils wogram (trombone) and philipp schaufelberger (guitar), niggli guides the group from behind his drumkit. the group moves quick, but has a high-strung edge to it as they attempt to keep to niggli's tight scores. in this regard it reminded me of susie ibarra (and trio). still, they played really well. we had a good time listening to wogram's tromboning (what is the verb for the act of playing the trombone?) and schaufelberger's intense guitar work.

through the show wogram kept turning to niggli and asking him before he said anything to the audience (might be a matter of less foreign stage experience, i'm not sure). at one point niggli told us they were about to perform "space waltz" and wogram whispered to niggli if he could tell the joke. "lucas usually tells this joke, but it is so funny i want to tell it this time. we like to dance. in europe we have this dance that is very popular. maybe you've heard of it. it's called the waltz." and so began the space waltz.

these are all players worth following. i think they have a few albums, also worth checking out i'm sure.

show at the roundhouse performance centre, vancouver, july 3, 2004

some musicians communicate together so effortlessly that they seem to be pulling their thoughts from the same mind. william parker and hamid drake are two masters existing in that space.

they played two or three pieces, beginning with a slow rhythm by drake on a large handdrum and parker on a flute of some kind (i couldn't see him very well - was it a nay?). the first piece built up to a few vocal phrases. i think they ran something along the line of "death is dead / god is crying / and the devil wears a big ol' grin". the audience was rapt, and showed their appreciation openly.

drake then moved on to the drumkit and parker shifted to something that looked like a bombarde (i'm not entirely sure what it was). we were sitting on a nice angle to the drumkit and got to watch drake at work. unfortunately we were also sitting in front of a speaker and got a full blast of whatever parker was playing straight in the face. it was fiercely piercing, but still enjoyable.

the only bad bit of the show was the stage manager who was freaking out beside the stage for several minutes because drake and parker went over time. they were fully into the music, eyes shut, and didn't see her trying to wave them down. it was really frustrating to watch her fret a couple feet away. drake and parker were flying and this lady was trying to bring them abruptly back to earth. she just didn't seem to understand that you don't do that, especially when the audience is in a trance, the jazz is free, and there's still another hour before the next act.

when they finally landed back on stage they received a much deserved standing ovation. now i'm out hunting for their albums.

later the same day they did a trio with mwata bowden. while drake and parker play together a lot, and drake and bowden play together, it was a first for parker and bowden. it was a little awkward, and bowden has a strange sense of timing for making anachronistic percussions sounds. it conjured the thought of milford graves (who i've never seen live, but have his album stories in mind). the coolest part about bowden's visit to vancouver was the time he spent with the handsworth secondary school jazz band - they performed with bowden the next day. how cool would that be if you were in high school? he's definitely dedicated to his craft.

bowden did do some swift work on the didgeridoo (and the baritone sax, if i recall right), as well as stomping out rhythm with ankle bells. parker was playing the bass this time and took a while to figure bowden out, but in the end it was a fun performance. minus the second panicked appearance by the stage manager.

shows at the roundhouse performance centre, vancouver, july 3, 2004

last weekend was the vancouver international jazz festival, and i spent the usual couple of days at the roundhouse's performance centre soaking up hours of improvised/free jazz.

one of the highlights for me was british bassist john edwards. i've never seen anyone attack their bass with such violence. slaps, kicks to the back of the bass, bowing across the side of the instrument - at times he looks as though he wants to break the instrument apart and smash the pieces in order to construct new sounds. he does everything he physically can to force the bass to bend to his will.

here is a crappy photo of his bass. the venue was dark and there was a no photo policy in place during the performance, so i tried to grab a quick shot before the show. it didn't turn out, but here it is anyway:

he played a couple of shows with saxophonist evan parker, complementing parker well. while the first show, which included mark feldman (violin), torsten müller (bass), peggy lee (cello), stefan smulovitz (violin and laptop), and ron samworth (guitars), was a bit muddled. improvised music often works best when it's performed in quartets or smaller. these musicians are all stellar, but it didn't work. evan parker seemed to have a hard time finding an entrance point, and mostly played his keys silently. one interesting bit was when smulovitz did some processing of parker's sax playing, feeding parker back on himself. i'd like to see more use of electronics in jazz.

the next day edwards and parker performed with tim berne and tom rainey. berne joined parker on saxophone, and rainey sat in on drums. this was an entirely different grouping, and parker and berne played off each other, building several frenzies. rainey plays as though he's in a trance, or homicidally fixated on someone in the audience. it's intense, and you get the sense that he is seriously tapped into the music. there are moments in improvised music when everything clicks into place and there is a moment of transcendence, and these players achieved this. when i stumbled from the dark venue out into the sun i felt like i had undergone some kind of catharsis.

shows at the roundhouse performance centre, vancouver, july 3/4, 2004

orchestra is used in the loosest sense of the term with this outfit. there's a bass, guitar, trumpeter, keyboardist, and tony allen on drums. but yes, oh yes, there is funk.

i got my ass up and got down and lost five pounds in sweat. i haven't danced an entire show away in too many years.

allen is touted as the drummer for fela kuti's africa 70. zombie is one of the best albums ever (and i'm not just saying that - listen to the title track loud and try to disagree), but what tony allen does as a solo artist is much different. allen creates a trance inducing funk with minimal vocals and solid drum work and funk basslines.

i couldn't help craving more horn throughout the evening, and the trumpeter could have given us a few more solos. still, we all had fun and it was a good excuse to throw a few moves on the dancefloor.

aboubacar camara & doundounba

the day before the show we had been walking along spanish banks and came across a group of percussionists playing on a park bench. we sat on the bench next to them for a few minutes and enjoyed the groove. little did we know they were jamming for their big performance the next night.

aboubacar camara & doundounba had the crowd moving while they played what must have been an hour and a half long opening set. they know how to throw out the rhythms with flair, but the real stars of the show were the dancers hassanatou camara and allison griffith (particularly hassanatou and her hair flinging moves).

ian tracey's head

what also sticks in my mind about the show is the back of ian tracey's head. we accidentally sat next to a reserved table, and partway through the show tracey and his entourage sat down. i was three inches away trying to watch the show past his head - wanted to say hi and whatnot, but gave the man his privacy instead. while he seemed like a pretty big fellow in milgaard, he's surprisingly petite. what an impressive face, though.

one of my other da vinci's inquest encounters involved an awkward stare down with the great nicholas campbell. last year i was standing in a parking lot one morning gazing blankly at a run-down building and campbell walked by, stopped, and stared at me absently for a moment. our eyes met and we shared a weird dazed moment. it was kind of like watching tv (he was in character). again, i would have said hi but it was strange. campbell also has one hell of a mug.

show at the commodore ballroom, vancouver, july 2, 2004

i think this was a shot of some clouds and a skiff of water as we drove along nw marine, out by ubc. this view is high on my list of reasons of why i live on the coast (the impending earthquake is not one of them).

there's a new building going up at the waterfront downtown. it's the shaw tower, and it measures up to 149 m (making it 30.5 cm taller than the sheraton wall centre). i'm glad vancouver doesn't go for supertallbuildings. perhaps there's some kind of city zoning law preventing buildings that block the view. one of my coworkers is from hong kong and has a good laugh at our "big" buildings.

still, it's an eye-catching structure.

there was a red moon last week when we were driving home. here's a driveby shot at it.

down in the parkade below the capers and duthie books on west fourth (vancouver) there are some really well done murals. here's one:

here's what i stare at from my office. what i love most is the coastal sky on a moody day set to the soundtrack of railway cars smashing together and the beautifully harsh screech of train brakes. and i'm not being sarcastic for once.

at the end of each school year my wife gets a heap of flowers. here's one that caught my eye while i was wolfing down breakfast before i raced off to work.

a canon powershot s60 recently came into my possession, and i will now begin to post photos regularly. scanning in photos was time consuming and idiotic, and i'm glad to finally be able to post them easily. below is one of my first attempts with the new camera, on the way home from the shop at about 9pm. the camera came with a piddly 32 meg card and charged batteries, so i was able to start shooting right away.

i take a lot of photos from moving cars. whether any of them turn out is another question. regardless, i like the aesthetics of driveby shootings.