Cutting-edge jazz
Quartet delivers free-form, experimental jazz
If music is a language, then Nick Fraser is definitely speaking in a different tongue. Of course, the idea of articulating a different language is part of his upbringing, his father being Graham Fraser, Canada’s commissioner of official languages. But the Ottawa-raised, Torontobased drummer is these days communicating through the sounds of free-form, experimental jazz.
When he appears with his quartet in the Ottawa Winter Jazz Festival on Feb. 1 at the NAC’s Fourth Stage, the 36 year old will be leading his quartet through the songs from a new CD called Towns and Villages.
Fraser engages in this type of music for one very basic reason. “I love it, first of all. I love some of the major figures of that kind of music, including Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Dewey Redmond. I think that they are major figures for me.
“I know that the music on the record can be an intense listen. But I hope that it is balanced, that there is a nice arc to it and enough melody to keep people listening. Some tunes are very quiet, some tunes are more in-your-face. There are some solo passages, duo passages, trio passages. He’s not naive, though. “I know that it is in an area that is experimental, but I do hope that people will give it a chance.”
One of the real treats for Fraser on this CD involves working with the highly regarded American saxophonist Tony Malaby. Originally from Tucson, Arizona, he has been based in New York since 1995 and has been a member of many notable jazz groups, including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra, Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band and Mark Helias’ Open Loose. He was named Musician of the Year (2004) by All About Jazz New York magazine, which called him “one of the most distinctive artists of his time.”
“Tony is one of my favourite musicians,” says Fraser. “He is somebody who has always been on my mind since I met him 15 years ago when we were students together at a jazz workshop” — in Idaho, of all places. “I would write a melody and think Tony would play it.” That sort of thing.
Last year Malaby was in Toronto performing and the two reconnected.
“I found out he was doing this concert and I just sort of thought I should get in touch with him. He’s really a very powerful musician. There is something big and generous about his musical personality.” That is reflected on the new CD, which features Fraser on drums, Malaby, Andrew Downing on cello and Rob Clutton on double bass. The CD is Fraser’s first for Barnyard Records, a label that has been at the forefront of new jazz and creative music in Toronto for a decade. The Nick Fraser Quartet is a new venture for the drummer.
It features his compositions and it boasts an instrumental twist with Downing’s cello, which can function as a “member of the rhythm section and as a more melodic voice.”
There is such an emphasis on improv in this type of jazz that one may not notice there is a structure, but it is there, Fraser says, in a sketchy form — at least on some of the songs on the CD.
“I purposefully chose things that would not take too much rehearsal because we basically had to get everything together while we were recording it. ... I had faith that those guys were all great improvisers.”
The live performance of this material will differ from the CD. The pieces on the CD are five minutes or less — that’s short for free form — and are more focused than they will be on stage.
Three songs have names of towns attached to them. The titles aren’t an attempt to interpret the towns, Fraser was just captured by the images conjured up in his mind by these names. For example, the disc opens with Prescott: The Fort Town, which are the words on a sign on Highway 401 as one nears the town. This piece features Malaby’s roaring sax, sounding for all the world like a transport truck horn sounding on the big highway.
Another is titled Spencerville, Home of the Heritage Grist Mill, and the final “town” song is Hundred Mile House, pop. 1885.
The last piece was originally going to be called Van Kleek Hill Gingerbread Capital of Ontario, but the name of the Alberta community was so evocative he chose it instead.
“I’ve always been fascinated with town slogans and what makes people decide that the Home of the Heritage Grist Mill is what the people of Spencerville will put on their sign.”
Fraser’s musical journey is not just limited to the avant garde. He is performing with a blues guitarist and he is also touring in March with another jazz band called Peripheral Vision that is definitely not free form.
“I’m still busy doing a lot of other things that are different, more traditional. In a way everything feeds everything else. I’m really happy to be busy and playing music for a living and I feel really happy to have a diverse career. It opens me up to other worlds. If I only ever played free-form screaming jazz, that’d be difficult for me.”