Interviews – Page 42

There’s a tiny little festival you absolutely must check out, music lovers of all stripes! It’s called Garage Concert and it takes place, yes, in a garage. To be precise, in the garage of Ziya Tabassian, a top-flight percussionist who has been heard with the Ensemble Constantinople, among others, and more recently with the Trio Regard Persan. 2023 will see the 9th edition of the event (nine! And I bet you’ve never heard of it!) with 9 concerts. All musicians of the highest possible level, masters and mistresses of their instruments, and all Montrealers (most of them by adoption).

Some we know a little better: Monica Freire and Syrian oud master Nazih Borish (August 15), Didem Basar on kanun (July 16), Vincent Lauzer on recorder (July 18). But for many others, it will be an opportunity to plunge into highly embodied sound worlds, with Maryam Tazhdeh on tar (in duet with Didem Basar on July 16), Zizhou Wang on guzheng (a Chinese plucked string table instrument, on July 13), Anjana Srinivasan on traditional Carnatic violin (from South India, August 10), the “Gangster Yiddish” ensemble Orkestar Kriminal (July 20), Alex Tibbits on “bionic harp” (August 8), LiKouri en chanson (tonight, July 11) and Ziya himself on percussion (August 17).

Interview with founder and artistic programmer Ziya Tabassian.

PAN M 360: Everyone has an idea of what garage music is. But you take the idea elsewhere…

Ziya Tabassian: Yes, indeed. I came up with the idea in 2013. Me and some friends wanted to play for fun, and my garage was an accessible space. So we did it. We liked it, several people came to see, and I decided to continue the adventure. The principle is simple: it’s a 5 to 7 formula. People arrive at 5 (5pm), the music starts at 6 (6pm) and it lasts about an hour. I offer treats and herbal teas, which I make myself! We enter at 5226 Clark Street (that’s my place!), but it’s in the back, in the garage overlooking the courtyard and alley. It’s not very big, but it’s super friendly.

PAN M 360: Are all the artists present friends of yours?

Ziya Tabassian: Not all of them, although they do become so! I know several of them, but others I discover on the web. For example, the guzheng player, Zizhou Wang, I discovered in a video on Facebook, contacted her, and voilà! She was a great performer of her instrument in China. In Montreal, she needs to make a name for herself now. The same goes for Maryam Tazhdeh, a virtuoso on the tar (an Iranian stringed instrument). She’s a great artist in Iran, but in Montreal, she’s not known. There’s also Anjana Srinivasan, an Indian Carnatic violin teacher who studied with the best in India! My idea is to allow all kinds of Montreal musicians of a very professional level to shine a little, to be heard a little. And at the same time, it stimulates encounters! That’s how it happened for Regard Persan and me: we met, enjoyed each other’s company and formed a trio.

PAN M 360: In the garage and in the courtyard next to the alley… Is there enough space?

Ziya Tabassian: We’ve sometimes had a hundred people, and that’s fine! We have good neighbours, who are often there too.

PAN M 360: Well, if ever many people are stimulated by this interview on PAN M 360, you’ll have a happy problem…

Ziya Tabassian: Yes, it’s possible! I want to move the project forward and take it to another level, to make it grow. I wouldn’t want to go into a space that’s too conventional; I’d like it to stay in an accessible, ordinary place like the garage, but just more spacious. We’ll see.

PAN M 360: What does that tell you about the Montreal scene?

Ziya Tabassian: It’s very good. And above all, it’s very interconnected. People talk to each other and rub shoulders. I didn’t feel that at all in Toronto, for example. Strangely enough. On the other hand, I’d like to bring in more international artists. It’s a challenge, of course. It’s hard to get someone to come for a single concert, given the cost of plane tickets, hotels and so on. But it can be arranged. I’m planning to invite an excellent Indian musician and tabla virtuoso in September, so we can play together. I’ll also be taking advantage of the opportunity to play another part with Regard Persan and Aditya Verma, a great sarod master who lives here in Montreal. And I’d love to bring over an Armenian duduk player, Emmanuel Hovhannisyan, with whom I’ve just recorded a piece for my next album, due out in the autumn. We’ll see, but we might.

PAN M 360: Any other gems?

Ziya Tabassian: Oh, there’s an exceptional Uzbek maqam singer, Nâdira Pirmatova! That would be great, yes.

PAN M 360: You tickle our ear buds… Thank you so much for what you do. It’s little initiatives like yours that make Montreal even more alive and exciting.

Ziya Tabassian: Thank you for welcoming me, that’s important too.

Juan Carmona is a leading figure in contemporary flamenco guitar. The French master returns to Montreal after his last performance at the Jazz Festival in 2019.

Juan will be performing at Le National on the 13th of July at 8 PM.

PAN M 360: Thank you Juan for being here. Could you tell me a little more about what you’ll be presenting at the show?

Juan: Of course. I’ll be presenting material from my last two albums, Zyriab 6.7 and Perla de Oriente. Zyriab was produced in collaboration with Istanbul Strings, a phenomenal orchestra that’s a pleasure to work with. As it’s difficult to play with an orchestra on tour, wherever Zyriab goes, I invite an artist from that country. At this show, I’ll be playing with maestro Youba Adjrad, an Algerian singer now living in Montreal, who is simply incredible.

PAN M 360: It seems to me that there are many points of convergence between Flamenco and North African music. In the process of making these albums, did you have any revelations about these points of confluence?

Juan: My first encounter with oriental music was with the music of Morocco. I went to Morocco one day to do a masterclass at the Marrakech Conservatory, and the revelation was that I was very surprised to see the similarities between Arabo-Andalusian music and flamenco. In Marrakech, people dance in a way that’s very, very, very close to flamenco dance, because there’s foot tapping, the same thing, rhymes, it’s a lot of six suites too. There are a lot of similarities and it was a revelation to me, and from there I composed a work called Oria, which mixes Arabo-Andalusian music from Morocco with Gnawa from Marrakech, with a lot of excellent musicians and flamenco, and that was my first encounter. It’s a beautiful piece of work, by the way, and I made a record of it, which went on to win a Grammy Award in Los Angeles.

PAN M 360: At your level of virtuosity, how do you keep in shape on tour?

Juan: That’s a very good question. I often compare a soloist like that to a sportsman, you know, a sportsman has performances because he’s constantly training and the day he doesn’t train, the sportsman can’t have the same performances, it’s impossible. A solo musician is exactly the same: if I don’t have 8 or 9 hours of guitar practice, it’s not possible. You know, I don’t put much faith in gift, you know, I believe in predisposition, but predisposition doesn’t work if you don’t work, so virtuosity, technique, sound, it’s all work, work, work, constantly. It’s never taken for granted.

PAN M 360: Well, I think that comes across clearly in your masterful playing. Flamenco is an incredibly rich tradition, but do you find that in the modern world it’s perhaps less recognised?

Juan: I’m lucky enough to travel all over the world. Recently, we did a tour of the United States, going as far as New Mexico, and then we went to Vancouver too. Flamenco is worldwide. I’ve been to China, I’ve been to Siberia, I’ve been to Hawaii. I’ve been to all the Maghreb countries, to Europe. No, flamenco is a music, it’s a tradition that dates back to the late 18th, early 19th century. And it’s not a fashion phenomenon, which means that today, there are aficionados in every corner of the globe. Everywhere I go, there’s great enthusiasm for this music. Everywhere I go, there’s flamenco.

Renaud Loranger has just completed his fifth festival program since his appointment as artistic director of the Festival de Lanaudière. Yet it feels like he’s just getting started. After just one season (2019), nothing has gone according to plan. 2020 and 2021 were pandemic years, and 2022, a sort of comeback but still haunted by the shadows of an end to the crisis that sometimes still seemed fragile. 2023, in a sense, is the year of a real relaunch. A relaunch that is by no means easy, as Renaud Loranger tells us, whom I was delighted to meet to find out more about this year’s programming, and also about the post-pandemic challenges facing the classical music world.

Renaud Loranger was appointed artistic director of the Festival de Lanaudière in 2018, to the general satisfaction of the classical community. The Montreal native has a long and rich experience in the classical music world. He has lived partly in Europe for several years, and has been or still is associated with prestigious labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Archiv and Pentatone. In other words, he has developed a solid network that includes renowned organizations, agents and artists. All this allowed Festival friends, and music lovers in general, to dream of great summer musical moments in the Joliette region. As Renaud Loranger himself puts it, the Festival’s first season was “off to a flying start”, confirming the stature of a program concocted by the artistic director. Big names of planetary stature, and our national must-sees. In short, it was a vintage year. The only one before the Crisis.

2023 promises us, in addition to a long-awaited return to “normality”, magical moments with the Montreal Symphony, Montreal Orchestre Métropolitain, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Rafael Payare, Andrew Wan, Charles Richard-Hamelin, the Grands Ballets, etc., but also William Christie and his Arts Florissants, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon with his Choeur de Namur and the Capella Mediterranea (in Monteverdi’s Orfeo! OMG!!), Marco Beasley who will team up with Constantinople, the French trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary with Les Violons du Roy, Richard Galliano on accordion, and so many others.

So, everything back to normal, really? As if nothing had happened? That’s what we discussed.

PAN M 360: Hello Renaud. What a pleasure to see you again, and to talk about a totally post-pandemic Festival season! When you arrived, you must certainly have had a line, a long-term vision of programming. The pandemic turned everything upside down. Is it back to normal this year, as if nothing had happened? Or have you been forced to rethink your initial ideas from top to bottom?

Renaud Loranger: No. I’m a bit adamant about that. I think good ideas are always good. If they haven’t been implemented, they should be. The general orientations don’t change. Of course, it’s not like it used to be. It’s harder to make long-term plans. Or even medium- to long-term. It’s much harder to convince a certain number of artists to come. Many of them are rethinking the way they work, and they’re not necessarily available to come to America for the summer. They say yes, we’re going to tour North America… in the summer of 2058 (which means they don’t know when).

I don’t think we’ve found our rhythm yet. We’re trying to project ourselves, but it’s hard, and it’s like that all over the world too, although, in America, we face other challenges than in Europe.

Another problem is inflation. And yet another, the labour shortage. In Canada and Quebec, we’ve been very well supported by our governments during the crisis, but right now, emergency aid is disappearing. It’s normal, in a way, but it’s happening at the same time as the problems I’ve just mentioned. You can imagine the headache.

That being said, I’m currently seeing some very encouraging signals from the ticketing side. We think people are coming back in good numbers, which wasn’t the case last year.

Pan M 360: Is there a guiding principle behind your 2023 program? I see a lot of “big and safe titles” in terms of repertoire. Has caution been part of your equation, to make sure you bring back the audience?

Renaud Loranger: I wouldn’t say caution, but rather awareness. Awareness of the importance of the repertoire’s canon and its unifying quality. Berlioz’s Fantastique, Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, Beethoven’s Ninth (which has just been performed with the OSM and Rafael Payare), these remain great pieces that aren’t played as often as you might think. We haven’t played the Ninth in over 15 years! But to answer your question, I’d like to tell you about a well-known mythical figure from Antiquity (a period I’m very fond of): Orpheus. Orpheus is a metaphor that can be applied to all sorts of things. It’s the figure of the artist, it’s the figure of the human being in love whose feelings go too far. Tragedy becomes inevitable. I find that from Monteverdi to Rachmaninov, with the piano concertos and so on, we go right to the bottom of the human soul. We have Orpheus for real, with Monteverdi and Alarcon (it’s going to be an exceptional moment!), but we also have everything that can claim to be Orpheus through symbolism: Tchaikovsky, Chopin and so on. It’s a bit tenuous, but at the same time, I can see the lineage.

PAN M 360: I notice that several concerts are already sold out, including some in the “hors les murs” series. It’s going well, isn’t it?

Renaud Loranger: Yes, it’s a great series. Playing classical music in a brewery or in a squash field is a different and exciting approach. That being said, these concerts are quite intimate, with maybe fifty seats. They fill up pretty quickly. But it’s true that ticket sales are going well. Our church concerts are almost sold out at the moment, and several others will be, if sales are anything to go by. I’m superstitious, I don’t want to be too hasty, but I have to admit it’s encouraging. We can be cautiously optimistic.

PAN M 360: Post-pandemic recovery is a challenge all over the world and in all artistic disciplines. What particularities does this recovery represent for classical music specifically?

Renaud Loranger: That’s a very broad question… As far as we’re concerned, based on our figures and data, we can see that part of the traditional audience has disappeared. They don’t feel like going out and about like they used to. They may still have fears. They may come back, but only from time to time. In the end, it’s likely to be ten times less than before.

Another challenge, and it’s a paradox, is losing accessibility. What I mean is, we’re chasing money, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, among others. I’m afraid that to keep going we’ll have to raise ticket prices, which inevitably makes music less accessible. Once again, the governments (Canada, Quebec and cities) have been there for us, very much. But going back to pre-pandemic funding won’t be viable, because everything has increased so much in the meantime… Ideally, we’d like to keep this funding and make it permanent. That would ensure that we don’t fall back any further than where we were before.

PAN M 360: Despite this solid support, we’re still lagging behind Europe in this area. Although there are signs that things are changing over there?

Renaud Loranger: First of all, Europe’s tax base is much larger than ours. That’s a simple fact. Secondly, it’s true that support for the arts has been part of their culture for a long time. But it’s also true that we’re seeing the arrival of new political movements, new administrations in certain jurisdictions that are making decisions that are… astonishing. In the UK, the BBC is the target of such gestures. In France, certain city councils (Lyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux) have become highly politicized, conveying an ideological vision of culture (among other things) as elitist. Classical music, and the classical arts in general, are especially targeted as such. This is a real change. I don’t think it’s positive. This risk of ideological politicization of culture is dangerous. And yet, it’s precisely because the classical arts are publicly funded that they are open to everyone – the opposite of elitism! These are expensive arts in general, and that’s why collective funding is necessary to prevent them from reverting exclusively to the private salons of people who can afford it.

PAN M 360: The Festival is now firmly established in an urban setting, right in the center of Joliette. That’s a new reality. Tell me about that.

Renaud Loranger: It’s funny you should mention that, because I was on the site of our new building a few minutes ago, the Maison de la musique René-Charette, right in the heart of downtown Joliette. We’ll have our offices there, as well as a performance space that will enable us to offer year-round programming. We’ll be able to accommodate around 100 people. It will be intimate, but above all open to all, not just in summer. We’ll be able to offer mediation activities, concerts and so on. We can’t wait to move in. We’re currently in offices near the Amphitheatre, but they weren’t designed for this kind of work. Remember, these are buildings that were built for the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games (Joliette hosted competitions)! They’re well beyond their useful life, let’s say. It will be a renewal with a new energy.

PAN M 360: Thank you for your time and good luck with Festival 2023!

Renaud Loranger: Thank you!

Who is the most globalized African singer of her generation?
Which African singer has achieved the greatest recognition in the West in recent decades?
Who is the winner of 5 Grammy Awards and a recent Polar Prize?
Who was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021?
Which African singer is a UNICEF ambassador?
Who was the patron of the Nuits d’Afrique international festival in 2013, and who will be its spokesperson in 2023?

Interviewed via videoconference while in Paris for studio sessions before heading off to Denmark and the UK, Angélique Kidjo answers PAN M 360’s questions. Shortly before her return to the Montreal stage, this Wednesday July 12 at MTELUS to kick off Nuits d’Afrique 2023, the Brooklyn-born Beninese artist still has a lot to say and sing!

PAN M 360: You’ve been a figurehead of cultural Africa for a long time, and you remain so. You’ve won awards in the United States, Europe and Africa. Obviously, your role as spokesperson for Nuits d’Afrique is more important than ever. How do you see this role in 2023?

Angélique Kidjo: I simply want to make things clear. My role as an artist from Africa is to make music that knows no borders. The music I listened to as a child came from all over the world. As Miriam Makeba used to say, why then do we call our music world music? Who gives themselves the right to define who is the first world? The second? The third? That really annoyed Miriam, and she was right.

PAN M 360: Yes, world music, which refers to music from non-Western countries, is an expression that should be banned.

Angélique Kidjo: Over time, it’s become a category that designates the ghetto. In other words, you can’t get out of that hole. Music is music, no matter where it comes from, and that’s why I’ve always refused to be put into a box, a category, a precise genre. I’m a human being, you can’t tell me that just because I’m from Africa, I don’t have the right to do this or that in music. Colonization is over, slavery is over… some people should take note! So why do we continue to maintain this balance of power that has no reason to exist?

PAN M 360: We’re not in the majority when it comes to avoiding the hierarchy of music according to genre, culture, race or nation, but there are more and more of us. You yourself have never made strictly Beninese music, without forgetting your roots. So…

Angélique Kidjo: That’s what music is all about. When people talk to me about cultural appropriation, I say, “But wait, what exactly are you talking about?” Music is shared, it has no agenda, it has no colour, it has no borders. We inspire each other. We use the same notes from North to South, East to West. Wherever we are on this planet, we work with the same sound tools. Of course, when you’re open to the world, there are influences from all over. We’re all immigrants from somewhere.

PAN M 360: At the same time, you’re once again the spokesperson for a festival called Nuit d’Afrique, which is essentially focused on Africa and its communities around the world. So you’re the spokesperson for a festival that focuses on people of African descent.

Angélique Kidjo: Yes, and Nuits d’Afrique is plural, taking in all African skies and all continents. It’s Africa as a whole that we’re celebrating, and that’s always been the case. It’s no longer possible to talk about THE African music, there are some African musics. So for me, Nuits d’Afrique is a starting point for understanding that we live under different skies.

PAN M 360: And so, it’s still important that there are platforms or platforms of artists who represent the entire African movement that has been on this Earth for centuries.

Angélique Kidjo: Yes. And, like everywhere else, today’s young African artists are breaking codes. They don’t give a damn about commercial radio, interviews in old newspapers, in short, all the old ways of marketing themselves. The Internet has made them stars on the African continent and beyond. A young artist born on the web two years ago can now accumulate billions of views. So the game is changing, because technology is opening up the cultural and musical wealth of the African continent.

And African audiences are becoming increasingly sophisticated, diversified and autonomous. If they don’t want to listen to a Western artist, they’re not forced to. Before, we said we had to listen to it because it came from America. Today, it comes from Africa and all over the world. Everyone wants to listen to what interests them.

PAN M 360: You’ve lived through the early days of the globalization of West African pop, from the 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s to the present day. What are your perceptions of the current context in your artistic practice?

Angélique Kidjo: Nowadays, it’s much more complicated for young people to have a career, because business doesn’t work the same way. Authors’ rights have been cut to the bone. So if you don’t do a concert, you don’t earn much. Will today’s young artists be patient? It’s too uncertain a time to predict anything. But what is certain is that things have changed completely.

PAN M 360: Is this as true in Africa as it is in the West?

Angélique Kidjo: Oh yes! Dedicated artists like me, Youssou (N’Dour), Salif (Keita) and others used to make a living from their royalties. But they can’t anymore because the way the number of plays of your music on Spotify or other platforms is calculated is no longer the same. The very big artists get all the money and the others don’t even get the crumbs. And that’s not fair.

PAN M 360: What would you like to see happen?

Angélique Kidjo: Legislation needs to be put in place to protect intellectual property. Not everything is for sale in the context of globalization! But what has happened to the sovereignty of cultures and their countries? In the name of globalized profit, all countries are being weakened. If that’s the direction we’re heading in, we’re heading for disaster.

PAN M 360: Now, if we go back to music and talk about your own progression. You’ve always been into a mix involving your own West African and Beninese sources, but also funk, groove, R&B, and jazz. You’ve been doing this with your husband all your life. In terms of production, you always had this vision right from the start.

Angélique Kidjo: It was Léopold Sédar Senghor who said, “The future belongs to métissage.” It’s inevitable. People who cling to the purity of race and spend their whole lives hating people who have done nothing to them, whom they don’t know, are wasting their lives because it’s inevitable. If there had been no mixing, we wouldn’t be the homo sapiens we are today. It’s interbreeding and the forces that come from elsewhere that enable living beings to evolve. We can no longer be human beings and think we can’t live with others. There is a definite danger to our continued presence on Earth if we allow such extreme thinking to take over more and more of our lives. If there’s no more diversity, there’s no more humanity.

PAN M 360: So you reject autarky and isolationism!

Angélique Kidjo: You can’t live alone. Alone, we don’t create anything consistent. We’re there for each other. We speak different languages, but our humanity evolves in this difference, and music is at the center of it all, it’s a common language. I’m a very curious person, I can sing in different languages and my voice changes with each language. When a song takes hold of me, I have to give birth to it. I don’t know any other way.

PAN M 360: You released the album Mother Nature in 2021. So tell us about your latest musical adventures, what inspired you in production, and your desired collaborations.

Angélique Kidjo: Mother Nature started with the onset of the pandemic. I was supposed to give a concert on March 14, 2020, at Carnegie Hall with Manu Dibango, to celebrate 60 years of African countries becoming independent. Two days before, the concert was cancelled and I came back to Paris to be closer to my mom, as it’s a five- or six-hour flight from Paris to Cotonou. On March 28, 2020, my father-in-law died of covid. A few weeks later, Manu Dibango also died… a month later, Tony Allen. Incredibly absurd!

So I thought, what am I going to do? I’ve got no more concerts, but I’ve got a studio at home. So I have to keep writing music. So I started preparing this album. A few months later, in October, there was a revolt among Nigeria’s youth against police violence. And that was another blow. I knew that one day, young people would take to the streets to express such indignation. So I contacted Yemi Alade, who told me she too was on the streets. I told her to get out of there, because the authorities were shooting at people without knowing who were the rioters and who were not. I tell her that the only weapon we have is music. I urge him to leave the street and think with me about what we can do. Leaving through constructive discussion rules out violence, whether verbal or physical. Yemi agreed, we did the song Dignity and that’s where it started.

PAN M 360: Then you showed your penchant for Afrobeats!

Angélique Kidjo: Well, I said to myself, I’m going to reach out to this new generation of artists and ask them: what do you want to say? What inspires you? What mobilizes you? Climate change, for which the African continent is going to pay one of the heaviest prices? That’s how we started. And in fact, Mother Nature is for me an album of transmission, because the transmission of knowledge is at the heart of our Africanness and also of our humanity. Without speech, our brains don’t develop. Without speech, we’re not human.

PAN M 360: So, you’ve worked with some of the youngest artists on the scene, such as Mr Eazi, Burna Boy, Yemi Alade, Shungundzo, Sampa The Great, Blue Lab Beats, Ghetto Boy, EARTHGANG, without excluding the more experienced, such as Salif Keita or even M. Angélique Kidjo.

Angélique Kidjo: What was particularly interesting for me was to see the professionalism of this new generation. I’d send them my vocals and my own demo tracks, and they’d send me back impeccable stuff. It’s a dream come true to have achieved such African professionalism in production. Before, there weren’t enough tools, whereas today with the Internet and a computer, you can do absolutely fantastic things. And you can work remotely.

PAN M 360: You didn’t have much choice but to work remotely during the pandemic!

Angélique Kidjo: Yes, it was a bit frustrating for me because I would have loved to have people in my studio so we could play and sing together. But still… it worked out perfectly. You have to be flexible, things change, you have to change with them. That’s always been my aim in life, to think only of today and tomorrow. So I’ve adapted to all this technology and this type of remote production. I’ll continue to do so.

PAN M 360: Afrobeats feature strongly on the Mother Nature album.

Angélique Kidjo: Nigerian music has always been one of my favourites. But there’s also Jamaican dancehall in the afrobeats, there’s R&B, there’s funk. These rhythms all have African roots, they’re part of human DNA. Each of us carries a little bit of Africa.

PAN M 360: Are you still passionate about performing?

Angélique Kidjo: I can’t live without the stage. If there’s a paradise on earth, it’s the stage. When I go on stage, it’s like starting all over again: no concert is a foregone conclusion. As my mother used to tell me, you have to be ready to be spiritually naked to go on stage. When you understand this idea, you’re really at the service of the music. Your ego allows you to get up on stage and fight stage fright. Once you get past that, everything else is just bliss.

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual Sylis d’or de la musique du monde Made in Montréal competition. A competition that has become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Among the many groups that didn’t make it to the finals, we at Pan M have singled out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. Context being what it is in competitions, semi-finalists are too easily and quickly forgotten.

Traditional Eastern European, Gypsy, Balkan and Jewish klezmer music has no shortage of good advocates in Montreal. Add a little blues and Middle Eastern influences, and you’ve got a young ensemble called Kallisto that offers a refreshing take on some of the commonplaces associated with this music. Nothing to do with Lost Fingers.

During the Sylis d’or 2023 competition, we noticed this group of excellent musicians: Arthur Prieur (cello), Edy Silva (flute), Hugh Lapham (double bass), Jean-François McDonnell (guitar) and Josée MacInnis (clarinet and bass clarinet). Coherent ensemble playing, impeccable technique and a happy blend of original influences within a musical architecture already hyper-represented on the Montreal scene – that’s what we retained from Kallisto’s performance at the Sylis d’or, unfortunately no further than the semi-finals.

Meet one of our favorites from the Sylis d’or 2023 semi-finals, Kallisto.

Interview by Frédéric Cardin

Pan M 360: Hello gang! Kallisto, a happy marriage of klezmer/manouche/blues/Balkans/Middle East… How did you get here?

Kallisto: (Josée MacInnis) I moved to Montreal 5 years ago (in 2018) and was looking for musicians to do what I’ve always wanted to do, of course, which is play! I came across an Algerian rock band with whom I jammed a bit, but the group broke up just before the pandemic. Then I got the urge to join a world music band. I have a PhD in classical music, but I love jazz and I love world music. I was into gypsy music and I had some musician roommates (a flautist and a cellist) who got on board. Then, as I’m Jewish, I also wanted to explore these musical roots with klezmer and Eastern European music. Other musicians joined in, and the result was Kallisto.

Pan M 360: Did you return to your Jewish roots late in life? Why did this happen?

Kallisto: Let’s just say that where I used to live (London, Ontario, Nova Scotia), opportunities were pretty rare. Montreal was a catalyst for me. And it fed my creative and artistic process.

Pan M 360: How did the rest of it come about?

Kallisto: There was a lot of music in my family home. My mother is an opera singer. Then, while I was in London, I got involved with a Greek-Turkish/Armenian trad band, with oud and double bass. I played with them for a few years. The awakening of Jewish traditions slowly began at that point, as some of the musicians were Jewish too, but of the Sephardic (North African) branch, whereas my own roots are more Ashkenazi (Eastern European). Montreal finally allowed all this to blossom!

Pan M 360: How would you sum up your time at the contest?

Kallisto: It was a great experience. We needed that stress and pressure to perform in front of an attentive audience and a jury. It’s a good way of progressing towards professional status.

Pan M 360: Participating bands also need to be able to mobilize fans to support them and help them in the popular vote portion. What do you think of this need?

Kallisto: From a classical music perspective, but that’s just my opinion, it’s simpler and more reliable to rely solely on the judges’ vote. We’re then in control of our part of the equation – the music and the live performance. We rehearse and work on our product, and know that if something goes wrong, we’ll get feedback, based on reliable, measurable scales. It’s more difficult with the audience. All sorts of things can influence the vote. One stormy night and wham, our support pales in comparison with the previous evening. Or, if we have different types of audience, it can change the result. Take the Salsa band (La Tribu): wow! First, there are, like, 12 of them on stage, and they bring in a bunch of people who dance (salsa) and are motivated to cheer them on for a night or two. It’s fantastic! It’s an advantage, and they deserve it. But for us, it’s different: our audience tends to be made up of musician friends. And they go to dozens of concerts a year. It’s harder to motivate them to come to this one in particular. That said, I fully understand the idea behind this aspect of the competition: we don’t want to have only ensembles that play in a vacuum, mainly for a few friends. We want to develop groups that can propel the Montreal world music scene forward in terms of both quality and reputation. And that’s just fine.

Pan M 360: What’s missing right now to keep you going?

Kallisto: Places to play that are somewhere between bars where we pass the hat and the big official venues. That’s what’s missing in Montreal. Le Divan Orange was that kind of place where you could get paid, be professional and still be able to afford the venue, and take less risk of having an empty room when you’re less well known. There used to be other places like that, but there aren’t any left….

Pan M 360: Well, I hope you go straight to the next level and play at, like, Bourgie Hall!

Kallisto: That would be nice indeed… Thank you!

Photo credit : Nathalie Maynard

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual Sylis d’or de la musique du monde Made in Montréal competition. It’s a competition that’s become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Of the many bands that didn’t make it through to the final, we at PAN M 360 have picked out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. The context being what it is in competitions, the semi-finalists are all too easily and quickly forgotten.

Méduse is one of these groups that caught the attention of music lovers lucky enough to be at Club Balattou on 20 April 2023 in Montreal. A mix of music ranging from Latino to Balkan folk, with an exciting sprinkling of operatic vocal flights, Méduse’s product convinces everyone with the exceptional quality of its collective musicality and the technical finesse displayed by the individuals who form its essence. The group itself seems reluctant to give itself a precise definition: alternative world? International folk? Exotic song? Trad opera? A bit of everything, probably.

We were very impressed by the Méduse performance: Gabrielle Cloutier (vocals), Joshua Greenberg (guitar, banjo), Nicolas Lafortune (percussion), Nominoë Crawford (violin), Olivier Salazar (keyboard) and Blanche Méthé (tuba). So, we wanted to give them the visibility they deserve, in keeping with the high quality of the ensemble’s live performances.

Meet one of our favorites from the Sylis d’or 2023 semi-finals: Méduse.

PAN M 360: We’d like to give you the opportunity to be better known by a wider public, so let’s start at the beginning: how did the band come about?

Méduse: (Gabrielle) Josh started the project. We knew each other and he offered to let me sing and come up with melodies, or even write them, so that we could do something linked to the world of trad and acoustic jazz. We found lots of other members of the scene, which is a big gang but everyone knows everyone else. Most of us came through Saint-Lo (the Saint-Laurent CEGEP). It was during the pandemic, so we had a bit of time to put the thing together. But it happened very quickly. Within a few months, we were accepted for a residency project at Mont-Louis in Gaspésie (August 2022). We had to design a show and put it on that same evening! Just like that. That was the birth of Méduse.

PAN M 360: Méduse is a happy blend, a special mix of traditional, classical, jazz and lots of other things. How do you strike the right balance?

Méduse: Nominoë brings a lot of ideas and compositions from the violin. Then we add a bunch of parts inspired by our personal musical identities. My background is classical singing (I did a Master’s at McGill in early music and baroque), Josh has links with Turkish-Greek music, and European traditional music in general, Olivier comes from jazz, Blanche too, but with a classical foot, Nico is into Latin percussion… In short, it’s all that.

PAN M 360: It’s all that, but at the same time you have to tie all these influences together in a coherent and convincing way. Which is what I think you did at the Sylis d’or. Let’s talk about the Sylis. It’s a great showcase for you?

Méduse: Oh yes, absolutely! It’s a great asset to be able to have a bill there, even if it’s only for 2 or 3 concerts.

PAN M 360: There are so many good bands and artists in Montreal. The Sylis don’t give them all the chance to express themselves as often as they deserve. They just don’t have enough room. What else is there to support bands like yours? And conversely, what is missing?

Méduse: The CAM (Conseil des Arts de Montréal) on tour is very good. But again, there are a lot of applicants and places are limited, which is normal. What’s missing the most are intermediate venues to play. There are the small bars and there are the good, big venues. Nothing in between. There used to be the Divan Orange, but it’s closed. There’s nothing like it now. It’s a big void.

PAN M 360: You’re not the only ones to have told me that. I hope that someone (and even more than one) will take over. That said, it’s a tough niche and the income is meagre…. Are you satisfied with your performance?

Méduse: Yes, under the circumstances. I had two ear infections! But I don’t think it showed.

PAN M 360: I can confirm that

Méduse: Thank you! That’s the school of classical singing. No matter what you’re going through, it should never interfere with the music.

PAN M 360: How would you like to develop Méduse?

Méduse: We like the theatrical side of the music. My background in opera helps a bit, lol. I’d like us to develop the dramatic aspect of the songs even more. I’d say the ideal situation for Méduse would be to collaborate with dance, theatre and circus artists. In the 2nd album in preparation, there will be more singing and talking. I want to tell stories.

PAN M 360: Méduse… Why the name?

Méduse: It just came about. We had to come up with a name when we had to put on a show very quickly. We tried all sorts of things, but at one point, I can’t remember why, we were talking about jellyfish (which translates as méduse in French). They come in all sorts of shapes and colours. We thought it would fit. That’s about it.

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual Sylis d’or competition. It’s a competition that’s become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Of the many groups that didn’t make it through to the finals, we at PAN M 360 have picked out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. The context being what it is in competitions, the semi-finalists are too easily and quickly forgotten.

Cône Orange, is an ensemble firmly rooted in the city’s solid musical eclecticism. From jazz to funk, African music, hip hop, rock, punk, bossa and more, this is a well-crafted multi-style musical recipe that deserves to be experienced live, as was the case on 19 April 2023 at the Balattou club.

The band is made up of Simon Lindsay (drums), Enora Trebern (voice), Nikita Carelov (guitar), Francis Will (bass) and Julian Shively (piano).

PAN M 360: Cône Orange is a funny name that immediately conjures up images of Montreal (because there are lots of construction works in the city)…

Cône Orange: Yes, that’s deliberate. It’s a symbol. It makes us take detours and that’s a bit what we do in music with our mix of genres and styles.

PAN M 360: How did you get together?

Cône Orange: We all joined the band for different reasons. I (Eeno) had just arrived in Montreal, I was looking for people to jam with and thanks to a classified ad in a McGill network, I met Nikita. Francis joined us through an advert and then we started looking for a drummer with a jazz-funk profile, and Simon came along. It was through a series of unexpected detours that we all ended up on the same stage.

PAN M 360: It’s as if orange cones had taken you where you weren’t expecting, precisely… What are your musical references?

Cône Orange: It’s a bit all over the place, depending on which one of us is involved. Simon really likes the intersection of hip-hop and jazz like MF Doom or J Dilla. Herbie Hancock, from the Headhunters era, or the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Tower of Power are also inspirational sources for him. Then, on the more ‘classical’ side, Bossa nova is a favourite. Eeno finds herself listening to Lauren Hill, Nai Palm and Nina Simone, who she heard quite a lot of at home (her parents were quite jazz-minded). African music too. For Francis, we’re more into rock, punk and instrumental hip-hop. Jazz came later. We end up with music that’s well grounded in a solid jazz history, but very much accentuated by today’s sounds.

PAN M 360: What made you want to enter the Sylis d’or competition?

Cône Orange: We started playing together just for fun, doing covers, but we quickly evolved by adding compositions. That was around 2021-2022. At the end of 2022, we played at the Rimouski Jazz Festival, then came back to Montreal and played a few gigs here and there. That’s when we thought it would be worth doing the competition, which is a fixture on the Montreal scene, almost legendary as an event. It’s important and it’s a great way of getting our name out there. We thought we were ready and that we had what it took to take part.

PAN M 360: Even though you’re more jazz than ”world”… How would you sum up your experience? Was it a good medium for you?

Cône Orange: (Eeno) I have to admit I was surprised when Francis told us he’d submitted our application. But we’re really happy. It’s been a great experience. (Simon) Looking back, I realize that during the semi-finals, we had to remove a bossa piece, and in the end that may have worked against us. Especially as it’s the only ‘’world’’ style in our repertoire. Nevertheless, it’s an exceptional springboard, if only for the experience and the obligation to perform in a demanding and closely watched context, both by the public and the judges.

PAN M 360: How do you see your stylistic marriage? Are there any elements of your sound still to be defined? Is there anything that is definitively fixed?

Cône Orange: (Simon) On the spot, I’d say we’re already pretty unique, but of course, there are still things to refine. We’ll take the time to do that. It may still be a bit fragmented, but in truth, plurality is part of our identity. All these detours, as we used to say, it’s the orange cones that make us do them, and that’s good for us. What’s fixed is the culture of solo improv. It doesn’t matter whether we’re doing bossa, hip hop, pure jazz or rock, I think there will always be these improvised solos by the various members of the band, and that will always be a common thread.

PAN M 360: And if we want to see you soon?

Cône Orange: We’ll be at the Festival de rue Petite-Bourgogne on 15 July. We’ll also be at L’Esco (the Escogriffe bar on rue Saint-Denis in Montreal) on 27 July. A few other dates are in the pipeline, but there’s nothing official yet. We’re open to being booked! We want to play!

PAN M 360: I can confirm that it’s worth it. The proof is in this interview.

Cône Orange: Thank you!

Last April, Productions Nuits d’Afrique held the 16th edition of its annual world music competition, les Sylis d’or. It’s a competition that’s become a fixture on the city’s music scene. Of the many bands that didn’t make it through to the finals, we at PAN M 360 have picked out four that we’d like to make better known to the general public. The context being what it is in competitions, the semi-finalists are too easily and quickly forgotten.

The Latino scene in Montreal is becoming so rich and varied that one group has specialized in a very specific musical style: Son jarocho, a traditional music with an authentic local flavor, originating in the Mexican Veracruz region. El Balcon, as it’s called, is a typically Montreal areopagus of artists from just about everywhere, but united by a shared love of an art form. Perched high up on the first floor are Charles Cantin (vocals), Nominoë Crawford (violin), Valeria De Marre (vocals), Joshua Greenberg (guitar), Nicolas Lafortune (percussion) and Alexandre Marchand (bass).

But the metropolis being what it is, you may not be surprised to hear echoes of Balkan music, Middle Eastern influences and even Keb trad scattered throughout the group’s songs! Yes, a world-city like Montreal always ends up crossing paths with its roots and identity. In the end, that’s why we love it.

Meet one of our favorites from the Sylis d’or 2023 semi-finals, El Balcon.

PAN M 360: Hi everyone! Since we’re here to get to know you better, let’s start with the basics: where does El Balcon come from and how was the band formed?

El Balcon: It’s a question of chance that led to other chances. I met a Mexican percussionist passing through Montreal. We played together, then two other people he knew joined in, after which, one thing led to another and then another percussionist joined in, then Josh, who I already knew and with whom I played in another band that had just split up. All in all, a whole bunch of people from a wide network of traditional musics of various origins, but centered on the vision of Mexican music from Veracruz.

Pan M 360: Why this focus on a specific type of Mexican music, the Son jarocho?

El Balcon: Many of us have a strong connection with Mexico. Whether it’s because we’re looking to get back to the roots of our Latin cultural connections, to learn the typical instrument-making techniques of the region, simply out of musical interest or because it’s a country of origin (Valeria came to Quebec from Mexico and was looking for people to play her country’s music), Mexico is a common trait for several members of the band. Son jarocho is a very communal music in Mexico. You hear it at weddings, parties, christenings, etc., and in all the villages, which each have their own way of playing it. What’s more, we’ve added a personal dimension to the interpretations here: elements of Balkan music, which we really like! As we arrange the traditional pieces so as to hear other sounds in them, and our original compositions in the arocho style also incorporate this kind of peculiarity (for example, transforming a 6/8 in a ⅞, more typical of the Balkans), in the end, people listening can hardly tell which pieces are arranged standards, and which are new pieces of our own.

PAN M 360: So it’s a common core of traditional music?

El Balcon: Yes, we mix a lot of things, but the focal point is that it’s acoustic and traditional. Of course, Son jarocho is the style that takes up the most space. It’s in certain inflections, certain rhythms, certain harmonic deviations that, from time to time, people will perceive other influences. Let’s say it’s Son jarocho coloured by other influences here and there.

PAN M 360: What is it that unites the world’s diverse traditional music?

El Balcon: The community aspect, probably. From the outset, most of these forms of music have been the result of the mixing and intermingling of populations, even before they became factors in the identity of a particular community. Bagpipes are a good example. People say “it’s Scottish”, but in truth its origins are Persian! One day, through trade, travel and commerce, a guy from Scottland brought it home, told his friends “Yo listen to this, it’s cool!”, and then, for all sorts of reasons, they appropriated this instrument. Even Bach drew on everything from the Italian, French and Germanic music of his time to create a formidable synthesis.

PAN M 360: The principle of encounters takes on a new meaning with the global meeting points that are cosmopolitan world cities of the 21st century, ultra-multicultural cities like Montreal and many others, which allow and offer special conditions for the artistic expression of these crossroads?

El Balcon: Yes, it’s amazing the kind of possibilities that are opening up now. Of course, the web is part of it, but it’s more dynamic to play with flesh-and-blood human beings than through Zoom sessions. Which means that the very cosmopolitan nature of a city, as well as its appeal to artists (not all multicultural cities inspire so much creativity, either), allows for an unparalleled level of creative options.

PAN M 360: Let’s get back to Son arocho. What does this musical genre represent in Mexico? Is it pan-Mexican, or is it local to Veracruz?

El Balcon: It started out in Veracruz, but then spread all over the place. Over time, though, it became all sorts of other things elsewhere. But in Veracruz, they’ve kept it very authentic, even if that authenticity varies. Each village, each community can have ITS own style of son arocho, with its own particularities. Son arocho represents a communion of identity, even a spiritual one, for those who play or listen to it. It is ceremonial and accompanies gatherings. It’s also everyday music, played by everyone. We often see 95-year-olds accompanied by 4-5-year-olds! You can also see 2 to 150 people playing at the same time! Before radio, it was the music of ordinary people. But there was a long lull until the years 1990-2000. Then we saw a new generation reclaiming this music, collecting and cataloguing the traditional musical corpus before losing it. Now the boom is perceptible right here in Montreal, which has an already important and growing Mexican community. There are a number of Son arocho groups, and many fandangos (festive gatherings) are being organised all over the place. The Montreal scene is a lot of fun.

PAN M 360: Do you feel you’re the standard-bearers of Mexican culture in Quebec?

El Balcon: Well, we can lay claim to that, but we’re just as proud of the fact that we include Quebecois culture, rather than just Mexican. El Balcon’s role is to give big love. We want people to have fun.

PAN M 360: How would you sum up your experience at the Sylis?

El Balcon: We’re happy. We met some excellent bands, took part in one of Montreal’s most emblematic competitions and got ourselves seen and known a bit.

PAN M 360: Can we hear you soon?

El Balcon: We’ll be at the Nuits d’Afrique festival on 20 July. After that, we’ll be playing at various festivals and touring across Quebec (Gaspésie, Rimouski, Gaspé, etc.). We’ve also just recorded our 4th album, which should be out in November. We’ve also recorded a half-hour programme that will be broadcast on MATV (Only available in Quebec. You have to be a Videotron TV client to have access). If you’d like to find out more about the Montreal arocho scene, and find out the dates and venues of upcoming fandango events, you should definitely visit the Son Jarocho Montreal Facebook page.

Braxton Cook is no doubt one of this generation’s most exciting voices in the jazz world. Not only does he exhibit world-class virtuosity on the alto saxophone but he is also a uniquely talented vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and composer whose sound blends jazz, soul, and modern R&B. Braxton’s music is above all a celebration of his diverse musical background and of black artistry. We sat down with Braxton to discuss his upcoming performance and his ever-evolving journey as an artist.

PAN M 360: Braxton, what a pleasure. Thanks for taking the time. Are you in LA then?

Braxton: Yeah man, back home. We had a nice little Midwest, Canada, sort of run. We played in, let’s see, Chicago, the Tri-C festival in Cleveland and then Toronto. I only got back a couple of days ago.

PAN M 360: And you’ll be in Montreal soon enough. Is that for another touring leg?

Braxton: Actually it’s a one-off in Montreal and then we’re kind of chilling for a bit.

PAN M 360: I’m glad you’ll get to spend some time in Montreal. There’s nothing quite like it! Do you remember when you were here last?

Braxton: I think we’ll be around maybe for like three days or something. I’ve played the festival a few times with Christian Scott a few years back. You know it’s going to be so nice to be there and I remember it just being really beautiful.

PAN M 360: And it’s going to be your first time presenting as a leader in Montreal then?

Braxton: It is my first time with my band, exactly. So we’re very excited, and we’re gonna try and do our best, and hopefully people will enjoy it.

PAN M 360: You’re very humble Braxton. A lot of my friends are musicians and I know they really appreciate what you do. I’ve heard a lot of them play ‘No Doubt’ in fact. Do you know how much of an influence you are these days?

Braxton: That’s crazy to me, wow, really? That’s amazing. Once I did have some students at the Berklee College of Music reach out saying they wanted to get an ensemble of my music. And they were like, can I buy your sheet music? And that was wild. That was really cool and maybe that might have been the first inkling that like, there are some cats in the younger generation checking my music out. But I don’t know, every time I hear that, it’s amazing. It’s humbling and also nerve wracking that I’m just like, all right, I hope this music is good. But it’s a blessing brother, I ain’t gonna lie. Because, yeah, there have always been a lot of musicians that I’ve loved for their original music, even like contemporaries of mine. Obviously Christian, Marquise, Ambrose and all these cats. I’ve always wanted to contribute in my own way to the lexicon of just tunes and music that people like to listen to, so that’s incredible to me to be honest.

PAN M 360: Well your music seems to have evolved over the years and it really feels like you’ve come into your own as an artist, not just a saxophonist or sideman. So when people come to see Braxton Cook, what should they expect to hear?

Braxton: Really a bit of everything. I think for sure you’re going to walk away still feeling like this is very much a jazz band, you know, a band that is really communicating musically, right? I think you’re gonna still feel that. But I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t singing like, you know, five or six joints on the set. But every song still has a solo of some sort. And I feature really everyone in the group. So it’s like, you’re gonna get a lot of, obviously me and my performance in the music, but I think you’ll also really get to hear the band shine. Most of us went to Juilliard together, and they are all way better than me, and they are my good friends. So it’s really nice. Like, we push each other musically and as friends, and it’s been a ride.

As far as rep goes, you know we’ll still play classics like you said, we got to play ‘No Doubt’. I try and like craft the shows so that it’s depicting sort of the journey of my artistry, I guess. So there’s songs from each saga, like each record. They kind of just tell the story of my evolution musically, but also even in my relationship as well, you know, because I’ve got a lot of love songs. Chaya and I have been through a lot, from just being students together to getting engaged and married to like house and kids, you know what I’m saying? So it’s like all of that is in there and hopefully you kind of get a sense of that narrative right through the show, while speaking up on certain social and political injustices, you know.

PAN M 360: When I listened Who Are You When No One is Watching?, it really felt like the culmination of your life unto that point, you handled all the different musical threads and influences so gracefully.

Braxton: Thank you man. I’ve always loved someone like Roy Hargrove, who is a prime example of someone who lived in different soundworlds. He literally played on my favourite neo soul albums of all time and was in those spaces, you know what I’m saying, with D’Angelo and Erykah Badou and Rob and all those people. And then obviously also playing with Herbie and Michael Brecker and all these heavy modern jazz dudes. That’s a space I’ve always admired, that he could genuinely live in that, in those two worlds and meld them in an honest way. And I’m always inspired to do that, you know, in my own way. Yeah man, Roy’s a cat, and he could sing too.

PAN M 360: And you as well Braxton, I actually wasn’t expecting that! Maybe it’s a bit soon to ask but I’m curious if there are any new directions that you’re wanting to explore with your music and art.

Braxton: I definitely always wanted to realise my music in a larger way. So, you know, when it comes to strings or orchestral writing, I’ve always wanted to do something like that, even work with The Metropole Orkest or something like that just to hear this music outside of the quintet kind of setup. For the Good Morning America performance we had background singers, and even that was awesome. I’d like to add some more pieces out to the live show and to experiment a bit with the live experience as well.

PAN M 360: I’m sure we’re in for something special. It’s going to be two sets, so I wish you a restful journey! Thanks again Braxton.

Braxton: Ha thanks for reminding me. See you there!

Braxton Cook plays Pub la Traversée Molson Export – Place Tranquille on July 8 at 8pm & 10 pm

The seven-headed cross-cultural art-rock hydra are set to take the stage at Club Soda at 9 PM. I sat down with Serge, Maya, Etienne, and Yuki at their rehearsal to discuss their music and what is sure to be an epic performance.

PAN M 360: What an honour, thanks so much for having me here. How are the preparations going?

Etienne: Good! We’ve done some rehearsing today, and we got to break in the set at the Ottawa Jazz Festival last week. But this is a bit more pressure because it’s Montreal, you know, hometown.

Serge: Yeah it’s been going well, and the Ottawa show was good testing grounds for the material. Here in Montreal, the venue, Club Soda, is kind of a big place, so we’re hoping we get some people in. We’ve opened there before, and it’s definitely kind of exciting to be headlining there.

PAN M 360: And now you’ll have the Ghost Funk Orchestra opening for you?

Serge: That’s right. They’re from Brooklyn, but we met them in upstate New York, and had the chance to see them play. And when we saw them we were like, oh there’s trombone, there’s flute. It was like they were our doppelgänger band.

Etienne: But it’s different musically. They play more kind of funky, more like soul. We know they’re going to really warm up the crowd for us.

PAN M 360: I have to admit, I have yet to see you all in action but I know, from reading youtube comments really, that when you play you bring a tremendous amount of energy, especially you Maya.

Maya: It’s funny you say that, because it’s actually after the show that I feel I have the most energy. A lot of energy…I can’t sleep. After each show, I feel alive, I feel young again. So if I keep playing, I will keep getting younger! But it can be difficult touring, playing like that, every night.

Etienne: Especially for the voice, you know, it’s even harder than all of us, I think.

Maya: But me, I don’t drink alcohol at all. I don’t smoke. That’s a big plus.

Serge: And sleep is always the key.

Etienne: I do the smoking for her.

Yuki: Ha, and the drinking.

PAN M 360: There’s a lot of theatricality in your performances too Maya. Do you have a background in theatre, or are you inspired by Noh or something like that?

Maya: Actually I was doing theatre in Japan. And when I was in theatre university I got to know like a comedy version of Noh, called Kyogen. But Noh, my goodness, is very high, very traditional. Kyogen is like a light version between the Noh acts, but still a lot of concentration and intensity, and I love that, but I can’t say I was doing it. I love Butoh. Butoh is this dance movement that came about in the 70s. It was sort of a reaction to the traditional beauty of dance. It was more raw, they show like more of the body, of existence, of flesh, of blood, of soil. It’s more real.

PAN M 360: Wow, I can definitely see traces of that in your music. It’s so visceral. I remember watching a CBC interview with the band and one of the questions asked about your process as a band. You said you were heading to an izakaya to talk about it. Did you ever figure it out?

Serge: Yeah, big question. I know we went to the izakaya that night, but I don’t know if we talked about it, ha. But it’s something we talk about often. Well we have to because we’re seven people and so it’s a process that’s kind of crazy and always changing. I found with Hagata, we had more studio-time, and we went in the studio with the songs that were a bit less prepared.

And it was also that we had like two blocks of five days to record. And in between we had like a tour in Europe for three weeks, so we tried a lot of stuff there. We rented some spaces to work on the new stuff, basically for the second session.

Etienne: During that tour, yeah, we worked a lot.

Serge: We kind of had to because we booked the studio for those two sessions, one in June, one in August, and we just set our goal, we have to finish all our songs and that’s it. Also working with that producer, Daniel Schlett, was a big part of the process, and he was basically another member of the band.

PAN M 360: Well, necessity is the mother of invention. The logistics of a seven-piece must be hard to work with though, even just getting everyone together I imagine, but your sound is totally worth it.

Etienne: Sure but everybody is willing, and everybody is mature enough to understand what it is to be involved in this sort of project, all the time that needs to be invested.

Serge: That’s because we’re all in our late 30s and not in our early 20s anymore. So this is what we do, and this is what we love to do.

PAN M 360: TEKE::TEKE is such an original and frankly awesome group. We’d love the definitive origin story for the band.

Serge: Basically it was Etienne and I who came up with the idea. We were touring with Boogat, a rapper, and we were just hired guns on the gig. Ian, the drummer, was playing with us too. It was during a tour on the West Coast that we started listening to Takeshi Terauchi a lot, mostly in our van.

Etienne: Up and down Sunset Boulevard.

Serge: Yeah, yeah. It was the first time in my life that a guitarist really caught my attention.Like I do play the guitar, but I’m not really a guitarist you know, I play drums, I play a bit of everything maybe, I’m more interested in ideas and concepts than like learning my instrument, but when I heard his playing I wanted to learn how to play like that. Eventually we just thought it’d be nice to put together a little tribute band.

And that’s how it started. We played our first show in May of 2017 at the Distortion Psych Fest. And it was just instrumental covers. Maya was there, she had come to see the show, but the way we played his music was different. We weren’t trying to imitate his tone and everything. I learned a bit of his playing style, but, you know, we took certain liberties, we added the trombone and flute, and his music is mostly written for three guitars. So the sound that came out of that first show was like a kind of revelation to us, and I thought to myself it’d be nice to do more of that.

From there we kind of expanded the repertoire, to more Japanese music from the 60s and 70s and that’s when Maya joined in for a few songs, and then we started thinking about writing our own music as soon as we felt we had something there. We recorded our first EP, it has two covers on one side, and two originals on the other side, and then we went and recorded the first full-length album, which was in 2019.

PAN M 360: And you’ve been making waves since! Do you feel you have something of a fan base? The landscape has changed so much and it’s nice to see the band going strong.

Serge: Yeah, well a couple of days ago Maya and I played a DJ set as part of the festival. It was nice to see people come through to say hi and be with us, you know. So hopefully we’ll see a lot of them at the show.

Etienne: We seem to have some people listening to us everywhere. Whenever we tour, we seem to fill out the halls, and people will always love live music no matter what.

PAN M 360: Well I think part of the reason is that you have something really unique, and really good to offer. But I wonder, Japanese culture especially tends to be exoticised, do you feel like the music can be seen as a gimmick because of it?

Serge: Well perhaps in the beginning we might have felt like that, but after two albums you know it’s the real deal, and we have something real to say. At the same time I feel like there is something in our music that is actually familiar, at least to people here in Quebec. As someone who grew up here, we got a lot of anime from Japan that were translated to French, and the music, the soundtracks, it really stayed with me and people of my generation. There’s something nostalgic there.

Maya: And as for the lyrics, I can’t write poetry in English or French, so I do it in Japanese. I hope people will understand the meaning, so we try to have the translations on the website and the videos, but it’s only because of that I sing in Japanese. But at the same time, when I was in Japan, I listened to a lot of music in English and I didn’t understand much, but I liked the music and I listened. Also, when I went to London a long time ago, when I was young, I went to see the theatre, I couldn’t understand anything in what they said, but I really felt the feeling.

PAN M 360: Well I have to say I didn’t understand much with your music, but I absolutely felt it. Any plans for what’s next?

Serge: Well yes, but we actually can’t talk about it. But there is a kind of a big project. Very similar to an album, but different…

PAN M 360: That’s terribly suspenseful, but I can’t wait. Really looking forward to the show, have an absolute blast.

With just two albums to her name, a self-released homonym 2021 and Linger Awhile on the Verve label 2022, Samara Joy has won two Grammy statuettes: Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album. Her career was thus launched, and she triumphed on Sunday at Monument-National, before which PAN M 360 obtained a pleasant and instructive interview with the African-American revelation. The 23-year-old Bronx woman is loquacious, nuanced and highly intelligent. Read our conversation!

PAN M 360: At this young age, your approach is so classy ! The way you sing, the sound, the backing band (piano trio), all is so rooted in old jazz forms. How come ? Why do you love this so much ?

Samara Joy: Well, I think because of its acoustic nature, I find that it leaves a lot of room to make music together. I love big bands. I also love electronic music, and you know, the different effects that people can get and different instruments and love. I love all of that. But I think from my musical discovery, at least at the moment, I’m just having four musicians on stage and seeing what we can come up with together? On the spot. I love that.

PAN M 360: And you grew up learning that, as a classical singer, in a way, because the way you sing the repertoire you’re exploiting. And I suppose what you’re going to do in the next few years, is classical in some way. You could have been an opera singer, couldn’t you ?

Samara Joy: No… I don’t know if I could have been. It takes years and years and years of training, I think.

PAN M 360: But don’t you have a big training ?

Samara Joy: That’s true. But I don’t know if it was as rigorous as what opera singers go through. And on my side, I didn’t grow up listening to jazz, so I had around four years, four years to straighten up and, you know, learn everything I could learn. But it’s a lifetime thing. So… I don’t know ! (laughs)

PAN M 360: Before this happened, were you already singing in choirs or whatever ?

Samara Joy: I was singing a bit of everything in school. I was singing lead roles in musicals. And then I kind of took the lead in church to the way my church was kind of set up: we had a choir, but we also had maybe four or five singers up front, handling the main harmony parts. And I took over the lead after a while when I was like 15 or 16 years old. So I was singing in different opportunities offered to a teenager.

PAN M 360: Also as a child ?

Samara Joy: Not really as a child. I started when I was like 10 years old or something like that. And yeah, eventually I went to Purchase College, a state university, for jazz studies. It was my first real exposure to Sarah Vaughan and Duke Ellington.

PAN M 360: Obviously you have many affinities with Sarah Vaughan.

Samara Joy: Yeah, I mean, she was someone that I heavily listened to. I didn’t try to be like her but…

PAN M 360: But it’s your natural voice that fits with this style of singing!

Samara Joy: Yeah. So I don’t know, I just I spent a lot of time listening and absorbing the music so that I could sing it in the style.

PAN M 360: And don’t you fear to be perceived as a conservative mind ?

Samara Joy: Well, I just started ! I don’t, I don’t really fear being perceived as anything. I get that question a lot you know. But I love young musicians with a lot of background like Julius Rodriguez. I consider him a very open minded musician with a lot of background and a lot of different things. And he puts it together, in his own way.

PAN M 360: That’s the way classical musicians approach music too.

Samara Joy: I think that there’s only so much you can do to keep the tradition before you lose sight of. You know, what the musicians that we look up to did to contribute to the music? I don’t believe that their mindset was that we have to play music to keep tradition. I think they wanted to play music because they liked it ! And then as a result of liking it, they came up with stuff to play that was fun to them. compositions and playing styles and then out this, you know, outburst, this creativity and improvisational, and you know, techniques and stuff like that different, different generation different different. I don’t want to say phases, but just different levels of so vast in the short time that it’s even been created and made and played.

So yeah, I think it’s, I mean, if we try to force or put labels on people to like, you know, keep tradition keep tradition, and it’s not going to be fun to play anymore. And there’s no way that we can ever grow past a certain point without knowing what has already been created. It’s just, I mean, think of musicians like Duke Ellington or Benny Golson, or Max Roach, you know, they were so creative, so innovative.

PAN M 360: I must also ask you the Grammy question. Is it a big deal for you? How do you see it?
Samara Joy: I’m very grateful. And I still don’t really know how to feel about it. I think it’s amazing and kind of surreal. I don’t try to put pressure on myself to appeal to a mass audience for the sake of just you know, saving jazz or anything like that. Jazz doesn’t need saving, you know, I just want to contribute what I can and have fun with it.

Crédit photo : Benoît Rousseau

We love Gretchen Parlato for the very special tone of her voice, for her original phrasing, her pronunciation and her stylistic choices as a visionary jazz singer. Her association with New York’s finest musicians in the 2000s and 2010s has certainly not hindered the development of her unique style. We owe her 5 albums as a leader, and among her many record collaborations, 3 come from this close collaboration with Beninese super-guitarist Lionel Loueke, including the recent Lean In released on the Edition label. In all likelihood, the material from this recording will be at the heart of the duo’s new concert this Sunday at Le Gesù. PAN M 360 talks to the duo singer, who joined us on tour a few days before the Montreal stop.

PAN M 360 : Many things happened since our last conversation several years ago, because you found it a family and focussed on your motherhood for a while And now you’re back on the road with Lionel Loueke, with whom you’ve recorded your most recent album. So could you please present this excellent collaboration?

Gretchen Parlato : Yes and thank you! So Lionel and I will play a duo in Montreal. And we’re performing music from the latest album indeed. And also, you know, we’ve known each other for 22 years. So we have a lot of musical history and friendship and repertoire to share as well.

PAN M 360 : Lionel used to live in your neighborhood in Brooklyn,didn’t he?

Gretchen Parlato : He now lives in Luxembourg, because his wife is European. And I’m living in Los Angeles, so it’s really special that we can get together.

PAN N 360 : Interesting coincidence : I just interviewed Angelique Kidjo, who is from Benin as Lionel, and is one of the main figures of the festival Nuits d’Afrique.

Gretchen Parlato : Oh, that’s great! Yes. I think they know each other.

PAN M 360 : Yeah indeed, they know each other, they told me a few years ago. So you know Lionel for a long time, so how did you build this collaboration and artistic relationship ?

Gretchen Parlato : So we met at our audition for the Thelonious Monk Institute competition. And this was 22 years ago, in 2001. We played as an ensemble for a couple years, and then we realized we loved to play as a duo. So the project started in Los Angeles, we both moved to New York at the same time in 2003. And then it just continued to develop with him, he would be a member of my groups, I’d be a member of his groups and we always talked about focusing on a duo project. But you know, life just took its path and it took us this long so I think now it actually is very cool because we have 22 years of music and friendship and life experience to put into this music so it has an even deeper meaning and connection now.

PAN M 360 : And can we be a little more specific about the the music form that bring you together ?

Gretchen Parlato : We met as students and we just I think he’s so he’s so unique. He just blew me away for the very first time I heard him. And he continues to do so every time. So it’s very special. Every time I hear him, I feel like I’m hearing him again for the first time getting that same feeling. But I think, you know, he’s someone who’s so supportive, and I trust him so much. But he also, there’s so much challenge and so much risk taking. And it’s like, you’re, you’re flying, you know, when when, when singing with him and playing with him? Because you never know what will happen in a very good way. We have different backgrounds, but we have a similar approach and a similar desire, you know, of where we want to go and where we want to take the music. Yeah, that’s helped us connect.

PAN M 360 : There’s a very interesting place for improvisation, that means you’re on this territory called jazz.

Gretchen Parlato : I know, you’re right. It’s hard to even put a label on this music we do but it’s definitely in the jazz realm. We both come from the jazz genre, and then we can work however anyone wants to, you know, place it is fine. And yes, there’s a lot of improvisation. There’s a lot of, you know, never playing the song, the song exactly the same way. It’s like there’s, there’s a structure and a form. But within that we really have fun taking it to different places every time.

PAN M 360 : Would you have some guests in Montreal?

Gretchen Parlato : Sometimes my husband, Mark Guiliana, is able to come and sit with us un drums. It will depend on his agenda, I mean if it fits at the right moment.

PAN M 360 : Is it tough to both of you handle the family as traveling musicians?

Gretchen Parlato : It’s funny as you ask that because I have actually my nine year old son leaning on me with headphones watching a show. So I think he’s old enough to, to be self contained. My son can sit backstage and watch our set and just come up and sing a little bit with us at the end. So he’s a part of the music. And like I said, he also can kind of be on his own when he needs to, but it’s kind of really fun. I think Mark and I both are able to balance being parents and then being artists, and we’ve done that since our son was born. And it definitely was, you need a lot more help obviously, when you have a baby or toddler but now that he’s nine, it’s pretty cool. Because there’s a lot more that he can do and participate in. We’re having a good time. We take complete joy in the fact that we can travel together as a family.

PAN M 360 : It must have been a huge change in your life!

Gretchen Parlato : When I got pregnant, I didn’t know how I would feel about my lifestyle as a mother, but it was very clear to me that I wanted to do everything I could to focus on motherhood. That’s what I did and I’m so glad I did and, you know, now my son is nine so we’ve had all this time together and we’ve been able to balance it. Anyway, it’s a good thing that I’ve been able to take time off as a mother, it’s been a privilege. But I haven’t disappeared completely!

PAN M 360 : You’re originally from Los Angeles, and you moved back on the West Coast after all those years based in New York area. Why ?

Gretchen Parlato : I grew up in Los Angeles, and after I spent almost 20 years on the East Coast in New York and New Jersey. I always had a desire, you know, once it was time to kind of settle and become a mom that I would go back to Los Angeles and be in California and raise my son in the environment where I grew up. So I planted that seed, you know, with Mark, because he’s from New Jersey, which is very different. We were already on the East Coast, but after our son turned five, Mark was into the idea of moving to the West Coast. So I think everyone’s really happy and, and healthy. We’re doing well, it feels good to be back in California. But I love and miss New York, too. So we definitely get there a few times a year.

PAN M 360 : Other musicians moved back to the West Coast, guys like David Binney, for example.

Gretchen Parlato : Yeah. I think that that definitely helped Mark feel good about the decision knowing that a lot of his peers did the same thing. So there’s definitely a scene in LA and a whole community to be in touch with. So it’s, it feels good.

PAN M 360 : Also, are you actually running other projects?

Gretchen Parlato : I’d say for this moment, it is really the the main focus to kind of extend this duo longer. We have a little run now. I should say not more, but I also can play with my own quartet, and continue music that I did when I lived in NYC, kind of piano trio plus me. Mark and I also talk about doing something together. But at this point, the focus is the duo with Lionel. And then there are ideas of other things that are just ideas for now. And then another, like you said, some more in the fall, we’re looking into next year, you know, in the spring, and maybe beyond, we’ll see how long we can, you know, continue this.

PAN M 360 : Of course, Lionel also have a big agenda.

Gretchen Parlato : I just feel so grateful that Lionel has the time because as everyone knows, he’s very busy. He’s mostly with Herbie Hancock, and that’s kind of the greatest gig you could ever have. Lionel has been there for many years now. So far, we’ve been able to balance that out, so it’s, it’s great! I think gratitude is the main theme of my existence right now. Just be grateful for what we have. And then we’ll see what the next brings us.

PAN M 360 : Does this state of mind have an impact on your own singing?

Gretchen Parlato : The voice, it gets better, it gets deeper, it gets more mature, as we age emotionally and spiritually. It’s a one-way ticket to a higher or deeper level, if you prefer. It’s reflected in all the music we play, in every note we sing, in every word we say.