Interviews

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.

Anomalie is the emerging Quebec jazz project that is generating the most excitement among a new generation of jazzophiles world wide.

Led by Montreal keyboardist, composer and arranger Nicolas Dupuis, Anomalie takes on the likes of Snarky Puppy, Louis Cole, Ezra Collective, Domi & JD Beck and Kokoroko.A viral phenomenon on the web, Anomalie has built its audience without using traditional marketing processes, with old media lagging behind to showcase such an eloquent niche product.

Anomalie is a new fusion big band based on groove, chanson, soul/R&B, funk and hip-hop – in short, the kind of music that’s easy to get along with for anyone who loves the beat and the dance floor. This speaks volumes about the conquering, entrepreneurial and visionary instincts of its leader… which PAN M 360 invites you to discover in this conversation.

PAN M 360: So you’re part of this new movement of large ensembles based on groove and the most recent additions of pop music with jazz, hip hop and electronic affinities. We’re seeing a big response from the public, and there’s nothing artificial about that.

Nicolas Dupuis: It’s amazing sometimes, the impact you can have. Anomalie has grown a lot on the Internet. Most of the opportunities that have come our way have come from the web and social networks. So since the beginning of 2018, we’ve been touring a lot with our 4-musician onstage formula. And we’ve played venues of the same capacity wherever we’ve performed, whether here, in America, Europe or Asia. We’re still in a pretty niche musical bracket, but it’s catching on and it’s a lot of fun.

PAN M 360: Please ummarize the progression from start to now:

Nicolas Dupuis: The first EP, Métropole, was released in 2017. There was a first online buzz in the fall of 2018. We released a 2nd EP in 2018, then the Galerie album in 2022. Since then, things have continued to grow: bigger venues, better streaming, etc.

PAN M 360: Your DIY approach is reminiscent of Michael League and Snarky Puppy. In other words, a musical product that’s quite demanding but pop, and therefore nestled in relation to the mainstream, but which is making its mark on a market that’s nonetheless important on a global scale. Congrats!

Nicolas Dupuis: That’s right. And thank you!

PAN M 360: Obviously, there are very pop beacons in your music, which explains its immediate success, at least in part.

Nicolas Dupuis: Yes, it’s nested, but we use pop forms that are similar to song structures – chorus, verse, bridge. We don’t propose any great jazz-fusion adventures, but the harmonic and rhythmic material is akin to that same musical heritage.

PAN M 360: And that’s why it works, because people recognize the song form in this music, unconsciously or not.

Nicolas Dupuis: It can also be a trap (laughs).

PAN M 360: Today, it’s not. You’ll have time to elevate your proposal by adding longer instrumental passages and take your audience on a journey. And if it stays like that, it’ll run out of steam after 4 or 5 albums.

Nicolas Dupuis: You know, some artists have made their entire careers with instrumental songs.

PAN M 360: Yes, that’s true. What we’re talking about here is conceptual breathlessness. No one is obliged to change a formula that works. You can spend your whole career doing the same things.

Nicolas Dupuis: There’s a mix of vision, objectives and artistic things that emerge naturally. But there’s always exploration. For example, we built around the upright piano and the last project was more acoustic. In fact, I work on a bit of a project basis. The next project would be to record the big band in front of an audience. And then maybe a return to electronics. It sort of ebbs and flows. I intend to continue touring with the current team and take it as far as I can.

PAN M 360: What is your own musical background?

Nicolas Dupuis: Basically, it was classical piano. I spent a dozen years with an extraordinary teacher, Yolande Gaudreau. At the same time, I was exploring jazz and composition as a self-taught production artist. At first, it was in a rudimentary form, but it led to the sound I later developed. I did a DEC in jazz and jazz arranging with Lorraine Desmarais, after which Anomalie was in its infancy with various musicians and singers, and the first recording was made.

PAN M 360: Is the big band a special project compared to the quartet?

Nicolas Dupuis: Anomalie mainly expresses itself as a quartet. At Studio TD, the big band project took place last December, which led to new opportunities. We had previously played as a quartet at Club Soda.

PAN M 360: Which big bands inspired you to take this direction, beyond Louis Cole?

Nicolas Dupuis: The swing big bands, Count Basie’s in particular, influenced me, but also the more recent formations we’ve been talking about. I’ve tried to create a personal blend of music from the past and the present.

PAN M 360: And you’ve experienced this mix in front of an audience?

Nicolas Dupuis: Yes, except during the impossible times of the pandemic, we played regularly.

PAN M 360: How many times has the Anomalie big band played?

Nicolas Dupuis: Only once so far. This will be the 2nd! There are costs associated with such an operation. If it goes well, we’ll do it again, more and more, I hope.

PAN M 360: Are the musicians on Anomalie all from your generation?

Nicolas Dupuis: Mostly, but there are some younger than me and some older, in their thirties and beyond. But it’s mostly artists in their late thirties.

PAN M 360: How do you work?

Nicolas Dupuis: At first, it’s a very solitary process, and I become something of a hermit for a while. There’s no choice, because you have to compose and also produce, because production plays a very important role in the final result. It often starts with improvisations on piano or keyboards, then layers are added. Then you have to imagine the music to be played by four people on stage or in a large ensemble. So first there’s the solitary process and then the appreciation of the work accomplished through instrumentation, arrangements and production.

PAN M 360: You’re part of this wave of jazz pop where individual performances are less important than the collective sound – Ezra Collective, Kokoroko, Snarky Puppy and so on. You are too, aren’t you?

Nicolas Dupuis: Exactly.

PAN M 360: Of course, your professional guidance must help too!

Nicolas Dupuis: I first worked with an American manager for 5 years, then since last year, I’ve been with Regime Music Group, an American management company based on the West Coast. We’ve been working with this group for a year now.

PAN M 360: These are all elements that will help propel you much higher!

AT FIJM, ANOMALIE BIG BAND IS PERFORMING TONIGHT FROM 8 PM TO 9H30 PM ON SATURDAY, RIO TINTO STAGE

Since their debut in 2010, Moon Hooch has become an international phenomenon with their high-energy jazz dance music, primarliy with two saxophones and an impressive percussion backdrop. The band has grown in notoriety since their New York subway busking shows and have just released their seventh album, My Head & My Heart. We chatted quickly with them ahead of their FIJM performance.

PAN M 360: Do you guys still “borrow” traffic ones off the street? Montreal is full of them, so you’ll never be in short supply. 

Moon Hooch: Haha. We do indeed borrow them!

PAN M 360: When did that cone thing start? With the subway shows?

Moon Hooch: Wenzl started by using a cardboard tube to make the pitch lower. In Iowa, we lost the tube and he decided to try out a traffic cone, courtesy of Iowa City.

PAN M 360: You must have been hustling playing those subway shows, hours and hours a day?

Moon Hooch: We hustled all day and night. We’d come home at night to count the money and blow black gunk out of our nose from being underground for so long.

PAN M 360: Back then, did you think you’d ever become a touring band?

Moon Hooch: We had no intention other than to hustle and make bread. It turned into a beast of its own!

PAN M 360: Can you talk about the energy at a Moon Hooch show?

Moon Hooch: The energy at our show is backed by the strength of all the great ones who came before us. We call upon the spirit world to fuel us and lift the audience out of their corporeal forms into the never-ending river of love and inspiration we all subconsciously share. 

PAN M 360: Is there room to improv off the songs live? 

Moon Hooch: Our show has a lot of improv. We have structure, but just enough to support spontaneity. 

PAN M 360: Can you talk about playing your music live and the sort of heightened consciousness you experience with mainly instrumental dance music, as someone in the audience?

Moon Hooch: Instrumental music has a magical effect on the listener if done correctly. Because sound is a shared language, and everything is ultimately vibration, I believe we are all part of a cosmic piece of music called life. Instrumental music has the power to remind us of this.

PAN M 360: On top of your own music, you also make these saxophone rendition covers, the latest being “Barbie Girl”. It really feels like you’ll never run out of material. 

Moon Hooch: Haha! We like to have fun and mess around. It’s important not to take everything too serious! 

PAN M 360: The chemistry you guys have on stage is pretty infectious, can you talk about how it’s grown since day one?

Moon Hooch: We’ve been playing for almost 14 years together. The more we play, it’s like there’s a field of energy building around us, that supports us on our journey and in our music. 

PAN M 360: There are many instruments on the stage, saxophones, synths, clarinets, and electronic wind instruments, how do you manage it all?

Moon Hooch: We’ve been doing this a long time! It’s like riding a bike…you get used to it.

PAN M 360: Someone once told me that you guys were their gateway into jazz music. Even though I wouldn’t consider what you guys do to be completely jazz, what do you think of that?

Moon Hooch: I think that’s beautiful. Jazz is incredibly deep and powerful and without it, we wouldn’t be musicians. 

Moon Hooch plays FIJM at Gesu at 10:30pm

Pianist, drummer, and composer Julius Rodriguez, 24, is a raw talent magnified by very solid academic training. He was already showing off his talent before he was even a teenager, jamming with the pros at Small’s Club in New York. He got his training at Juilliard, no less, in jazz and classical, no less also! A contract with Verve and the release of his first album as a leader in 2022 (Let Sound Tell All) completed his gradual but inevitable arrival in the world of the jazz elite. A young man of discreet appearance, but burning with inner creativity and the desire to express it musically. 

On Saturday 1 July at 8 and 10 p.m. at Pub la Traversée Molson Export in Place Tranquille in Montreal’s Entertainment District (two free sets, then), Montreal audiences will be able to hear Julius Rodriguez in action for the first time in Canada as a feature and leader. Sit back and enjoy the magic of the Festival, which gives you access to this kind of high-calibre artistic offer, at the marquee’s expense!

PAN M 360: Hello Julius. It’s your first time in Montreal. What does it represent for you to be in this Jazz Fest lineup?

Julius Rodriguez: Well, it will be my first international (out of the US) performance as a leader, so it’s a big deal to me. And since it’s the first time as a leader, it’s another step also. I’m really looking forward to it.

PAN M 360: You started so young, so, even at 24 you’ve had time to mature quite a bit. Nevertheless, a few years ago, you said in an interview that you felt pressure to be “legit,” that you didn’t want people saying that you didn’t know jazz history or, on the other hand, didn’t push the music forward. Do you still feel that pressure?

Julius Rodriguez: Yeah, that pressure is definitely not there the way it was when I gave that interview. Like, you know, at that time, I was traveling with a lot of other musicians and playing other people’s music. So it’s, you know, it was a job per se, but now that I get to go and play my own music, that’s kind of the validation that the way I see the music heading is something that listeners also might start to agree with.

PAN M 360: You also said somewhere else that jazz is not the most mainstream type of music nowadays, so you have to get creative in the ways that you can reach people and grab attention. Have you found the way? Or are you still looking?

Julius Rodriguez: I wouldn’t say I have a particular formula or a way to do that. But I think the way one can find that is by being as true and as honest to the art as possible. Because when you do that, it’s this kind of undeniable proof. Even when you see people that are not as great as what they do, you can tell when they’re really feeling the music and making you feel that energy. So whether you enjoy it or not you’re gonna enjoy the performance because you know that they’re connected to what they’re doing in a very special way. So for me, I always try to be as honest as I can with the music. I think through that honesty, is how you’re able to connect with people, whether they know what you’re doing or not, or agree with it or not.

PAN M 360: You are very well-versed in both classical and jazz styles and techniques. And you are also a young man of your time, meaning that you also delve into hip-hop and soul, and then you bring all those things together. What is your composition process?

Julius Rodriguez: I guess it’s just a matter of improvisation and experimentation. I like to try and write melodies that I feel can be versatile. So I write a song, play it with, you know, some musicians who do more than the straight-ahead jazz stuff. And I’ll try and arrange that same song for a band that does more R&B kind of music, or if I have a musician that plays more rock-oriented stuff, I say how can you twist the song, you know, give you space to do what you do in your musical idiom. So it’s just a matter of, you know, trying to be adaptable to different situations. And that’s the way that the music, for me, ends up adapting to different types and styles because I’m just open to letting it be something else. 

Pan M 360: Do You feel it’s mandatory for today’s musicians to be steeped in all kinds of music and mix them up?

Julius Rodriguez: To an extent yes. Because even if you are looking at music that you don’t like or don’t want to play, I think you have to know what it is to know what not to do. It’s good to have an awareness of everything. Even if it’s not what you want to do.

PAN M 360: You have one recent new album (Let Sound Tell All), and only one EP before that. I guess you will play this stuff and probably new things as well in your two sets in Montreal?

Julius Rodriguez: There’s definitely gonna be some new music we’ve been working on. And you know, that’s a part of my process, putting the music into different venues and situations, to see how people deal with it. See how the audience reacts to it, to see how we feel playing in new spaces. 

PAN M 360: Has the pandemic had an impact on you, on your creative process?

Julius Rodriguez: It forced me to focus on music in a different way. And kind of rely more on myself than the people around me. Because before the pandemic, I was just trying to get into the studio as much as I could, which I still value by the way. But I didn’t realize how much time and attention to detail I wanted to be paying in the post-production part. So I started to pay more attention to the overall sound of the performance in the recording and find ways to expand the sonic palette in a way that I can actually do live, which is important. The recording is supposed to be different for me. 

PAN M 360: How much can we expect a new recording in the future? 

Julius Rodriguez: I am definitely working on new material. I’ve been doing so pretty much all year. I have a lot of time on the road. Maybe hopefully at some point next year, we’ll see. 

PAN M 360: At some point in the first years, you said elsewhere, you felt intimidated by other well-established players around you. Was there a point where you realized that you owned your space, that you were, at this point, one of their peers?

Julius Rodriguez: I think the first time I met musicians from elsewhere in the US. That also was the time I started my academic music program. There I was like, okay, there are other people that are as serious about the music as I am. And you know, they sound even better than me. So I have somewhere to go with this. It just inspired me to take it all and start reaching for the next step to make this my purpose and my profession. But in reality, it didn’t come to me at one point really. It was more of a gradual blossoming.

PAN M 360: Another aspect of you that is unique is the fact that you play both the piano AND the drums! You often say that each instrument and its technique informs the way you play the other. Which instrument do you play most often, and how do you choose, in each instance, which you’re gonna play in a particular piece?

Julius Rodriguez: These days, I play more piano. It’s not that much of a choice, it’s just happening. And I don’t know if there’s a way that I choose what to play at which time. Maybe if it’s like the instrument that I composed the piece with. Like, the song Two Way Street on the album, I composed the beginning of the drums. So then I played drums on it. It just comes naturally. You just feel it. But it’s often just depending on where I compose the piece from because often when I compose a piece from a specific instrument, I’m gravitating towards that particular part. 

PAN M 360: You’ve studied both classical and jazz. How do you see the place of these two rich musical styles interacting in the 21st century?

Julius Rodriguez: Obviously, classical harmony is always influencing jazz and modern jazz. On the other side, I feel like, these days, a lot more classical music is incorporating elements that were invented and coined through the avant-garde jazz and free jazz. It’s coming from that same place and it’s kind of morphing to be the same thing but each part influencing the other. It’s good.

Pan M 360: Would you consider writing something more thorough-composed in a more modern classical style?

Julius Rodriguez: Yes, I’ve already started doing it in a sense. On the Deluxe version of Let Sound Tell All, there’s a song called Dora’s Lullaby, and it’s mostly thoroughly composed. I have some more songs that are that way that we’re working on for the next record, too. We’ll probably play some at the festival. So, yeah, I will certainly do it more often in the future.

Pan M 360: Julius, it was such a great pleasure talking with you. I can’t wait to hear you Saturday night!

JULIUS RODRIGUEZ PLAYS THIS SATURDAY AT FIJM, PUB LA TRAVERSÉE MOLSON EXPORT, 20H ET 21H

A highly-sought after performer on the festival circuit, pianist Emmet Cohen is considered a contemporary master of swing music. With his ‘Live at Emmet’s Place’ series on Youtube, he gave himself and jazz music considerable exposure,  and has been dazzling audiences both online and in person for years. 

PAN M 360: Hey Emmet, great to speak with you. Where are you tuning in from?

Emmet: Victoria, BC.  You happened to catch me at a time where we’re either flying or driving every single day now. 

PAN M 360: So you’re doing a little Canadian circuit then?

Emmet: Yeah, yeah. We started in Seattle, we took the ferry today to Victoria, and we play Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary, and then Montreal. From there we are headed to Europe. 

PAN M 360: Just curious but do you notice any differences between Canadian and American audiences at all?

Emmet: Well they say ‘eh’ a lot more. Just kidding. You know, I think I was actually in Canada last week too. We played Winnipeg, Regina and Minneapolis in the United States. But I mean, my general feeling is that audiences are the same who come out to hear this music. They’re good, warm people who want to see positive things for the world and want to see the world be a better place and care about other human beings. Jazz is about community. It’s about looking around and saying, how can I do something for the people around me? And that’s what it means to be an accompanist. That’s what it means to play in a group together.


PAN M 360: Your house concerts were a big part in creating that sense of community, both physically, and virtually. When you started those shows was that a kind of statement of intent on your part, or were you just doing what you love to do and everything fell into place naturally?

Emmet Cohen:  I think there was a confluence of some different things. We live in Harlem, and there’s a history of Harlem rent parties that date back at least a 100 years into the roaring 20s of last century, and here we are in the roaring 20s of this century! There’s such a concentration of musicians in that area, and I’ve been playing with a lot of them for almost 10 years at that point, you know playing different gigs, different jam sessions, and just hanging out. When the pandemic started, we had a lot of collaborations, especially the trio,with so many of the great musicians that lived nearby. So I think that was the first thing that we noticed. And so then when we started doing it, it was just us, but then after about 10, 12 weeks, we started to get guests and it became more kind of like, you know, let’s do this thing for the community.

Now it’s cool because I can have jazz masters there, or older musicians, and then kind of celebrate them, or I can have younger musicians who maybe people don’t know about, and the exposure on the show can help them. And so, you know, it’s taken a very, very many twists and turns. But I think, you know, the underlying thing is that we’re just trying to have a good time and share the music and share a little piece of New York with the world.

PAN M 360: I’m so glad you started that series. I would say those concerts have a lot to do with bringing jazz and swing back into the mainstream again, especially with the younger generation, have you noticed that yourself?

Emmet: I think it’s always a bit cyclical, you know, Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy a number of years ago for her album, or for Best New Artist or something like that. And then it kind of paved the way for Jon Batiste to win all the Grammys that he won, which paved the way for Samara Joy to win.  And, you know, I mention the Grammys because those are associated with pop culture. I think I have noticed a resurgence in younger musicians wanting to swing, and I think maybe we had something to do with that, but, you know, we just show the joy in the music and people relate to it and that’s the way it is.

PAN M 360: The joy you play with is contagious, and you make it look so easy. Last night I saw Brad Mehldau, and I was wondering, at this level, what is the work that you do on the piano? 

Emmet: You know, it’s funny, I admire Brad too, and he always says Bach in the morning. Really though, I think that it’s all about time management at this point. When you’re on tour, half of your life, you know, I’m in a hotel room speaking to you now, there’s no piano around here. It’s harder for me to get a chance to work on stuff but I like to do other things like read, do yoga. I like to play chess, and even just listen to music. But I think composition is a big one, so when I do have some time I spend it writing some music or maybe putting some things together, arranging, or learning other people’s music. I know we did a lot of those Emmet’s places and some people would send me music and I’d have to get working on that for the show. I think that learning songs is one of the main parts of the folklore of music. Seeing how many songs can you play without the sheet music in front of you, and to get into the music and just jam. That’s a big thing for me.

PAN M 360: Perhaps you could tell us more about what we can expect in Montreal, maybe a little bit about the repertoire?

Emmet: Yeah sure, we’ll be playing trio. We have a vast repertoire and kind of suss out what the vibe is before we play. We like to be free and to get some original stuff in there. We have some arrangements. We like to play some stuff from the 1920s and kind of bring it alive at this time, you know, kind of the Harlem stuff. We try to do the best we can in communicating our feelings to the audience that’s there and creating some feeling of joy and hope and happiness and prosperity. That’s what the music’s about, it’s about spirit and energy.

PAN M 360: Really looking forward to it, Emmet. Thanks again and all the best. 

Emmet: My pleasure!

Love in Exile is a great recording project led by singer/producer Arooj Aftab, keyboardist and improviser Vijay Iyer and bassist/ producer Shahzad Ismaily, all based in the New York area. This collaboration excistes PAN M 360 music lovers because this project brings together artists from different horizons who share Indian or Pakistani origins. Inevitably, their cultural heritage leads us to improvisations tinged with the colors of southern Asia, but which are also part of an open musical language that takes shape in the West, more specifically in the USA. The meditative character of this recent album is not its only vector, warn the three artists interviewed in their dressing room at the Monument National, shortly before taking to the stage.

PAN M 360 : So this is a trio project, within each member has an equal importance?  Everyone is contributing to the same goal? So can you comment about this teamwork? How is it built? What motivated it?

Vijay Iyer : I think the best way to put it is that we had a chance to play together five years ago, spontaneously. And we immediately had a feeling that it was something with continuing. I think that’s how the best bands start with a feeling like, Oh, this feels like something. It wasn’t anything more than that. But also, it wasn’t anything less than.

Arooj Aftab : I agree. Yeah, it was, it felt special in a way that we wanted to do it again, because, you know, you can throw together special bands for different occasions, you know, like collaborative presentations, and then you may not, you’d like and say, Okay, that was really wonderful. But like, we’re not going to do it again. But we did it again. And then it felt again, amazing. And we did it a third time. And it felt again, like, like so strong.

PAN M 360 : We can’t say it’s a sort of a instrumental ambient, it would be reductive and simplistic. And at the same time, it’s cool and soft. Sometimes there are some elements of intensity, but most of the time, we are close to meditation. Well your explanations will be much better!

Shahzad Ismaily : Well, one thing I’ll say about that : sometimes, not always, but sometimes if I feel like a few pieces have evolved to be quite still, I may decide to pick up the bass and let the next piece be active or let the next piece start with a baseline that, for lack of a better word might be a little bit like funky or rhythmic or from a different space.  So in that sense, I think truly, the music could go many other places, though it does often land in a kind of, like a glacial sort of deeply considering heart space. Sometimes he did, it’s open to other kinds of things. Yeah, for example, we played last night in Ottawa. And there was one piece that featured kind of an anarchic, chaotic sounds from Vijay and I and Arooj singing through the center of that. So that  also had a very much non meditative, like,  non peaceful kind of space.

Vijay Iyer : A friend of mine who I spoke to me after the concert, she said that she was with a friend of hers. And this friend said, Well, if these musicians are trying to evoke a lot of different feelings, it was successful. So It’s not only about  ecstasy and pleasure, you know, or stasis, it’s not only that. There’s often tension also. So it’s sort of about the tension and kind of finding its own way towards resolution. Then we talk about tension and release. This is like that on the scale of like, the timescale of how we breathe or how we have feelings in marriage and receive that. Yeah but it’s still basically a similar principle. We might start somewhere that has a question. And then we find an answer to it. 

PAN M 360 : About cultural references in this music: of course it would be reductive and simplistic to perceive this music as an modern update of South Asian or Oriental traditions. That wouldn’t be relevant.

Shahzad Ismaily : It’s helpful to hear you articulate that, because we often come up to either journalists or, or even just a listener, or fan after show, who don’t have the delicacy to really see that or even begin that way. Because what’s interesting is, after you said that, then it allows us to go further into it instead of starting at that beginning place.

PAN M 360 :  Yeah each of us have some history of our music ancestors, it’s impossible to avoid that. But at the same time, this is not the point. It happens through us. Let’s take the example of Arooj. Some traditional stuff is there, but Arooj is doing contemporary and universal music.  

Arooj Aftab : Yeah, I mean, I get to explore the many influences of mine, that lead me to sing the way that I do. And I get to explore singing, I get to explore voice as an instrument with this group, which is something that is quite difficult to do. And I don’t think that the code is quite cracked yet. And so it’s really, really nice for me to explore that in every show. And to really, you know, unapologetically go into my Sade, into my Mariah, into my  Ella, into my inner strength, etc. throughout the concert. So it’s really showing off a lot of range, you know, vocally which I don’t do in my solo project. I am more of a producer. I’m more of an equalitarian focused on music. And the singing is not so virtuosic.

PAN M 360 : Yeah, we can say that you are more into production creativity than technical performance.

Arooj Aftab : Yeah, the emotions are all very… Like, sometimes it’s just sort of fun and goofy, as well, when we’re playing. So yes, it’s a beautiful project that has a lot of different colors inside of it.

PAN M 360 : And there is also a difference between each performance  of this trio and also what can happen with it in the studio.

Vijay Iyer : Yeah, we basically every time that we’ve performed together or recorded together, we approach it the same way, which is we start from nothing. And we just start building all together from whatever elements are offered by each of us. And so it kind of every, every piece emerges from that process. And we don’t hold on to and say, Let’s do that one again.

PAN M 360 : So there is no setlist planned before a concert.

Vijay Iyer :  Yeah, there’s no repertoire, I would say. And so it’s more that there are elements or ingredients or processes that have become now more and more familiar. We’ve done it a few times. . Yeah. So I think the other thing is that process gives us a chance to sort of channel together. We like to tap into whatever reveals itself, and whatever comes through us, you know, but then in the course of that, we’re sort of figuring out what it is that we can do together. So these different these different possibilities kind of reveal themselves as best we coalesce around a new way of doing something together.

PAN M 360 : Yeah. And your playing is quite different from what you do in your own ensembles, you know, it’s not, it’s not based on, you know, high virtuosity or complicated constructions. It’s, you know, it’s about being at the moment very, very present and reacting. Am I right?

Vijay Iyer : Well, I like to think that everything I do is like that sense of like, being in the present. Yeah. But, I would also say that there are different kinds of so-called fair to assume that’s true. And I feel like there’s a virtual stupid listening going on in this group. Yeah, that was pretty special. Yeah. So that’s kind of that’s, I think, why we keep doing it because of

that. 

PAN M 360 : Yeah, sometimes being calm and simple is much harder than the very complicated and technically high. Both are important, but you have to master both. Thank you so much.

AROOJ AFTAB , VIJAY IYER AND SHAHZAD ISMAILY PERFORMED AT MONUMENT NATIONAL ON THURSDAY JUNE 29th.

This year’s Festival International de Jazz de Montréal sees pianist extraordinaire Hiromi Uehara returning to the festival after six years. We spoke to Hiromi from New York City about her upcoming show with PUBLIquartet.

PAN M 360: Hi Hiromi, thanks for taking time. I noticed this year you will be playing with a string quartet, could you tell us a little more about the show? 

Hiromi: Yeah sure. This is a project that I made an album with in 2020, but it was released in 2021. Of course when everything stopped during the pandemic, when I had to be at home for many, many weeks like everyone else, I started to think about what I could do under the circumstances. At the time I was living in Tokyo and of course no one was flying in to play anymore. There is a club called Blue Note Tokyo, and every show they had booked was all of a sudden cancelled, and since I’m close to them, I told them that I could help out and fill those dates. I think I must have ended up performing 111 shows or something like that and I called the series ‘Save Live Music’. During that time I began to think of something new that I could do, and I thought about working with a string quartet. 

I had played a couple of times with the Tokyo Philharmonic and I knew some amazing classical players from there. And, you know, I always had this passion to write for strings, I love the sound of strings, and so I started to write about this emotional journey through the pandemic. We performed one show and it turned out really well and I wanted to record it, so I did, and it was released in 2021. It’s called Silver Lining Suite.

When things began to open up again, I started a tour in Europe with a European quintet, and here in the States, there is an American quintet called PUBLIquartet. So I had three different international string quartets to work with over this period and this year the PUBLIquartet is the one that I’ll be playing with. They are based in New York, such an amazing, inspiring quartet.

PAN M 360: Sounds like it’s going to be a special show then!

Hiromi: Yes and it’s always amazing to play Montreal.

PAN M 360: When was the last time you were here? Was it for Spark with Anthony Jackson and Simon Phillips?

Hiromi: Actually it was 2017 with Edmar Castañeda , the harpist. In fact we made a live album out of that performance. It’s called Live in Montreal.

PAN M 360: This year will be a really interesting festival because it seems to be a really interesting time for ‘jazz’ music. We seem to be losing masters but at the same time a whole new generation is ready to fill their shoes. 

Hiromi: Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure if it’s necessarily ‘jazz’, but there definitely is like this new interest in improvisational music with many different elements. I see, you know, younger generations really enjoy playing this new style and they are reaching a high level. I think it’s beautiful.

PAN M 360: Was the score for Blue Giant your last work? With anime too, there seems to be a lot of interest in jazz, with shows like Sakamichi no Apollon and Cowboy Bebop.

Hiromi: Yeah that’s true. Manga, the animation, you know is huge in Japan. And the original cartoon, which was based on this feature film Blue Giant, was very popular among all generations really. And with this movie, I see that a younger generation have started to watch it and really get into it and the soundtrack. It seems to be a great outlet for them to be able to know this music and get inspired. It was really a great opportunity for me to be able to score for this. 

PAN M 360: I’d love to see a performance of that sometime. Thanks so much Hiromi. See you soon!

Hiromi: Thank you. 

For several months now, Banx & Ranx, a super duo of Montreal producers, songwriters and remixers Zacharie “Soké” Raymond and Yannick “KNY Factory” Rastogi, have been making a name for themselves. After many years working behind the scenes for renowned artists such as Dua Lipa, Sean Paul and J Balvin, they now find themselves at the forefront of releasing their own music, notably through their record and publishing company 31 East. PAN M 360 caught up with the pair at Planet Studios to discuss their new reality, their recent track The Birds with Zach Zoya and much more!

For the record, Yannick Rastogi was born in Paris and moved to Montreal several years ago, while Zacharie Raymond was born in Gatineau. From an early age, they began posting tracks on the SoundCloud platform. It was in this way that they spotted each other and decided to get in touch. After several meetings and countless recording sessions, Banx & Ranx was born in 2014. Since then, the tandem has enjoyed a string of successes with numerous international artists.

They recently set up their own record label, 31 East, with the aim of showcasing home-grown talent to the four corners of the globe. Since then, the two artists have been gaining in visibility and are increasingly at the forefront. Winner of the Juno Revelation of the Year in 2023, Banx & Ranx also received their first GRAMMY nomination in 2023 for their contribution to the production of Sean Paul’s 8th studio album. Needless to say, the pair have enjoyed a meteoric rise over the past year, with hits such as Flowers Need Rain with Preston Pablo and Headphones with Rêve, two tracks produced with artists signed to 31 East.

In early June, Banx & Ranx returned to the fray with The Birds, a collaboration with Quebec’s Zach Zoya in keeping with its primary aim of promoting local artists. At the confluence of pop, electro, reggae and funk, this track is just in time for summer, and is likely to get plenty of radio play over the coming weeks. What better way to kick off the summer!

PAN M 360: Over the past few months, you’ve been increasingly in the public eye, and the Banx & Ranx name has been gaining in visibility. After so many years in the shadows, how do you feel about this new reality?

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: It’s really cool. We didn’t really chase this visibility, but when the opportunity presented itself to us, we were definitely open. We’re studio guys, and that’s where we’ve been comfortable for a number of years. So it’s a challenge and a learning curve to do more live performances and show ourselves off more. It’s a great pleasure for people to know more about our work. Our “artist” project helps promote the songs we do behind the scenes for others. It also allows us to promote the talent signed with our 31 East label.

PAN M 360: Tell me more about what this visibility allows you to accomplish?

YANNICK RASTOGI: On the live front, it allows us to do more and more shows. So we have more and more opportunities to showcase our music and attract new fans. We’ve been in the shadows for a number of years, and it’s important to win over new listeners. In the past, we’ve had the opportunity to compose for several international artists. We’re very proud of that, of course, but it was always behind the scenes. This new visibility allows us to showcase our personalities in a new way.

PAN M 360: What would the ultimate goal be? Is it possible to reach it?

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: I don’t think we ever get there. We often say that we base ourselves on the model of Sweden’s Max Martin, or even DJ Snake, whom we respect enormously. The career models of these two men are very inspiring for us. We want to reach an international level and become a kind of reference in music. We’d love to see Banx & Ranx type beats on YouTube one day!

YANNICK RASTOGI: I couldn’t agree more. The Neptunes, Timbaland and Diplo are also good examples of what we want to achieve. These artists have all left their mark on the music industry, and that’s kind of our ultimate goal.

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: If we ever get to that level, we’d also like to take young directors under our wing and train them. We’d almost like to create a school of thought for music creators.

YANNICK RASTOGI: We’d like to be able to show young people that it’s possible to start out by creating in your own bedroom, and make it to the highest level. All it takes is determination and perseverance.

PAN M 360: What would the ultimate goal be? Is it possible to reach it?

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: I don’t think we ever get there. We often say that we base ourselves on the model of Sweden’s Max Martin, or even DJ Snake, whom we respect enormously. The career models of these two men are very inspiring for us. We want to reach an international level and become a kind of reference in music. We’d love to see Banx & Ranx type beats on YouTube one day!

YANNICK RASTOGI: I couldn’t agree more. The Neptunes, Timbaland and Diplo are also good examples of what we want to achieve. These artists have all left their mark on the music industry, and that’s kind of our ultimate goal.

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: If we ever get to that level, we’d also like to take young directors under our wing and train them. We’d almost like to create a school of thought for music creators.

YANNICK RASTOGI: We’d like to be able to show young people that it’s possible to start out by creating in your own bedroom, and make it to the highest level. All it takes is determination and perseverance.

PAN M 360: You recently released The Birds, a track with Quebec’s Zach Zoya. How did this collaboration come about?

YANNICK RASTOGI: The beginning of this track goes back to 2018 when we were in the studio in London. Zacharie came up with the idea of a track called The Birds, intended to represent the moment when you come home after a big night out until the sun comes up and you hear the birds singing. It’s a certain return to reality and, in a way, the big slap in the face that hurts at five or six in the morning.

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: We had this track lying around, and we submitted it to several artists in the hope that they would like the song and decide to record and release it. We even showed it to Maroon 5’s artistic director in Los Angeles. At one point, our A&R at Universel told us we should keep the song to ourselves. At first, we weren’t convinced, but that’s what we did. We modified and remixed the track into reggae and funk, because we like to explore and mix musical genres.

At the time, we didn’t have an artist to sing it, and we only had Ian James, who is one of the songwriters. We said it didn’t matter and we’d release it as is, without crediting Ian, because he didn’t want to be credited. He’s more of a songwriter, so he didn’t want to be credited. We almost opted for that option, but we had a certain amount of doubt in our heads. We thought it would be nice to have an artist to help us promote the track and perform it live.

That’s when Zach Zoya was suggested. He’s been a friend for a few years and we’ve worked with him on a few projects. The match was perfect for The Birds. We’re super happy to be able to share this track with a local artist, and it’s obviously in line with the mission of our record label 31 East. Zach did an incredible job and took the song to another level.

PAN M 360: You mention that this latest release is part of your mission with your record label. Tell me more about this quest you’re on.

YANNICK RASTOGI: Our manager always told us that the day we found our own artists and developed them, that’s when we’d make our mark on the music world. It’s a dream we’ve had for a long time, and that’s why we embarked on the 31 East adventure. We started by signing JujuBoy, then Rêve and Preston Pablo. JujuBoy is out of Canada, but the goal is to bring him here soon.

Over the last few years, we’ve been lucky enough to travel the world and gain a lot of experience in writing, structure, production and mixing. In short, everything that goes into making a track. For us, it was time to come back here and make it from Montreal to the world. The aim is to make music from Montreal, Quebec and Canada for the rest of the world.

Take Preston Pablo, for example. He’s from Ontario, but Montreal is sort of his second home. He loves it here, and is even thinking of moving there in the future. He often comes to Montreal, and that’s when we create. We try as much as possible to use Quebec resources, but we don’t stop ourselves from looking elsewhere if necessary.

We want to show Quebec that collaboration is extremely important in music. Quebec is teeming with creators, and they’re connecting more and more. Different scenes are collaborating more and more, and that’s the future. You can see it at the Francos in a show like Loud’s, where he plays a song with Charlotte Cardin and a little later you have Muzion on stage. There’s a superb fusion of genres going on.

We want to amplify this movement as much as possible and show that international connections with Quebec are feasible.

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: There’s a certain formula that you find in the United States or England, for example, that optimizes musical quality at every stage of creation, and that you don’t necessarily find in Quebec. In Quebec, it’s a closed market because of our particular brand of French. We like to defend the French language, and that has a lot of positive sides, but sometimes it can close doors internationally. So we like to mix cultures to optimize results.

YANNICK RASTOGI: I’d say that’s exactly the Banx & Ranx effect. It’s about mixing cultures and making them our own. If someone asked me what dish would identify me the most, I’d say butter chicken poutine. We’re all in favor of mixing cultures to broaden Quebec’s musical landscape.

PAN M 360: Your many years in the music industry have enabled you to observe the way things are done in several countries. Is there something we’re missing in Quebec in order to shine more brightly musically? If so, what is it?

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: I think we have everything in place to excel. We already have a lot of subsidies that remove financial barriers, so we don’t really have any excuses. I think we simply have to collaborate more. You have to get out of Quebec and come back with a baggage of different experiences. Also, setting up more writing camps would help a lot.

YANNICK RASTOGI: The more collaborations there are with other cultures, the more the level of music in Quebec will improve. It’s a collaborative effort. If there’s one piece of advice we can give Quebecers, it’s that we shouldn’t keep the “bread” to ourselves, we should share it so that it can grow and improve.

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: Don’t be afraid to ask for help too. There are a lot of artists who are songwriters, but sometimes it’s fun to get out of your comfort zone and have one or even two writers in the room to help you. It allows you to discuss things and say, “Ah, maybe if you said it like that, it would be even better. Or your chorus, it’s good, but I’ve got a better idea”. Often, it’s details like that that make a song more successful.

YANNICK RASTOGI: Then the biggest writers we’ve worked with in the world, for the most part, I’d say 95% of the time, do this. In other words, they could write solo, but they’ll end up with four or five people writing a piece. It’s a collaborative atmosphere, and everyone comes up with ideas. They’re not even attached to what he’s creating, and do everything for the good of the song. That’s something we push everyone to explore.

PAN M 360: Last time we spoke, you mentioned your dream of creating a Banx & Ranx album. How far along are you?

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: We’re getting closer and we talk about it a lot. We’d really like to make an album that’s closer to what we do live. Something more energetic, more electronic and less pop. Of course, there are going to be some pop tracks, but we’d like to have a different proposition around that. It’s going to be a pop and electronic music album that really reflects us. Maybe we’ll do two projects as well. One that’s more pop and one that’s really festival. We don’t know yet.

YANNICK RASTOGI: We talk about it every day. It would also be interesting to apply the concept of yin and yang. Even then, we may have just come up with another idea. We don’t like to put up barriers. I think the moment we both look at each other and say “We got it”, it’ll be time to release the album. We don’t have a specific date or time yet, but we’d like it to be in 2024.

PAN M 360: Finally, let’s talk about your summer 2023. You’ll be at the Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival at the end of August. How are your next few months shaping up?

YANNICK RASTOGI: We’ll also be at the Festival d’été Québec on July 7. We also have dates in British Columbia and Quebec. It’s mostly early July and August. We must have seven or eight shows confirmed and more to come. We’re very excited and looking forward to this summer.

ZACHARIE RAYMOND: On top of that, there’s definitely going to be a lot of creative work on the menu, either with our artists or for other projects we’re working on. We’re also going back to London, because we’ve been there for a long time. We may also go to South Korea in July. We’ve had an invitation, but nothing’s been confirmed yet. It’s going to be an incredible summer.

This month, Montreal garage-punk champions Priors offered the world their fourth full-length, Daffodil, via local psych-rock specialist label Mothland. An album that showcases the quintet’s ability to blend neo-psychedelia with short and sharp-edged punk bangers. I had the pleasure to discuss with Priors’ main man, Chance Hutchison, the band’s past, present, and future ahead of their upcoming album launch show.

Pan M 360: Daffodil is your first album on Mothland, how did this collaboration come about?

CH: I’ve been friends with JP (Jean-Philippe Bourgeois, Mothland) for a long time. We met on the road, actually, with my old band Sonic Avenues. We were doing a tour up north and in Québec and JP was playing with Cafféine, so that’s how we met. And we’ve just been buds since. He’s booked a few shows for the band over the years. And then I wanted to work with a label closer to home, right? I worked with an American label before and I worked with a European label, but never really a Canadian label. So I asked him if he was into it. And they seem stoked. So that was basically it.

Pan M 360: I noticed there’s a lot of organ and saxophone on the new record. How was your experience in the studio this time?

CH: We recorded everything at our jamspace at Marsonic. All the drums were recorded there, the guitar, the bass, but my friend in Australia did the horns. So it was one of those situations where we were kind of sending things around for people to play on. So it was kind of weird because I’ve never done it like that before, but I’m stoked with how it turned out. The guy who played sax is also a recording engineer, so he really knew what he was doing and it was fairly easy.

Pan M 360: Some of the songs on Daffodil seem to have more of a post-punk approach – I’m thinking of songs like “Optimizer” in particular – Are there certain bands or albums that influenced you while you were in the songwriting process?

CH: For sure. I would always come back to Total Control as a major influence for Priors from the beginning. They were kind of the reason why the band started to be honest with you. But obviously, older stuff has come into play too. Like, I was listening to the first couple of Cure records. Echo and the Bunnymen are always in rotation. Stuff like that. Specifically though, if there was anything I was listening to that directly influenced the song? I don’t think so. But I knew I wanted to do a post-punk song. And I knew I wanted a chorus-y bassline and that was what put me in the headspace of just trying to find something cool, you know?

Pan M 360: You also have a new project now, Private Lives. When you write a song, how do you know ‘Oh, this one is for Priors’ or ‘This one is for Private Lives’?

CH: Usually, it’s ‘Is this song angry enough to be a Priors song, or not?’ You know?  The thing is also lately I’ve been writing for Private Lives. So the (Private Lives) tape came out and I was like ‘Okay, well, now I can start writing again.’ That’s usually how I write. And then more songs came and it just came to be ‘Well these are Private Lives songs’ in my head. It was sort of announced today that Feel It is gonna release the LP and the first single comes out next week, so I feel like I’m influenced again to continue to write. But now, finally, Daffodil is out, so fuck, maybe I’m gonna have to start writing some angry songs again! (Laughs). I’m also gonna do a solo record at the end of the month, I’m going into the studio, just because I’ve had so many songs that didn’t fit Priors when I was writing them over the years, and they really didn’t fit Private Lives either. Something a little more glam.

Pan M 360: You’ve been active in the Canadian punk scene for several years now. What do you think has changed for the better?

CH: Well, there are more bands. I mean, it could be good, could be bad, but usually it’s good. For the better? I don’t know… I’m such a jaded old prick! (Laughs)

Pan M 360: Well my next question is ‘And for the worse?,’ if that helps you!

CH: A lot more bands. It almost feels like when I was growing up, like when I started to tour back in 2003, 2004, everybody was in a band. And it was like ‘How is this possible?’ There’s just so much out there. But back then I feel like it was a lot easier to weed through the shit. And now it’s like there’s so much good stuff it can be kind of overwhelming, as a listener and as a music lover.

Pan M 360: It’s hard to keep up.

CH: God! Like those YouTube channels. It drives me nuts. If you love something you bookmark it,  but then you don’t even hardly go back to it because there’s already something else. It’s just so wild how much great music is coming out, especially if you like guitar music. You know, it’s out of the mainstream now, but it’s like all of the underground.

Pan M 360: You’re playing your album launch show at l’Esco on June 30. What should the crowd expect?

CH: A lot of sweat. Maybe some blood. Some cowboy hats. We just did shows in Alberta and the boys got set up. So yeah, a lot of energy! I think maybe we’ll throw in some new stuff that we haven’t played before just because it’s been on the back burner for so long. We’ve kind of been playing the same set for about a year now, just because it’s taken so long to get the record out and kind of move along, you know? So, yeah, a good time for sure!

Pan M 360: And what’s the rest of 2023 gonna look like for Priors? Do you have any plans to tour?

CH: It’s difficult now because three of the five dudes have had kids over the pandemic. So it’s a little less easy to fucking get up and go. That being said, I think we’ll probably go to Europe in 2024, maybe in the spring. Because it’s a little late now to be planning that. For the rest of the year, though, I would love to release at least another 7” or something. But as far as shows, it’ll probably just be in Canada,  supporting the record.

You can catch Priors on June 30th at l’Esco with support from local band Laughing.

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