The eminent gangsta rap superstar Snoop Dogg turned in a good performance of his own in Halifax last Sunday night. However, his backline didn’t measure up, the sound quality at the venue was awful, and the performances of both of his opening acts were almost entirely without merit.

Snoop Dogg, a.k.a. Snoop Doggy Dogg, a.k.a. Calvin Broadus, 37, performed at the Metro Centre in Halifax on Sunday, September 13th, 2009. He was preceded on stage by two acts: the first being a drummer who played accompaniment to a string of drum-and-bass/house tracks played from his laptop; and the second being a singer/guitarist who performed what seemed to be original compositions accompanied by a string of backing tracks which were also played from his laptop.

The first artist had good clear vocals on the mic, but the substance of his performance lost my interest after the first two tunes. I also indicted him on three counts of malfeasance in performance practice:

     1.) He performed live on stage with no other musicians than those found on the static, pre-mixed tracks on his laptop (in fact, there’s no reason not to suspect that he just launched an iTunes playlist for his whole set).
     2.) He played completely unadorned backbeats on the drums without a single improvised fill or solo of any description.
     3.) He played along with his laptop at seemingly random intervals and for random lengths of time in relation to each of the tracks played, showing neither awareness nor regard for what scant musical structure existed on those tracks.

The second artist deserves no further description other than his having been a unskilled singer who performed poorly-written tunes with infantile lyrics. When taken as a whole, Snoop’s opening acts were at best boring, and at worst an insult to the audience’s musical intelligence.

Snoop’s portion of the night was much better. He was introduced by a bonafide emcee with lots of pimp and circumstance (sic). The O.G. (Original Gangsta) emerged onto the stage with a bright orange hoodie, a glittering, jewel-encrusted microphone, and an angry look on his face. From that first moment on, the audience knew that Snoop came to play.

Snoop Dogg was backed up by a keyboardist, a drummer, a bassist, a DJ, and two other emcees. He took occasional breaks of no longer than one tune to refresh himself at the back of the stage, and during those breaks the other two rappers would step up and deliver. It didn’t take long before the venue’s sound started to break down the show, though.

Within the first 10 minutes of the roughly 70-minute set, it became obvious that Snoop had the only mic with sufficient volume and clarity to be heard and understood; almost all of what the other emcees said was unintelligible. Furthermore, the backup tracks under Snoop’s rapping were too loud, were distorted, and were also totally imbalanced from an EQ perspective: true, they had lots of nice, heavy bass, but there was also far too much midrange (which brings about a transistor-radio-like sound effect) and too little high range (which exacerbates that transistor-radio effect). That EQ imbalance made all of his music sound as though it was being played from the next room, and it didn’t allow those great low, buzzy basslines in Snoop’s music to punch through as they do so well on the studio recordings. His tracks often being produced by such artists as Dr. Dre, it would be understandable if the entire dynamic range wasn’t represented in the live show. But the sound quality at this venue was truly unacceptable and proved highly deleterious to Snoop’s performance.

Another major downside to the music was that almost every tune was played with a fully-produced backup track underneath it, meaning that the musicians were essentially just playing along with a record all night. Aside from how artistically banal this was, it forced the musicians to overplay severely in terms of volume and intensity just to distinguish themselves from the backup tracks, and this was distracting and unmusical. At its best, rap and hip-hop music are creative musical forms based on deeply funky grooves played by live musicians or sampled by DJs from live musical recordings. Snoop’s set paid precious little tribute to that tradition in terms of its musical production values, and so it severely disappointed the musician in me.

On the plus side, Snoop’s look, attitude and demeanour were very amusing and entertaining. He gave the suburban, mostly white audience a purported glimpse into the gangsta lifestyle, but it was also obvious that he wasn’t taking himself too seriously (after all, he has a family now and coaches his son’s football team). Snoop Dogg is also an excellent rapper in his own right, and he performs his raps with funky, rhythmic, and musical aplomb. It was only because of Snoop’s personal performance and his sincere engagement with the audience that paying for my ticket didn’t feel like robbery. There was certainly a number of significant factors that downgraded the enjoyment of this concert, but Snoop himself was well worth the relatively modest admission price of about $60.

His closing number featured a vamp which he continued for more than 45 minutes; according to the bassist whom I interviewed after the show, Kenny just kept bringing back the vamp until the crowd at the front of the stage finally stopped dancing and cheering. Kenny was delighted with the audience’s dedication and participation in his music that night, and he didn’t stop playing until the crowd had been completely exhausted. A tremendous opening night for the festival.

(Back to 2009 Atlantic Jazz Festival Synopsis)

This weekend’s performances by Alive and Well were presented by JazzEast at a new space called 1313, established by former JazzEast director Susan Hunter. Formerly known as the Deli Green Market on Hollis Street near Morris, 1313 has been effectively transformed into an attractive arts presentation venue. The room had a pleasant ambience which was greatly enhanced by the quiet, attentive audience. (According to Donnie Palmer, an attentive audience is a luxury seldom enjoyed by performers at the sole remaining jazz club up in Toronto these days.)

With respect to audiences, it’s worthwhile to note the social position most frequently occupied by jazz music these days: mostly, it’s background music in restaurants or synth-based “lite grooves” to create aural ambience in low-lit hipster nightclubs. However, the jazz played by Alive and Well is authentic jazz — the real deal — and it requires an attentive audience (which it received).

The entire night’s music was totally improvised; nothing about the programme was planned beforehand. Audiences were given over to an immersive sense of immediacy; they heard music which staunchly anchored them in the present moment. Those who listened and watched carefully were rewarded on many levels throughout the evening.

The particular musical qualities of each artist are worth trying to define, at least in part. Donnie Palmer played with a lush, gorgeous alto sound, and he rendered all of his lines with incredibly tasteful phrasing and a truly profound melodic sensibility. One was mindful that they were hearing a truly seasoned professional at the height of his career. As a jazz saxophonist myself, I was quite inspired by Palmer’s performance.

Skip Beckwith provided a great low end to the group. His sound on the bass was rich and full-bodied, and he possessed a clear, resonant attack. And while he had no trouble playing strictly in time and within the chord changes, Beckwith also demonstrated a remarkable deftness at slipping in and out of the time and the key — and then “nailing the one” at the top of the next chorus seemingly as if by magic. He also displayed fantastic listening and improvisational skills; his solos were not ones over which the audience conversed with one another.

With respect to the drums, Donnie Palmer likes to say that it takes a hell of a good drummer to be better than no drummer at all. Jerry Granelli fits the bill as a hell of a good drummer. He’s no ordinary jazz drummer, though. It would be more accurate to describe Jerry Granelli as an artist who uses drumsticks instead of paintbrushes.

To be sure, Granelli plays his drum kit like a melodic musical instrument. It is not uncommon to hear actual melodies issue forth from his drums and cymbals when he plays. Furthermore, he doesn’t so much “mark the time” on the drums as he plays tasteful, rhythmic phrases that perfectly complement whatever the other musicians are playing at that moment. He does this with an apparently effortless but intense focus and concentration; he really appears to hear everything that’s happening in every moment of each tune. And if this weren’t enough, Granelli separates himself further from the ordinary drummer by showing incredible restraint in deciding whether or not to respond to whatever he’s hearing at the time. Drummers — with all due respect, percussionistes — are not unknown to be an egotistical and loud-playing lot, and they rarely tend towards this level of engaged listening and interaction in a group.

Later that same week, 1313 opened its doors to celebrate Donnie Palmer’s 70s birthday. Alive and Well played one last short set before staff brought out several homemade cakes containing a combined total of 70 candles. Not long afterwards, I stood with Donnie Palmer offstage when Jerry Granelli and Skip Beckwith were leaving the venue to go home for the night. Donnie teased each of them for leaving early, but I heard their voices crack with emotion when saying good-bye to each other. Since Donnie lives in Toronto now, it’s hard to say when exactly this group will perform together again. After the others left, Donnie looked at me and shook his head with a sad smile. “Oh, we’re just a bunch of old farts,” he said with his typically bowed head but with tears in his eyes. After that, he put his horn away for the night and hung out with the audience and other musicians in the room before returning to Toronto.

The music of The Modern Men is very modern, and heavily synth-laden (in a good way). The group makes extensive use of vintage analog synthesizer sounds and the Vocoder sound processor. The Vocoder transforms a natural singing voice into a robotic-sounding synthesizer patch. It was a production effect first mastered by such synth pioneers as Herbie Hancock in the 1970s, and it provides a tremendously warm, vintage character to any song to which it’s added.

The repertoire for this group sounds original and fresh, while still remaining recognizably anchored in the contemporary/pop idiom. The songs are comprised of simple, singable melodies set against rich arrangements and orchestrations using multiple synths, voices, and instruments. There’s no lack of low end in the group, either; the groove emanated strongly from the bassist, who was in turn well locked-in with the drummer.

It would be remiss not to make mention of the declining state of this venue, however. Hell’s Kitchen sits downstairs from The Marquee Club, which has been one of Halifax’s premiere music venues for club acts playing to crowds in the range of 750 or more. Its location at the base of Halifax’s North End makes it central, yet with some grit. And CBC Radio One recently reported that its owner, the local restauranteur, entrepreneur and erstwhile mayoralty candidate Victor Syperek, has filed for the Court’s protection from his creditors. Syperek has also decided to close The Marquee Club permanently in early 2009.

That the club is condemned for closure seems obvious when you see the place now. Several areas are closed off, curtained off, or not staffed. Bar staff in general is at a bare minimum, along with security and door staff. The heating was conspicuously turned off, despite the low temperature outside. And the kitchen, once renowned for its excellent pizza, was shuttered and dark for the whole night. When I walked along the paths that I’m used to taking through the various rooms and levels at The Marquee, it began to feel like an archaeological dig of sorts.

This down-at-heel state of affairs at The Marquee Club also extended to its country-cousin downstairs venue, Hell’s Kitchen. Hell’s low ceilings were as gloomy as ever, and the sound technician on loan from upstairs was functionally unable to create a suitable monitor mix for the band even after a two-and-a-half-hour sound check. (In his defense, he appeared to be saddled with equipment in very poor repair.) To the seasoned listener, the band experienced certain noticeable hiccups, delays, missed entries, and sloppy endings. But I don’t doubt that these would have been reduced by at least half, had the musicians been able to hear each other properly.

It’s difficult to know what’s in store for The Marquee Club, or what venues will remain for The Marquee’s traditional size of show in the future. It’s not a large leap of logic to assume that Robert Risley will be trying to book certain groups at his Cunard Centre, but he probably wouldn’t want at least half of the bands that usually appear at The Marquee. Hopefully other venues will step up to fill the void, or that somebody else with additional funds will be willing to help run The Marquee Club under a new mantle. A new kind of local cultural collective or something? Perhaps somebody should invite Mr. Syperek our for lunch to discuss it. Lunch at The Economy Shoe Shop won’t work anymore though, because their new hours will soon be excluding the daytime. (News item: Marquee Club set to close)

Multi-instrumentalist Arturo Sandoval is Cuba’s most famous jazz émigré. Born in a small village in Havana Province in 1949, he took up the trumpet as a child and earned a place in Cuba’s all-star national band by the age of 16. His first major ensemble was the seminal Latin jazz group Irakere, which he co-founded with Chucho Valdes and Paquito D’Rivera. Sandoval is also well-known for his lifelong association with bebop legend Dizzy Gillespie, whom he considered his main musical idol and mentor. While on stage at this Halifax performance, he also named two major Canadian influences on his music: trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and pianist Oscar Peterson. By the end of the night, those influences were made clear through Sandoval’s astounding performance.

Sandoval performed with a 5-piece backup band comprised of a pianist, a bassist, a percussionist, a drummer, and a saxophonist who also played the EWI, a breath-controlled synthesizer in the shape of a soprano sax. Aside from Sandoval himself, the strongest musicians in the group were surely the bassist and the pianist, who were constantly in lock-step and who created a more solid foundation than even the traditional bass and drums. The pianist was totally fluent in the language of Latin music, turning in flawless montunos on the piano and also adding sublime colours and textures with his unique vintage synth patches from the 70s and 80s. The bassist called to mind at times the funky finger-picking style of Tower of Power bassist Francis Rocco Prestia, and at other times the virtuosic soloing style of John Patitucci. Like Patitucci, he was equally at home playing the 6-string electric bass or the traditional acoustic upright bass.

Arturo Sandoval has a captivating presence on stage. He’s extremely charismatic, self-deprecating, and funny. In numerous interviews he has stated that his chief objective is to entertain, and yet he didn’t at all pander to the lowest common denominator in the audience. He’s a very serious player with truly astounding technique on trumpet, percussion, piano, and vocals. Indeed, he’s so proficient at all of these instruments that one wonders if he has a second brain stored somewhere. It’s remarkable to hear a single musician perform with such prowess on so many instruments in a single set, let alone a single song.

His range on the trumpet is astonishing. Like Dizzy, he can play far into the stratosphere, squeezing out notes that are nearly audible only by dogs; he could even do this with the restrictive Harmon mute placed in the bell of his trumpet. However, he can also play lower than any trumpeter I’ve ever heard: during one of his solos, he transcended the ordinary limitations of the instrument by progressing well into the range of a bass trombone.

During another selection, he treated the audience to a scat solo on vocals which included a perfect and hilarious imitation of an acoustic bass, both plucked and with a bow. That same scat solo included the fastest triple- and quadruple-tongueing I’ve ever heard — it sounded like his tongue was simply fluttering between his teeth.

He turned serious after that tune by sitting down at the piano and playing a standard swinger with a simple quartet and no percussion. This was perhaps the most awe-inspiring selection of the evening: if you didn’t know that Sandoval was a trumpet player originally, you could easily mistake the piano for his main instrument. His total command over the keyboard was that profound.

Not being a big fan of Latin jazz personally, I have to admit that I was apprehensive about what kind of show I was about to see. I worried that we would be subjected to a blistering array of fast and high trumpet playing that would be full of chops but bereft of nuance; a show that would entertain the masses but leave the discerning jazz listener cold. I’m pleased to report that he dashed most of those worries within the first chorus of the first tune, however. He now occupies a much more exalted status in my own repertoire of jazz musicians than he did before I heard him play live. It was an absolute pleasure to attend this show.

This year, Saskatchewan-born pianist Jon Ballantyne won his second Juno award. His first Juno was awarded in 1989 for his album Skydance, featuring saxophonist Joe Henderson. This year, he won the Juno for Best Traditional Jazz Album for his 2006 CD Avenue Standard, a recording of jazz standards with a fresh, original approach. At this year’s Atlantic Jazz Festival, he presented the audience with selections from that recording as well as several original compositions from his penultimate album, Ever Since Now. All of his recordings, including the quartet album he made with saxophonist Dewey Redman, are available at CDBaby.com or through his website at JonBallantyne.com.

Ballantyne’s set began with the famed Sam Rivers composition Beatrice. It was a lush, expressive rendering and a fitting tribute to the late Joe Henderson, with whom Ballantyne performed on numerous occasions throughout 1989 and 1990. Ballantyne’s rendition of Joe Henderson’s most often-performed song featured tightly-voiced chords with thick, rich harmonies.

Ever Since Now is an original composition. After the initial statement of the melody and harmony of the tune, Ballantyne improvised a delightful deconstruction and reconstruction of the song. He began with inventive hand-striking of the piano’s strings, followed by a growling, low-end stride piano version, replete with sophisticated polyrhythmic figures that brought to mind images of rushing, swirling water. Seldom is an audience treated to such a thorough exploration of a tune’s theme and its various submotifs.

The original composition Gates was inspired by artist Christo’s unique 2005 installation of 7,500 saffron-coloured fabric-paneled gateways throughout New York’s Central Park. Ballantyne’s playing immediately brought to mind clear visual images; his phrasing actually made me think of the long, flowing cloths of Christo’s installation. The soaring, improvised melodic lines were artfully conceived and impeccably executed. And like all top artists, his concentration and focus were palpable; it felt as though he was channeling the music from some deeper source.

It was also a pleasure to hear the Thelonious Monk tune Bemsha Swing. Many pianists have trouble interpreting Monk without copying Monk’s personal playing style, but Ballantyne didn’t have this problem. He successfully turned in an original rendition that still paid tribute to Monk through its profound basis in the blues (and goodness, can Ballantyne PLAY the blues), underlaid by an intense, hard-driving swing. And then, a most unexpected bridge: vast, soaring lines (watch out, Oscar Peterson) played over an intense, grinding ostenato in the bass. And it swung so hard — Ballantyne threw down tremendous eighth-note lines that went everywhere — they were unrelenting, full of pressure and release, and interspersed with fantastic flourishes and thickly-voiced comping. I felt exhilarated by the end of the tune.

I first met and heard Jon Ballantyne while studying jazz at McGill in 1992. He had recently recorded with my sax teacher at the time, Newfoundland’s John Nugent, and he sat in on a lesson with me. At the time, my ears weren’t developed enough to appreciate all the nuances in Ballantyne’s playing, but I was thrilled to hear him play at this year’s festival. He turned in a tremendous performance befitting the recipient of Canada’s top jazz honours for 2007.