Jazz, in many ways, is like life. You have a birthing period, you have a grooming period, you have a professional period—and then you have the back end.

A hundred years ago, you would have accessed jazz through situations where the most important thing might have been buying liquor, or meeting with people you don’t normally mingle with, or doing things you didn’t necessarily want the general public to see. Jazz was the soundtrack for those activities.

As it developed, jazz moved on to something that was more consumable—the settings were a little less gritty, the associated activities more respectable. We call that the swing era. The children of the swing era wanted to be concert musicians, so they created bebop, and bebop in turn inspired musicians to generate modal jazz, avant garde jazz, acid jazz, fusion…

You can see those growth stages in communities too. Here in Winnipeg, our varied performance options fall onto the same kind of spectrum. At the highest end, we have formal concerts like the Jazz Festival or the Asper Jazz Performances series. People who attend these concerts have paid big bucks for tickets—they come expressly to hear the music, so it’s inappropriate to talk. The cue: nobody’s offering food or drinks, you’re not seated in groups of four or eight. It’s a concert, not a social event.

An outdoor concert under the stars is kind of a hybrid. It’s not as formal as a concert, but it’s not quite a social event either—there’s no TV, and you have to bring your own food. If you have to talk, you can move away a bit and not disturb other people.

Much like the early jazz sessions, the Cool Wednesday Night Hang jam session is our incubator. This is where you can find new musicians, half-baked ideas, raucous experimentation—the whole chaos of creation. You’ll find tomorrow’s sound budding there, and since everyone is testing things out, it’s free to get in. Even when the band is cookin’, a jam session is still atmosphere—the real goal is to attract you to the club so that you’ll buy food and drinks. I think band directors and audiences who want people to be quiet in those circumstances are mistaken. These are social gatherings, and it’s totally acceptable to talk and guffaw and watch TV and eat your food—it’s a party!

This summer is full of music, and the fall season is coming right up. You’ve got a whole lot of choices available, and to get the whole experience you should check out everything. You have an opportunity to see tomorrow’s musicians at the jam sessions, and today’s musicians at the concert halls. When you see the most polished ones in the high end venues, you’ll have a better sense of how they got there, what their growth was. You’ll find yourself thinking back to when Will Bonness was just a cherub looking a bit like a deer in the headlights…

I hope to see a lot of you over the next year, in as many settings as possible. If that’s a bit much, we’re just happy to see you git in where you fit in!

Trumpeter Derrick Gardner has an impressive resume. Among his many accomplishments: he’s played with Count Basie, he was a protégé of Frank Foster, he’s toured with Harry Connick Jr, and he’s performed with Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra. (You may have heard his acrobatic improvising and incredible trumpet sound when he did a guest spot with that group at the Jazz Festival this year.) He’s played on countless recordings and led several with his own band, The Jazz Prophets.

Derrick blows like Gabriel. He’s got a big, warm, clear bell-like sound, and his improvising is like licks of flame—it’s transparent and delicate, but if you touch it, you’ll burn your fingers! I’ve heard him channel the earliest ancestors of jazz trumpet way back in the mid-1800s, through Louis Armstrong, Dizzy, Miles, and on up to the modern language of today. He’s also a prolific writer and arranger, and a gifted teacher. I don’t know what he can’t do!

Derrick is assuming the new Babs Asper Professorship in Jazz Performance, and he’s the perfect person for that honour. Besides being a brilliant musician and an amazing performer, he’s also a warm, down-to-earth person who is eager to move to this city and get involved with Winnipeg’s musical life. Derrick and I sat down to talk over lunch when he was here during the Jazz Festival.

I know it’s early, but are there some projects you’d like to accomplish when you get here?

Yeah. I’m thinking about a big band recording—even a project that might involve big band with orchestra. I’ve written an arrangement of Coltrane’s “Revolution” for big band and choir. I’ve been wanting to put together a good performance of that.

Big band and choir—that’s something that hasn’t happened here yet. I look forward to seeing it! Is big band your favorite setting for jazz?

It’s my favorite for arranging. For my own personal improv voice, the sextet is my favorite—trumpet, tenor sax, trombone, rhythm section. But you can only do so much as an arranger with that instrumentation. You get full power with big band.

What are some things you’re hoping to bring to Winnipeg?

Definitely my musical presence. I’m excited to have the opportunity to add to the growth of the jazz culture here. Jazz has become an international music, and Winnipeg would be a great headquarters for jazz in Canada.

Yeah—we call ourselves the Jazz Capital of Canada! What do you hope to get from being here?

I’m looking for a different way of life than what I’ve experienced. I’ve traveled all over the world, but only lived in those places for a couple of days at a time. Moving here affords me the opportunity to take in an entire culture that’s outside of the US—that’s very attractive to me.

Why?

Simply because it’s different than the US. I’m looking to enhance myself personally.

Are there things missing in the culture of the US that you’re looking for here?

More of an appreciation for jazz music. Jazz is culturally an African-American art form, but unfortunately what’s happened in the US over the last hundred years is that African-Americans have veered away from the history of their musical culture. The majority don’t know the history of the blues, the history of jazz, or the history of the music of the slavery era such as field hollers and slave songs translated from African tribal music. America is fueled by capitalism, and this has affected the way we look at music. Americans seem to want only the latest thing in popular music, and in doing that they’ve discarded the very music that this current music came from.

In my experience, Canadians greet jazz with open arms. I think it’s because it’s a genre of music that doesn’t come from this culture, so there’s less bias and more curiosity. If the music moves them, they say, Wow, what is that?! They’re open to it. You can see evidence of that with the jazz scenes in larger Canadian cities like Toronto and Montreal. Now Winnipeg. To house jazz music speaks volumes.

Are you seeing a connection between society and art, then?

That’s a big one. Well, I think both should have a sense of freedom—neither art nor society should be inhibited. That’s easy to translate as far as art is concerned because you’re expressing yourself, whether in painting or dance or music or whatever. But in terms of society, that would translate as people treating others with respect, regardless of race, religion, sex, creed.

That freedom connects with opinion. For me, there are two types of music—good and bad. If everybody says it’s bad, then it must be bad. But if one person says, Oh, I like it, that person is entitled to that opinion. So judgments are made by the group, but also by the individual. Individuals have to be free to feel what they feel. But an artist that nobody likes doesn’t seem like an artist to me.

When Hendrix played in Harlem in the 1960s for the first time in front of an all-black audience, they booed him so loud that you couldn’t hear anything. Was he not being an artist?

There was somebody in that audience that dug him. Also it has something to do with the artist’s ego. Artists can clearly puff themselves up as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it might be that the people they’re trying to affect don’t like sliced bread! I think that humility plays a part in fueling good art. I’ve observed if the artist is humble to his or her art form, then the art that is expressed should be good art. That’s an experimental answer that is waiting to be proven. But for me, the most humble jazz artists play the most enjoyable solos…

What things do you like to do besides music?

I like fishing—I hear there’s good pickerel up here. When the weather is warm enough, I’ll bring the bike out.

I believe you have to make your own fun. Just like when you’re playing jazz—you have to be able to tell a musical story to your audience, but it has to be fun for you or it won’t be fun for them. So yeah, I’m looking forward to having fun here in Winnipeg.

If you start having fun in Winnipeg, they’re gonna tax you for it! No, I’m just kidding. We’re glad you’re joining us here in the Jazz Capital, and we’re all looking forward to giving you a Winnipeg welcome…

It’s that time of year again—warm air, long evenings, and the luxury of listening to music outside.

For over thirty years, the Winnipeg Art Gallery has welcomed jazz lovers to its rooftop gallery for a series of summer concerts. The space is open and elegant, and even when everyone is seated and attentive, there’s a certain informality about being outdoors that makes a big family out of the many people who gather.

This summer’s Jazz on the Rooftop season showcases an eclectic line-up of musicians who range across many styles. The series opens on the last day of June with the Ron Paley Big Band, a group that has loyal fans from dance halls to concert halls.

Next up is Big Dave McLean whose gritty vocals and delta blues stylings have made him a favorite with Winnipeg audiences for years.

July ends with the Icelandic guitar work of Bjorn Thoroddsen. He teams up with long-time collaborator Richard Gillis for a small ensemble performance that celebrates that northern sensibility.

August takes you south with the energizing Latin sounds of Papa Mambo, Rodrigo Muñoz’ nine-piece salsa band. The rhythms are infectious, so you might want to choose a chair at the end of the row!

The middle of August features the high-powered faculty of this year’s Summer Jazz Camp at the University of Manitoba—Jimmy Greene, Quincy Davis, George Colligan, and Anna-Lisa and Steve Kirby. This concert introduces the city to the warm sounds and artistry of our new trumpet player, Derrick Gardner.

The season ends with a new group that’s just at the front end of its career. Red Moon Road is an acoustic folk/roots trio featuring singer Erin Propp and two Daniels—Jordan and Peloquin-Hopfner—who play various stringed instruments and add background vocals.

Jazz on the Rooftop shows start at 7:30, but the Storm Restaurant serves a barbeque at 6:00—menus are posted on the WAG website. A concert ticket also gives you access to all of the galleries throughout the day—that’s a bonus that makes it worth coming down for the afternoon too.

Every August, sixty or seventy young musicians get together for a really intense week of immersion in the jazz culture at the U of M Summer Jazz Camp. For five solid days, they work hard with peers who also want to explore this art form, and their skills and knowledge are fostered by a network of top-notch faculty and coaches. At the end of the week, they are dramatically better players—and they’ve learned a few things about life in the process.

This year’s headlining faculty are musicians we’re getting to know here in the Jazz Capital. Saxophonist Jimmy Greene and drummer Quincy Davis are fantastic teachers as well as great players. They’re joined by the new trumpet professor, Derrick Gardner. George Colligan comes back for a week before settling into his new home in Portland. Anna-Lisa Kirby will coach the singers, and I’ll gather up the bass players. Add to that list a cadre of talented band directors to coach ensembles and you get the picture—we’re all about supporting the learning process, but we’re equally committed to inspiring young musicians with a vision of what can be accomplished in this art form, and what drives musicians to devote themselves to it.

Jazz is a language, and to really express yourself in a new language, you have to speak it and listen to it until it’s so internalized that you’re no longer thinking about vocabulary or grammar or pronunciation. You’ll spend time on your instrument, and you’ll learn a lot about jazz theory. A good chunk of your effort is spent playing—twice a day you meet with a small ensemble to work on repertoire and put your new skills on the line. If there’s a spark of improviser in you, the Jazz Camp is certain to ignite it! Each ensemble has a coach, and each of the faculty will drop by to clinic you. At the end of the week, your ensemble will play for parents and friends.

Jamming is the other major way jazz musicians master the language. It’s our equivalent to the cocktail party—you mingle with people you don’t normally spend time with, you generate a bit of interesting talk, then move on to other conversations. The Cool Wednesday Night Hang kicks into gear that week. If you have something to say on your horn, get up and join the band for a song.

Thursday night, the faculty performs at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in the Jazz on the Rooftop series. Your registration includes a ticket. This is your chance to hear jazz played at a high level—it’s polished and tight, but it’s also inventive and passionate. These musicians have tons of recordings and have toured all over the world—and they deliberately choose to share their passion for jazz with young musicians. It’s partly because they love to teach, but even more that they want others to experience the thrill and richness of this form of artistic expression.

The Summer Jazz Camp is one of the biggest success stories for the U of M odyssey. The proof is in the pudding—right now, there are some fifteen or twenty professional musicians playing all over town who came through the camp. All of them developed skills and confidence through their camp experience, and made connections with other musicians that help define their professional lives.

If you’re a young musician, check us out online, then register for an unforgettable week of hard work and great fun. Or call me—I’ll happily regale you with stories of my Jazz Camp joys over the past eight years!

No matter what, mark that Jazz on the Rooftop concert at the WAG into your calendar—it’s going to be a big celebration of what jazz is! Here’s a bonus: the mosquitoes don’t fly that high..

If you’ve been anywhere in this city over the past couple of decades, you’ll be familiar with the laid-back warmth of Walle Larsson’s saxophone. You’re probably also familiar with the laid-back warmth of his voice—he’s been one of the city’s busiest and best jazz radio hosts. As we come around the corner on his Sunday evening series at Assiniboine Park, I caught up with Walle…

How did you get started playing saxophone?

I started out as a classical flute player. In 1975, I was playing in a dining room band at the Chateau Lake Louise, and the bandleader told me if I wanted to keep the gig, I’d need to play sax. I bought a sax out of the paper for $650—and I’m still playing it!

I know you’re curating smooth jazz concerts again this summer. How do you define “smooth jazz”?

Yes, I’m putting together the Sunday night series at the Lyric Theatre in Assiniboine Park. I’ve got a house band that is backing up some of the top names in smooth jazz—people like Dave Koz, Jeff Lorber and Steve Oliver. The series starts July 10, and runs until the end of August.

Smooth Jazz has a bad name, so I actually prefer Groove Jazz. The definition: any rock, R&B, or funk-flavored groove combined with conventional or non-conventional harmony. By non-conventional, I mean harmony that does not necessarily follow the predictability of jazz standards with their AABA forms and 2-5-1 chord progressions. For me, Groove Jazz shares the improvisational aspects of standard jazz—the vocabulary is derived from that tradition.

Many people know you as a radio personality. Do you see connections between that work and playing jazz?

I’m not currently on the air, but I have spent a lot of time on the air in the past ten years. Being a radio host is a bit like improvising because you have to keep talking even if your brain isn’t in gear. When you’re doing a late night shift, you really think about who’s out there, driving around on those lonely streets listening to your show. Sometimes you feel like you are talking to the wall, but other times you hear these incredible stories from people who have been listening faithfully to your show.

The cool thing about working in radio when you are a musician is that you learn the other side of the business. You learn the habits of listeners, and how to get airplay on a variety of formats. I devoted a lot of time this past year to promoting my music to US radio stations. Hitting the charts and getting airplay in some of my target markets was a kick.

Working in radio can be a great way to find work as a musician. You kind of get your finger on the pulse and opportunities open up. I’m planning to get back into radio, but not six nights a week like before.

What really inspires you as a musician?

The incredible talent of the musicians I get a chance to hear is a humbling experience. Lately I had a chance to spend some time in NYC with one of my favorite sax players, Andy Snitzer (Rolling Stones, Paul Simon). To be with him in his home and having him play and share his knowledge with me was truly inspiring. As a Christian believer, what really inspires me is the chance to be a part of the amazing creation around me, to tap into the inspiration and joy that fuels our music.

What’s on your CD player at the moment?

Herbie Hancock’s The New Standard, and Jeff Lorber’s Now’s the Time.

Jazz on Wheels has kicked off another season of great music in inner city neighborhoods. We’ve already played at the Ellice Street Festival, the site of our very first outing six years ago, and Hugh John Macdonald School, a place that has become important to us over the past few months. Still ahead are shows at the CSI Summer Learning Institute, Central Park, the Rossbrook House Games, and the Sherbrook Street Festival. We’re sorting out at least one more outing, so it’s going to be a full summer season.

If you haven’t been in the crowd at a Jazz on Wheels performance, it’s a little hard to describe. I think of it as part performance, part music education, part history lesson—and all party. A typical show will take you on a journey that includes an introduction to different instruments and styles of music, stories about the origins of jazz and the characters who’ve created it, lots of improvisation, some crowd participation (we’ve had some impressive lion roars from the under-8 club!), and dancing in the streets.

The Jazz on Wheels band showcases some of the best young players in the Jazz Studies program at the University of Manitoba. Niall Bakkestad-Legare, Landen Seesahai, Luke Sellick, Joanna Majoko, Kristopher Ulrich, and Carter Graham are all names to take note of now—they’re going to be making a big impact over the next few years. Anna-Lisa Kirby and I (and occasionally young Solomon) round out the band.

This year, we are starting to realize the bigger Jazz on Wheels dream, which is to incorporate some of the kids from our target neighborhoods into our band. Some of the great young musicians we’ve been working with at Hugh John Macdonald School for the past few months heated up our stage at the Ellice Street Festival, and will be on board at a lot of our other shows.

The Hugh John Macdonald kids are passionate learners—they bring huge talent and desire, and a tremendously open-minded acceptance of any instruction that comes their way. The U of M kids are a little older and have a lot of performance under their belt. They’re eager to share what they’ve learned. Together these young musicians are literally experiencing the process that created jazz: we’re fusing different styles, voices, and proficiencies to create a new musical identity. Classical training, jazz technique, and contemporary pop sounds blend together nicely to create something fresh—a sound that is raw and funky, but also elegant.

It’s very exciting and extremely gratifying to be a part of this growth process. It’s also the first step toward discovering the unique sound that will come to characterize this part of the world. I hope you’ll join us for as many of our summer outings as you can. It’s your chance to watch history in the making—and to hear some music that will make you glad you live here!

Hugh John Macdonald School, up on Bannatyne near the Health Sciences Centre, has been a weekly destination for a few of us since the beginning of January. We’ve been testing out and refining a brand new program called The Bridge—an outreach effort to connect with and support young musicians in the inner city.

Steve Kirby has been carrying this dream around since he left his own inner city neighbourhood and began his trek toward a career as a jazz musician. St Louis isn’t the same as Winnipeg, but the challenges are similar—too little money, too little access to musical training that’s ubiquitous in suburban neighborhoods, a damped-down vision of what’s possible in a lifetime. Steve experienced those periodic visits from the bigger world as a lifeline, and he’s been determined to offer it in turn.

Hugh John is a special place—the leadership is passionately committed to the kids who make up its community, and both the school and its after-school program, Peaceful Village, have created an extraordinary network of relationships with other schools and with support systems to help the students and their families thrive.

When we approached the school, it was quick and enthusiastic about piloting The Bridge. For them, we were not an administrative headache or an intrusion on the normal flow, but an opportunity for their students’ enrichment. So twice a week, Curtis Nowosad and Kristopher Ulrich and I joined Steve for a couple of hours after school making music with any of these junior high kids who felt like attending.

At the outset, Steve said, We’re gonna find musicians there. It’s not that I didn’t believe him—I just didn’t realize that the kind of kids we met there actually existed.

Imagine this: three girls, packed onto a piano bench, teaching each other to find E or B, then learning the hand positions for blues chording—and remembering them the next week. Or a young guy with basic guitar skills holding down a bass line in his first week. Or a posse of kids with sticks finding the coordination to play several different drum stylings.

We’ve met all kinds of learners over the past six months—kids who are there as soon as the doors are unlocked, kids who cruise through a couple of times a month, kids who come for a few sessions then wander off to other things. Their skill development obviously mirrors their investment, but what stays with me is the palpable excitement that accompanies their learning, whether they’re finding three different pitches on the upright bass or blazing through a blues tune and feeling that twelve-bar structure.

Their eagerness about everything we could offer and their fearless pursuit of the joy of making music inspires me to take better care of my own learner. I’ve actually picked up the bass at a few of our jam sessions—and I didn’t break it! These kids remind me of the special thrill of learning, and it’s not the same thrill that accompanies excellence. These kids have heart, and I love them for it.

It’s not that they don’t actually know the thrill of excellence—seven or eight kids have practiced faithfully and worked up some great repertoire. They’ve performed for special visitors to their school, and joined the Jazz on Wheels band at the Ellice Street Festival. Nobody in that crowd whooped because they were just kids—they erupted in applause because they’re good musicians. They’ll be back on the Jazz on Wheel stage several times this summer, making their own first forays as musicians.

Steve was right: we did find musicians there. And we’ll find more next year.

Art Blakey was a dynamic leader and a volcanic drummer whose hard-bop band, the Jazz Messengers, was a finishing school for young jazz musicians for almost forty years. His graduates include Hank Mobley, Chuck Mangione, Wayne Shorter, Branford Marsalis, Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Green, Geoff Keezer, John Hicks, Mulgrew Miller, Terence Blanchard, Horace Silver, Cedar Walton, and Keith Jarrett.

Blakey apprenticed in the big bands of the 1940s with Billy Eckstine and Fletcher Henderson, and it was while he was on the road with Fletcher Henderson’s group that he survived a beating that left him with a metal plate in his skull. He later played with clarinetist Buddy Defranco and worked as a session drummer, appearing on recordings by Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins.

In 1953, Blakey and pianist Horace Silver formed a co-operative band they called the Jazz Messengers, a group that continued in different editions until Blakey’s death in 1990 (Silver quit in 1956.)

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were a swinging, energetic force that played hard bop. (The successor to bebop, hard bop has a more intense, driving rhythm.) Blakey sat at the back of the band at his drum kit and laid down a persistent, strong backbeat while he carefully scrutinized the musicians in the front line. Most drummers at the time relied on the bass or kick drum to keep time; Blakey shifted that role to the snare drum and cymbals.

The group was an incubator for young talent, and Blakey taught his musicians how to swing, how to be leaders, about life on the road, and encouraged them to bring in their songs. This resulted in an ever-evolving sound, and each version of the band has its own musical identity. Many of the Jazz Messengers’ recordings from the 1950s helped to define Blue Note as a hard bop label.

In 1958, Blakey was leading the third edition of the Jazz Messengers with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Benny Golson on sax, Bobby Timmons on piano, and Jaymie Merritt on bass. In a one-day session on October 30, 1958, they recorded a monumental, free-wheeling album they called Moanin’ [Blue Note #95324].

Much of the sonic shape of the album can be attributed to Blakey’s tenor saxophist and musical director, Benny Golson, who would go on to become a noted jazz composer. His infectious “Blues March” has the spirit of a New Orleans marching band. “Along Came Betty” was inspired by the walk of the woman it was named after. The melody has a mid-tempo gait and is highlighted at the start by both horns (Golson and Morgan) playing in unison. “The Drum Thunder Suite” is another song written by Golson. The three-part suite showcases Blakey on mallets and brushes.

The standout, hit track from the album is Bobby Timmons’s funky classic “Moanin’.“ It is a well-proportioned tune that uses call and response to reinforce the melody. Timmons’s playing is exuberant and fresh. His young age of twenty-two belies the full scope of his talent. This is just as true for twenty-year-old Lee Morgan, who was becoming an increasingly important part of the hard bop Blue Note sound.

The momentum to drive this musical engine comes from Art Blakey. His flawless timing and his energy on the drums is unrelenting and inspiring.

Trombonist Steve Davis is one of my favorite musicians playing jazz today. We share similar bloodlines, having both studied with Jackie McLean at the Hartt School in Connecticut. After graduation in 1989, Jackie recommended Steve to his old boss Art Blakey, making Steve one of the last musicians to join the Jazz Messengers before Blakey’s death in 1990. In fact, Steve penned the title track of Blakey’s final recording, One For All (A&M Records, 1990). More on that title later…

I took my first lesson from Steve at the Artists’ Collective (Jackie McLean’s community arts school) when I was 16 years old. The musical nuggets I carried away from that lesson form the hallmarks of Steve’s playing and are ideals I have tried to embody ever since: a priority on tone, a firm grounding in the jazz tradition, a thorough understanding of harmony and melody, an adventurous desire to create new vistas through dialogue in improvisation, and swing! Steve has a gorgeous sound; warm, round, centered, and powerful. His sense of melody is profound, he doesn’t waste a single note and can express a wide spectrum of colors and shapes on his instrument.

After Blakey’s death, Steve joined Jackie McLean’s sextet and recorded on one of my favorite JMac opuses, Rhythm of the Earth (Verve/Antilles, 1992). His time with JMac was followed by long stints with Chick Corea’s Origin sextet, Freddie Hubbard and the New Jazz Composers Octet, Benny Golson’s New Jazztet, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and his collective ensemble along with saxophonist Eric Alexander and trumpeter Jim Rotondi, One For All (yes, named after Davis’ 1990 composition).

Steve has recorded no fewer than 15 times as a leader for the Concord, Criss Cross, Positone and Smalls Live labels, to rave reviews. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity, please check him out! www.stevedavis.info is a good place to start…

Recently I had one of those great listening experiences with the Robert Glasper Trio—the kind where you are completely wrapped up in the sound, and absorbed in the musical language rather than those endless subtitles from your own life.

I suspect that shaking free of that internal racket is one of the reasons I am drawn to all kinds of art. If I can give over to someone else’s narrative, or their visual acuity, or their sense of time, I have a chance to step out of my space and into another. It’s my way of pressing the reset button—I come back to my own life with a little more clarity, and a little more energy too.

I’m intrigued by two qualities in Glasper’s style. The first is a lack of pressure. I’m not thinking about intensity, because there’s plenty of that in both his hands and his expressiveness, but it’s a relaxed intensity, like there’s all the time in the world to make the trip. As a listener, you aren’t getting from one place to another, but you’re not wandering around in a chaos of fragments either. For me, it’s a refreshing approach to time—like he’s sculpting it rather than traveling through it.

This is exceedingly hard to do in an art form that unfolds in time. Music, writing, film, dance—they are all scored on a timeline, and part of the pleasure they offer is a conscious experience of that forward movement. With Glasper, I have the feeling of moving around rather than moving forward.

A beautifully-realized short story can have that quality too—when you get to the end, you want to turn right around and wander back through searching for the thing you can almost see. Alice Munro is a master. A local newcomer with that magic touch is Sheila McClarty—get your hands on her debut collection, High Speed Crow.

The other thing that sticks with me about Glasper is the simplicity of his ideas. As a listener, you can stay present, but at the same time you have enough to do. Periodically he lets loose with a barrage of complicated handwork, and there’s always a pull of elaborate counter-rhythms, so you know there’s enormous power there, but he puts all of that facility and imagination at the service of the small gestures, the simple motifs.

It’s got me thinking: many—or even most—of the things artists have been exploring for generations are simple things, familiar things, shared things. Movement. Color. The human form. Water. Stars. I want to know these things more fully, and I want an artist’s proficiency to be transparent enough so I can see through them to what their imagination can grasp.

I recently heard a writer under siege say that he always reminds himself to stop for a moment to look at a single flower. A flower, he points out, is such a simple thing—and every one is perfect. If we can catch even a glimpse of that…