Artistic Director Speaks: Jeff Ballard

Artistic Director Speaks: A Series of Shorts

June 12, 2014

By Ken Pickering – Artistic Director / Co-founder

Twitter: ken_pickering

Blog: http://vanjazzfest.blogspot.ca/

The Jeff Ballard Trio with Lionel Loueke and Miguel Zénon 

June 26 – Performance Works – 7:30pm
Free Workshop - same day - 1pm at Tom Lee Music Hall

An all-star trio to be sure – Time’s Tales was released this year by the newly revamped historic jazz label Okeh (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington) originally founded in 1917 and overseen today by London based Wulf Müller the jazz consultant at Sony Classical and Chuck Mitchell. 

So far they’ve released albums by  John Medeski (at the fest June 20th), Bill Frisell  - North Shore Jazz (June 22),and Dhafer Youssef among others; one of their most exciting signings was stalwart first call drummer Jeff Ballard (Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joshua Redman) who has also worked with the brilliant Tigran Hamasyan - at the fest  (Performance Works – June 28).

With super heavy cred - Jeff is currently a member of the Brad Mehldau Trio and the cooperative trio FLY with Mark Turner and Larry Grenadier. Mark will be at the festival with French pianist Baptiste Trotignon - June 28th at the Roundhouse.

“Global expressions in Jazz”, the revamped Okeh label’s tag line is an ethos or concept that many of us share, certainly that's my take on the state of the scene – Jeff Ballard is in sync with that vision and there’s no doubt that Time’s Tales (review) should resonate with today’s open eared jazz and music fans. Here's a great little EPK doc video on the making of the album.

His new trio brings two excellent, very experienced veteran musicians into his orbit – Benin born guitarist Lionel Loueke (Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, Angelique Kidjo, Terence Blanchard, Esperanza Spalding, Jack DeJohnette) - from Puerto Rico saxophonist Miguel Zénon (Miles Okazaki, Charlie Haden, Ray Barretto, David Sanchez), both  with extensive discographies and leaders in their own right.

Miguel Zénon

Although most of Ballard’s previous work has been along more established jazz lines the new trio moves into different sound worlds – sometimes freer, more experimental / improvised directions that always sound cohesive and organic without ever sacrificing compositional structure. 

Lionel Loueke

Music of the world that quite naturally reflects an evolving array of influences given the varied ethnic and geographic backgrounds of these three musicians that totally works in ways that aren’t at all obvious. This is a fresh approach to a new kind of world jazz that is at once viscerally primitive and modern. All three are in possession of sophisticated and varied rhythmic approaches that relate back to individual influences – however they never neglect the melody – in fact their melodic focus gives a sweet poetic sensibility to the music on Time’s Tales. 

You can hear all kinds of sounds: the rain forest, African percussion, Weather Report style grooves, varied textures and even a hard rock Queens of the Stone Age cover as well as the most unusual version of standard The Man I Love that I’ve come across.

This show will be one of the tasty surprises for many of us at this year’s festival. Hope to see you there! 

June 26 – Performance Works – 7:30pm
Free Workshop - same day - 1pm at Tom Lee Music Hall