The Dan Pitt Trio/Quintet
Dan performs regularly throughout Toronto in a variety of music genres and ensembles. He leads his own creative improv group, Dan Pitt Trio, which features bassist Alex Fournier and drummer Nick Fraser. Their debut record, "Fundamentally Flawed", was regarded as “an album that is rich in complexity, original creativity and sophisticated musicianship.” (JazzMusicBlog). They now have two albums as a group including the former mentioned and their 2023 release “Stages”. In 2021, Dan expanded his group and recorded a quintet album entitled “Wrongs”. This group included woodwind players Naomi McCarroll-Butler and Patrick Smith along with the members of Dan’s trio. Together, these five musicians extend the vision of this experimental music and build upon it further in this larger ensemble format. These explorations are continued further in the groups latest release “Horizontal Depths” coming at the end of 2024.
Dan Pitt - Guitar/Compositions Naomi McCarroll-Butler - Woodwinds (Quintet) Nick Fraser - Drums Patrick Smith - Woodwinds (Quintet) Alex Fournier -Double Bass
Passepartout Duo
Drawing from a carefully selected palette of electro-acoustic textures and shapeshifting rhythms, Passepartout Duo’s work investigates the way in which we listen to and connect with sound. Reassessing the tools they use to create their music, the group is continually developing a specialized and evolving ecosystem of handmade musical instruments that have ranged from analog electronic circuits and conventional percussion, to room-size textile installations and found objects.
Largely conceived as a studio album during a residency at the Electronic Music Studio in Stockholm, Argot was recorded on the 1970s Serge System: treating this enigmatic machine as a trusted writing partner, material often feels discovered rather than composed. The pieces make heavy use of speech melody transcription techniques, providing complex and often unidiomatic starting points for the piano parts.
Nicoletta Favari - Piano Alex Fournier - Double Bass (6,8) Christopher Salvito - Percussion Yuta Sumiyoshi - Shinobue and Nohkan (3)
Invoke - String quartet (7, 9)
Nick Montopoli - Violin Karl Mitze - Viola
Zach Matteson - Violin Geoff Manyin - Cello
Huet // Fournier // Kuhl
Huet // Fournier // Kuhl is the result of an impromptu visit to Baltimore in 2018, which resulted in an impromptu studio session as the end of the visit hosted by Electronic Musician/Studio Engineer, Edwin Huet. The results were compelling enough that we chose to release them as an almost-complete, almost-unedited session.
Featuring an electro-acoustic ensemble of live-processing electronics, double bass and drums/percussion, the entirely improvised session explores both possibility and impossibility in a way where each concept refers and spurs the other on, pushing the musicians and their music to both new heights and new depths.
Edwin Huet - Electronics/Live Processing Mike Kuhl - Drums/Percussion Alex Fournier - Double Bass
Mira Martin-Gray
Hen's Teeth explores dichotomies of “songs” and “sounds”, bridging an artificial divide by someone who wants to make — and hear — both. The two sides here co-exist gracefully, both exploring where “I” ends and “you” begins, and where “the world” ends and “self” begins (and does it in an easier-to-digest manner than Buber). This is music that trades in small domestic sounds and small domestic moments — but more than being merely observational they are political (like Pauline Oliveros is political) and sexy (like Vulcans touching fingers is sexy).
Mira Martin-Gray - Voice (1-5, 7), Guitar (1-6), Synthesizers and Electronics (2, 6, 7), Midi Programming (2, 3, 4), Keyboard (2, 4), Drums and Percussion (2, 4), Piano (4), Bass Guitar (4)
Alex Fournier - Double Bass (1, 3)
Robin Jennings - Harmonica (6)
Germaine Liu - Percussion (1, 3), Alto Recorder and Irish whistle (6), Balloon (7)
Naomi McCarroll-Butler - Bass Clarinet, Flute, Homemade Flutes (4, 5, 7)
Kurt Newman - Electric Guitar (1)
Mark Zurawinksi - Drums and Percussion (1, 3, 6, 7)
Tak Arikushi Trio/Quintet
Tak Arikushi plays Gypsy-jazz music with a Japanese twist: he fuses the red-hot swing rhythms of Django Reinhardt with rhapsodic Japanese melodies both traditional and contemporary. The music is an exploration of the crossroads of American jazz and Japanese culture, and the historic exchange between the two. His accolades include sharing the stage with Gypsy-jazz giant Stephane Wrembel, featuring on the soundtrack of top-selling video game Cuphead: Delicious Last Course, and being band of choice for Rush bassist Geddy Lee’s family event. Inventive arrangements with the acoustic string-swing instrumentation are played with virtuosity and passion for a sound that will have you tapping your toe and simultaneously contemplating zen.
In this clip: Tak Arikushi - Guitar Jared Higgins - Guitar Alex Fournier - Double Bass