Satoko Fujii.
Hisham Mayet searched North Africa for a band he'd heard on a Moroccan radio station. He wanted to record them for his Sublime Frequencies label, and finally tracked them down in the Western Sahara town of Dakhla, where the guitarist Doueh played for weddings and parties, and ran a cassette-dubbing service on the side. Listening to Group Doueh makes it easy to understand why Mayet was so obsessed with finding them.
Doueh creates a "lo-fi ruckus" with guitar riffs that stray from Mauritanian modal to American blues and boogie. His wife Halima plays the ardin, a four-stringed long-necked gourd that is also used as a drum. Their son Jamaal coaxes clusters of electronica from the Yamaha keyboard. Lamnaya plays a hand drum called a tbal, and Tricha plays tea glasses rubbed and bumped against a metal tray. All three women sing and dance, and they get the audience dancing with them.
This week, Group Doueh was among hundreds of musicians from all over the world who came to Vancouver for what is a truly international jazz festival. Artistic director Ken Pickering has insisted on the global vibe since co-founding the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in 1985. He has a particular love for Scandinavian jazz, which includes a wide range of styles, even among those playing the same instrument, such as saxophone.
"Jonas Kulhammer plays hard-swinging jazz in the American tradition," Pickering explains, "while Peter Brotzmann, who comes from a visual arts background, has a dynamic intensity and is now working with young musicians coming out of the noise rock scene."
Jazz is where a lot of disparate musical genres are borrowed and blurred until they're almost unrecognizable. The Norwegian nonet Jaga Jazzist combines elements of dub, dance, trance and avant-rock. Japanese saxophone player Kazutoki Umezu blends progressive rock, blues, klezmer and African influences. And pianist Satoko Fujii synthesizes free jazz, melodicism and Japanese folk music in her compositions, which show the discipline of studying classical piano for 16 years.
Both Claude Debussy and Miles Davis celebrated "the spaces between the notes," as does Satoko's Ma-do Quartet. Ma-do translates as "window," and as "the silence between the notes." One long piece begins with Norikatsu Koreyasu bowing the bass plaintively. Satoko comes in slowly with soft percussive notes, which are elaborated on by drummer Akira Horikoshi. Then Satoko's husband, Natsuki Tamura, puts his trumpet to his lips to create a strangled, breathy sound, like something being born. From there, the ambitious piece runs the dynamic range of a Beethoven symphony.
Satoko leans a bit to the left when she plays, which may explain her extremely strong left hand. She's all over the keyboard, occasionally reaching into the Steinway grand to stroke the strings, making them sing like a theremin. This quartet is just one of her projects. She recently released three albums with two other quartets and her own 15-piece orchestra.
"Satoko has a pretty deep catalogue," says Pickering. "She oscillates back and forth between Japan and New York, and works a lot in Europe on different projects."
This festival also brings together Canadian and international musicians for unique collaborations. Vancouver clarinettist Francois Houle teams up with Norwegian pianist Havard Wiik Saturday. German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and New York drummer and pianist Tyshawn Sorey formed a quartet with Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee and trumpet player J.P. Carter. And Swedish sax player Mats Gustafson paired with Montreal's Colin Stetson.
Pickering loves creating these match-ups. He can talk at length about hundreds of different international jazz musicians, many of whom he counts as friends. He's also acutely aware of the need for festival directors to continue building ties with each other, and with the agencies that help send musicians on international tours.
"It's been really important to establish all these relationships so that at least you can find ways to navigate the minefield that is funding," he says.
It's a patchwork of public and private money, and there's not as much of it as there used to be. Travel grants are available through the Canada Council Touring Office, and its counterparts in Europe and Scandinavia. But those grants don't always cover the whole cost of touring. With a few exceptions, most American musicians are on their own when it comes to travel.
"Jazz is the American music," Pickering says, but admits he has to dip into the festival's small discretionary budget sometimes to help American artists get to the festival.
The Vancouver International Jazz Festival ends Sunday night with Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia at the Orpheum and the Nordic free jazz quintet Atomic at the Roundhouse.
www.coastaljazz.ca