Hard Rubber Orchestra at the Cultch

You may recall an old Rubbermaid commercial, bizarrely demonstrating the more... musical properties of their variously-sized storage containers by depicting a troupe of frenzied percussionists rhythmically working out their aggression on the rigid tubs. It makes a nice point of departure, but apt as it was, this orchestra of hard, rubbery instruments gets forgotten in the mists of time because the catchy name -- the Hard Rubber Orchestra -- intractably belongs forever to a local jazz ensemble even more deserving of the name.

The term "ensemble" is really inadequate to describe the scope and scale of these performances; the chosen term "orchestra" is closer, but "army" or "agency" would hit closer to the mark yet -- bombastically crashing when called upon to produce shock and awe, or subtly manipulating events behind the scenes when the diplomatic situation is too prickly to bear brazen displays of instruments of brass destruction. Whether they get their "hard" from hard bop or hardcore is really up for interpretation (I suspect the HRO flourishes at the improbable intersection of them), and as for the "rubber"... while many of the members' instruments are made of metal, not latex, the crack team of musical point men is as pliant and flexible as a trombone's unexpected slide (fluid as its spit valve!), leaping lightly from style to style and landing on a dime with every turn. (Reconciling the softness of rubber with the hardness of, uh, hard, is part of the zen state achieved feeling the breeze of nearly two dozen simultaneous hornblows washing over you.)

The group doesn't play often -- you try lining up funding (hell, lining up seating) for and coordinating the schedules of 17 musicians, many of which lead and tour with acclaimed ensembles of their own -- but winning the Alcan Performing Arts Award in 2005 appears to have provided the cash infusion needed for the flexibility allowing mad bandleader John Korsrud's impossibility squad to convoke and perform with greater frequency (along with their latin-jazz counterpart, the Orqestra Goma Dura -- but that's a different article) and, lucky for you, one of these great and terrible gatherings is occurring this Saturday night (April 29th, 8 pm) at the "Culch" -- the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, one of those beautiful + hallowed Vancouver rooms, like the Orpheum, it's always worth ducking into even regardless of the (invariably high) calibre of the performances therein (-- the venue so wonderful it inspired La Casa Gelato to name a flavour of ice cream after it... but (say it with me), that's a different article.)

Rather than settling on their enormous laurels and tooting their own horn (some amount of which is, understandably, unavoidable), part of the HRO's mandate appears to be networking and collaborating with other titans in their field (and utterly unrelated ones, such as 2000's Ice Age at the Kerrisdale Arena, featuring Joey Shithead, figure skater Emanuel Sandhu, and zamboni choreography), commissioning new works from all sorts of new music creators. Their guest this time around is saxophonist/composer Phil Dwyer, and together they promise a spastic and enthralling adventure into big band dementia. Tickets are $15 / $11 for students and seniors.