Vancouver Jazz Festival - Day 6

The almighty Beherit hail from Finland, and one of my favourite Zappa releases is "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol. 2 - The Helsinki Concert", so I have a high opinion of musical happenings associated with Finland. Well the UMO Jazz Orchestra more than met my expectations last night with their show at the Van East Cultural Centre. Holy bejeezus.

That was, hands down, the best part of the Festival that I've seen so far. UMO is a 17-piece big band who have been around since 1975, blowing minds with their complex and tightly-woven compositions. I've said it before and I'll say again that the closest description I have is the orchestral parts from "The Adventures of Greggary Peccary". In a way they're similar to Germany's Ensemble Modern. But that was last night, tonight the Festival treats us to another full schedule.

For those who don't have plans for tonight yet, here's an outline of what's going on (follow the links for artist/venue info and audio samples):

The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts - A night of classic sounds with a couple of jazz veterans... the Freddy Cole Quartet will be supported by David "Fathead" Newman & the Tilden Webb Trio.

The Commodore Ballroom - Hypnotic, textural soundscapes with a healthy dose of improv are the order of the day here. Vancouver's Fond of Tigers are opening the night for a show by post-rock icons Tortoise.

Vancouver East Cultural Centre - Once again the place to be if you enjoy probing the outer rim of contemporary jazz. And by that I mean watching performances by the Vijay Iyer Quartet and Fredrik Ljungkvist with Yun Kan 5.

... those wanting to stray a bit further to the outside should definitely go to the Western Front at 5:30 to catch Vancouver's own adventurous clarinettist, François Houle as he leads a ten-piece band through some of his far out compositions.

The Ironworks has sort of become the Festival's official end-the-night-here venue. It's small and intimate, the performances are always good, it's open late, and it's got the best back patio you could ask for. Tonight, Celso Machado will hit the stage at 8pm to play two sets, followed by two more sets by the Peggy Lee Band at 11pm.

Of course the "Songs Etc." series is still going strong at Performance Works on Granville Island with tonight's musical guests being Sasha Dobson, Jesse Harris, and Richard Julian. She sings smooth sounds by the seashore.

Photo courtesy of easement.