Linsey Wellman / Mike Essoudry CD Release tonight...

[rwe333]

From Linsey:

On Thursday, November 22nd, Mike Essoudry and I will finally be releasing our disc. I, for one, am pretty excited about the whole thing, and I hope that you'll be able to make it out to help us celebrate. The show will be at the Avant Garde Bar (135 1/2 Besserer) and will start at 8:00pm (a little earlier than our usual time). There will be a $5 cover charge.

The show will feature:

Mike Essoudry - drums, percussion, clarinet

Linsey Wellman - alto/soprano saxophones, bass clarinet

about the album:

In their first album together, Linsey Wellman (alto/soprano saxophone) and Mike Essoudry (drums/percussion) combine to explore the possibilities of tone, rhythm and melody. Over thirteen tracks and nearly an hour, they embrace stasis and movement, meditation and exuberance, delicacy and amplitude. Their improvisations and compositional sketches look both forward and back, to the ever new possibilities of instant creation, and to sounds, themes and evocations as old as humanity itself.

[bagochips]

This will be good.

[mister slippery]

wow.

not having lived in Ottawa for many years, I haven't heard the name Mike Essoudry in forever.

no way he'd remember me, but hope he's well.

[bradm]

Wow, that was awesome. I hadn't appreciated that, with just a single horn and a drummer, you'd hear the playing of the drums so much more clearly. It helps that Mike Essoudry is a master technician; you also could actually hear a difference in the sound between playing the drums in a particular order (drum-by-drum, beat-by-beat) vs. a different order (almost as if the drums were a melodic instrument, and playing them in a different order resulted in a different melody). As well, with just a single horn in the rest of the soundscape, you got a much better appreciation for the dynamics of his playing: when he played softly, he wasn't drowned out, and he could then contrast that with playing more loudly.

And Linsley Wellman's playing impressed me, a lot. He started off the night playing soprano saxophone, and his tone was much richer than other soprano sax playing I've heard on record (e.g., as played by John Coltrane, which can get a bit whiny to my ears at times). His alto sax and bass clarinet also worked really well, almost sounding as if the soprano-sax/alto-sax/bass-clarinet* combination formed a continuum of sound, rather than three different/distinct instruments.

Parade, which Mike and Linsey are in, is playing at Avant-Garde on Thurday, Dec. 6, and them in duo form is playing at Avant-Garde on Dec. 11. I plan on being at both of them.

Aloha,

Brad

* Mike Essoudry also plays clarinet, and also does it really well. The two of them did a clarinet + bass clarinet duet at the start of the second set (IIRC) that was magical to listen to.

[rwe333]

Well said, Brad.

I really enjoyed last night - while I only caught the first set (was a long day), I'm looking forward to listening to the CD.

Both masterful, diverse players that showcase a broad range of timbres.