Concerts 65 & 66

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December 2, 2012: #65 – Wellman/Stewart

  • Linsey Wellman – saxophone, bass clarinet, etc.
  • Jesse Stewart – drums

Click here to RSVP on facebook and let is know you’re coming to concert #65.

December 16, 2011: #40 – A Very Ayler Christmas!

Saxophonist Bernard Stepien and his little helpers introduce the music of Albert Ayler to that of the sweet baby Jesus. HO! HO! HO!

Discover the true meaning of Aylermas!

Here are some words from Bernard:

This year, we caught several people, usually non-musicians, who were convinced that Omega is the Alpha, Ghosts, Bells, and many others, all Albert Ayler compositions, were true Christmas Carols and even subconsciously started to sing them by the Christmas tree.

Well, for us, this almost sounds like mission accomplished.

The concept of mashing up Albert Ayler with Christmas Carols has over the last half dozen of years of concerts slowly wound up into a well accepted tradition. in fact, a few days ago, I realized that I was in deed a fool because after all of these efforts to find matches between the two repertoires and writing the mash-ups, taking fragments of the two repertoires, I found out that it was already there all the time. In fact, Albert Ayler did the reverse process. He took Christmas Carols and transfused them in his own composition by adding, enhancing, modifying them with his own musical concepts giving them a total new perspective. Upon the release of our first CD, critics were unanimous in saying that this was the CD Ayler would have loved to make. What we all missed is that not only the fact that it was already there but also that Albert Ayler was a marketing genius. By not saying anything to anybody, Ayler could play his music year round, especially at those fantastic European summer Jazz festivals. On our side, we are stuck playing our repertoire at Christmas time only. Well, at least we got a review right in the middle of the summer this year:

“We all have our highlights; mine was the Bernard Stepien Orchestra’s holy morph of Albert Ayler and Christmas carols last December.”, Lawrence Joseph, CULT#MTL august 2012

Thus, don’t miss one of the following dates:

 

·         December 13th, 8 pm, at the Artel in Kingston

·         December 16th, 7 pm, at the UMI cafe, IMOO series

Click here to RSVP and let us know you’re coming to concert #66.