"Towns and Villages" is the debut recording by the Nick Fraser Quartet. It features the leader on drums, New York saxophonist Tony Malaby, Andrew Downing on cello and Rob Clutton on double bass. It is Fraser’s first recording for the Barnyard Records label, a label that has been at the forefront of new jazz and creative music in Toronto for the past ten years. The music, composed by Fraser, is grounded in the tradition of “free" or "avant-garde" jazz and consists mainly of short sketches that are jumping off points for free improvisation. From the sublime swinging of Fraser's "Sketch" pieces to the serial chromatic gestures of "Bicycle" and "Tricycle" to the chamber-like stillness of "Ballad for Lydia", the recording offers virtuoso collective playing, stunning solo turns by each member, and a tremendous roiling energy in its twelve tracks.
Drummer Nick Fraser has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto jazz community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1996. Nick has performed and recorded with a veritable "who's who" of Canadian jazz and improvised music in addition to such international artists as Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Joe McPhee, Donny McCaslin, David Binney, and Marilyn Crispell.
The group features Tony Malaby, one of the world’s foremost saxophonists in this field of music. Originally from Tucson, Arizona, he has been based in New York since 1995 and has been a member of many notable jazz groups including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, and Mark Helias' Open Loose. He was named Musician of the Year (2004) by All About Jazz New York who called him “one of the most distinctive artists of his time.”
"At Canterbury" is a live studio recording of improvisations by Rainer Wiens, guitar and mbira, Frank Lozano, saxophones, Jim Lewis, trumpet and flugelhorn, Jean Martin drums and Christine Duncan, voice and heremin. This documents the first collaboration of these 5 artists; Rainer Wiens, one of the most original modern jazz guitar stylists in Canada, who has been hailed as a genius “composer, arranger and facilitator of world musical traditions”, Jean Martin and Christine Duncan of Barnyard Drama and the Element Choir projects, and long time musical co-conspirators, Frank Lozano and Jim Lewis. Though most of these players have worked together in one combination or another over the years, this project, is a free spirited, grooving, cinematic, trippy, passionate; sometimes furious, sometimes soulful, resulting journey of this inaugural group adventure.
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