Four concerts in one day is about it for me as a listener. I really don't know how some of these jazz writers (not to mention the listeners/fans) do it.

It all for me ended at the River Run Centre. What a beautiful venue that is. Although, I am starting to wonder if there has ever been a concert at a large venue where the acoustic bass not only sounded good but might even be audible?

Steve Coleman's show was very long. Set up in a stretched out semi-circle with the seemingly high school age rhythm section to our right we got to hear Steve's unique style of music. He cued sections with melodic fragments, superimposed melodies and harmony over rhythmic or harmonic structure's of his own compositions and they took turns improvising. Most of the time people were playing and the line between improvising and playing parts of the compositions was blurred quite often.

The instrumentation was voice, alto sax (Coleman) trumpet, trombone, acoustic bass (inaudible from my tenth row centre seat) and drums.

The drummer was quite amazing as he seemed to have a strong grasp of Steve's concepts and compositons as well as a great sense of Dynamics and a very funky feel.

Personally, I found the music interesting as I was unsure of what was happening quite often and I enjoyed hearing Coleman improvise as it was clear how much stronger his playing over his own pieces is compared to the others.(yes...he has been working on it for twenty some odd years!) My hat is always off to those who work with Steve as it is a very demanding gig and all were holding their own.

Now that I am back in Toronto, my family duties are back on and I must head out to a birthday party for one of my four year olds friends. (hopefully more Guelph writing and podcasting later in the day or at least early this week!)

I am sad to miss the Mark Feldman show today but glad to be home.

tim