Image from Petr Cancura’s website
When NAC Presents recently announced its season lineup, Petr Cancura’s Crossroads project stood out right away. A concert series within the concert series that is NAC Presents, Crossroads is a genre-crossing something special that’s been cooked up to mark Presents’ 5th anniversary.
So here it is. Take three of the city’s best-loved singer-songwriters, say Ian Tamblyn, Lynn Miles, and Jeremy Fisher. Add an amazing house band of jazz heavyweights, maybe Roddy Ellias, Greg Ritchie and John Geggie. Then throw in some fresh arrangements written by Cancura himself. Mix well. With this winning recipe you’ll be hearing your old favourites taken in all kinds of new directions. What happens to folk songs on a trip to jazzland? What do jazz harmonies do when things get folky? You’ll have to come out to hear for yourself.
You may know Petr Cancura as the programming director for the Ottawa Jazz Festival, but he’s also a professional jazz saxophonist who just so happens to also play bluegrass mandolin in his band Down Home. So he knows a thing or two about crossing genre boundaries. Cancura recently moved back to Ottawa after a ten-year stint in Brooklyn. Of his time there he says, “that city is big enough that that was a scene on its own where I worked with a lot of Americana musicians as well as jazz musicians and it feels really fresh and people learn from each other so I think it’s really exciting to bring this concept to Ottawa.”
I got in touch with Petr to learn more about the project and how it came together. Here is an excerpt from our conversation edited for length and clarity.
Apt613: Can you tell me a little bit about the jazz series you’re putting together as part of NAC Presents arranging the work of Lynn Miles, Ian Tamblyn and Jeremy Fisher in a jazz style? What was the inspiration for the series?
It’s something I’ve been talking about with Simone [Deneau] who directs NAC Presents since the last time I was at NAC Presents with my own group called Down Home. I basically developed kind of a style or voice that merges Americana sound with jazz. I’m a jazz-trained musician, I play saxophone but I also play mandolin and I play a lot of bluegrass. I was in bluegrass bands in New York as well as a lot of jazz bands so it’s a natural world for me to cross those boundaries so this series is a natural extension of what I do. I’m extremely excited about this. So when we talked about it we talked about getting some of the best, open-minded jazz musicians in the city or close to the city and reaching out to some of my favourite songwriters that we have here in Ottawa and seeing if they’d be able to collaborate with us. And they did. They all said yes in like thirty seconds.
I feel pretty honoured that these singer-songwriters would do that. Because to me, song writing especially, you really open your heart to the people to connect with them, to tell stories and to allow somebody to go in there who’s from another style of music and let them collaborate and give a different treatment to songs that mean so much to these songwriters is, it’s taking a risk. It’s inspiring to me that they were so into this so quickly.
So you were given free rein to choose the songwriters?
I worked with Simone on this so she was really open to any ides. At the same time her strength is guiding things in the right direction. She’s a pretty incredible programmer and I think I saw the best of her because she guided this project along to what I felt was very sincere and inspired.
What are your thoughts on NAC Presents in a broader sense? What’s the impact of the series for artists and why is it something special in Ottawa?
That’s an easy one. I love a bunch of things about this particular series. First of all, it’s the epitome of crossing boundaries from a musician’s point of view, being inside these two scenes I know there’s not a whole lot of cross-pollination – the jazz people kind of stick together, folk people stick together, pop people stick together, classical people and sometimes it’s really the unusual when people from across genres work together so to do this is phenomenal.
I think the musicians realize how much they can learn from each other and that inspires not only their own music but hopefully future relationships so this kind of stuff can keep happening. I know that’s happened to me when I’ve been in situations with musicians I’ve never played with before and we hit it off and long relationships are built right there.
On the second level I think the audience is the same thing. The jazz audience who might be attracted because Roddy Elias is playing and Greg Ritchie, who’s one of my favourite drummers, who spent more than a decade in New York City and just moved back to Montreal, so the jazz audience who might come out and see these musicians or John Geggie or myself will now be exposed to Ian Tambyln or Lynn Miles or Jeremy Fisher and see the depth of their music. I think the same thing is going to happen for the audience that are going to come out to see, for example, Lynn Miles, and then hear all these great jazz musicians who are sensitive enough just out of the sheer music ability they have to interpret the depth of Lynn Miles’ songs and hopefully appreciate that and maybe start coming out to come jazz shows so I think the benefit is really endless.
Whether you’re a hard-core jazz aficionado, appreciate a well-crafted song sung with a heap of feeling, or are just curious about what a conversation between these two worlds might sound like, these are three shows not to be missed:
- Petr Cancura performs with guest Ian Tamblyn November 20, 2015
- Petr Cancura performs with guest Lynn Miles February 4, 2016
- Petr Cancura performs with guest Jeremy Fisher April 7, 2016
All shows are at the NAC Fourth Stage and start at 7:30 pm. You can buy tickets for all three shows for $95.
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