Halifax Jazz Festival – Day 2 – Zulkamoon and Peter Van Huffel's GORILLA MASK!
Today at the Halifax Jazz Festival, free concerts kick off at
the waterfront tent starting at noon. Tonight at least 10 stages around metro will
host an eclectic range of talents, including Peter
Van Huffel's GORILLA MASK from Berlin and Zulkamoon from Halifax.
http://halifaxjazzfestival.ca
Zulkamoon
In 2008, Inti Gonzalez (originally from Mexico City)
moved to Halifax. After two years of collaborating with musicians around the
region, he formed a relationship with four artists with varied musical backgrounds.
These musicians and Gonzalez shared a common vision and passion, and so, Zulkamoon was born!
What's your first memory associated with playing music?
IG: The spirit of dance which
complements music every time...
What inspired you to move to Nova Scotia?
IG: Music, Culture and
Traveling.
How would you describe Zulkamoon's musical style?
IG: I’ll describe it as a
local blend of Afro-american dance music, with lyrics based on ordinary
experiences which I call "the Circus of life".
Who are the other members of Zulkamoon?
IG: Matthew Duncanson who
plays percussion and back vocal singing. He has a background in Metal Music.
The name of his band is Big Game Hunt.
Michael Nahirnak who plays
guitar and back vocal singing. He has a background in blues, jazz,
rock/rockabilly. He plays in different projects at the moment (Chris Martin and
the Troubleshooters, The Whiskey Kisses...).
Chris Cookson who plays
percussion and back vocal singing. He has studied Latin and Brazilian music and
is the creator of the project Zumbini Circus, which has a Samba Haligonian
style.
Devon Floyd who plays bass and
bass effects. His musical background is funk rock and folk music.
Who are two of your musical heroes/influences?
IG: Tiken Jah Fakoly and
Manu Chao
What can the audience look forward to when they see
you perform?
IG: We all look forward to
sharing a moment of free dancing with no expectations of any kind…just to enjoy
the joy of ZULKAMOON; sharing music from the streets…
Which acts do you want to catch at this year's Halifax
Jazz Fest?
IG: Dr. John & The Nite
Trippers, Erin Costelo, Kiran Ahluwalia, Niyaz, Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian
Sextet, Jerry Granelli & Jay Clayton, Dan Weiss & Miles Okazaki, Lee
Fields & The Expressions, THE WAILERS, Verbal Warnin'…
Zulkamoon will be performing tonight (Saturday July 6
at 11pm) with Afro Kumbé
Sound System.
Peter Van Huffel's GORILLA MASK
Peter
Van Huffel is a Canadian saxophonist based in Berlin, Germany. For the
last three weeks, he and his trio GORILLA MASK have been touring across Canada.
Tonight’s stop is 1313 Hollis in Halifax for the Jazz Festival. The final stops of their musical voyage will be Antigonish (July 8) and St. John’s (July 10). Arts
East caught up with Van Huffel last week when the trio was in Vancouver.
Where are you from originally and what inspired you to move to Germany?
PVH: I am originally from
Kingston, Ontario. My move to Berlin is the result of many years of exploring
music and desiring to stretch my experiences and find the best place to realize
my own personal artistic goals as well as finding a comfortable place to live
and work. I've spent many years living in both Toronto and New York before my
move overseas; however, I am a dual citizen with Belgium - therefore possessing
an EU passport - and had often had the desire to move overseas. Berlin has a
tremendous experimental music and arts scene and is booming with creativity.
After meeting my wife in 2007 who was living in Brussels, we decided to make
the move together to Berlin to start a new life together in a musical inspiring
environment.
How or when did you start to embrace a free-jazz style
when it came to playing saxophone?
PVH: I
have been interested in the more avant-garde styles of jazz ever since I was in
my late teens. However, my real interest in exploring it began during my time
living in New York City from 2002 to 2008. There I had the opportunity to hear
amazing musicians who were writing tremendously interesting music and
improvising in a way that I hadn't imagined before. This led me into writing
compositions that incorporated free-improvisation with less focus on structural
form and chord changes. My move to Berlin however had an even larger impact on
this aspect of my playing, as the Berlin music scene is largely based on
completely free-form improvisation. Although I still compose actual pieces and
improvise off of those, my time in Berlin has really led me into exploring
extended technique on the saxophone and to taking the improvisational aspect of
my playing much further.
How did you and the other members of Gorilla Mask (Roland Fidezius and Rudi Fischerlehner) start
collaborating?
PVH: I actually met Roland Fidezius
at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2004 at a summer workshop that we both
participated in. Shortly after this we started to tour together in Europe in
different formats and he often visited me in New York where we would also
perform together. Rudi Fischerlehner and I met in New York in 2006 through
Roland, as Rudi was living there for a short period, although we didn't have
many opportunities to perform together before the group was formed. About a
year after I moved to Berlin I had the idea to start the band GORILLA MASK and
Roland and Rudi just fit what I was looking for. They both have a tremendous
history of playing in rock and jazz bands alike, so they provide the strong
rock-like rhythm section that I was looking for with a tremendously open mind towards
experimenting in improvisation.
How
would you characterize Gorilla Mask's style?
PVH:
The
music performed by my trio mixes influences of free-jazz and rock music –we try
to bring a fresh concept to modern jazz that is accessible yet experimental. We
are recognized as being a “power-improv” group and our musical style has been
referred to as “thrash-jazz” and compared to a range of musical artists from
Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann to Soundgarden and Henry Rollins.
What
kind of success has your trio realized so far?
PVH:
We
have been together for nearly three and a half years, and in November 2012 we
released our first official recording on the German avant-jazz label “Between
the Lines”. The album has since received rave reviews across Canada, the US,
Europe and Japan, and the band has been performing and touring frequently in
some of the top venues around Europe. This summer tour is the band's first
appearance in North America, and my first return-tour to Canada in three years.
What has the tour been like?
PVH: Our
tour has been great so far. Today we are performing our fifth show in
Vancouver, and we have so far played to wonderful audiences in Ottawa and
Kingston, Ontario as well as at the Edmonton Jazz Festival last night. We have
been treated amazingly everywhere, and it has become really evident that our
music really speaks well to the different audiences across Canada. Next week we
will be performing in Toronto and Montreal in double-bill with the Toronto band
ENGINE before we head out east for the final leg of the tour.
Is there anything you'd like to add?
PVH: Only
that we are tremendously excited to have the opportunity to perform so many
shows in eastern Canada on this tour, and that we hope people will come to
check us out and enjoy experiencing our own individual approach to jazz. I
don't think that our musical style is heard every day, and I am looking forward
to sharing this in as many places around Canada, Europe and across the world as
possible.
July 6 - Halifax Jazz Festival (9pm at 1313 Hollis)
July 6 - Halifax Jazz Festival (9pm at 1313 Hollis)
July 8 -
The Split Crow, Antigonish NS
July 10 - The Wreckhouse Jazz
& Blues Festival (St. John's NF)
