8e édition de L’OFF Festival de jazz de Montréal
Groupe Pierre Labbé
Accompagné des visuels de Marie-Hélène Parant
29 juin 2007
23 h – O Patro Vys
Pierre Labbé - saxophone
Bernard Falaise - guitare
Gordon Alen - trompette
Clinton Reider - contrebasse
Isaia Checarelli - batterie
Marie-Hélène Parant - visuels
Jean-Claude Collet - caméra
Merci à Christophe Papadimitriou
Coordonateur du OFF
L'Off Again: Pierre Labbé
The Gazette
Published Saturday, June 30, 2007 2:29 AM by Adam Kinner
Filed under: L'Off Festival de Jazz
Saxophonist Pierre Labbé's show at O Patro Vys helped to prove that the other jazz festival that happens each year in Montreal--that is, L'Off Festival de Jazz de Montreal--is sure source of excellent homegrown music.
Aside from a cast of Montreal's best young improvisors, the success of the show was in large part due to video artist Marie-Hélène Parant, whose fascinating live video sampling was projected at the back of the stage.
By taking digital feed from a number of photographers offstage, Parant manipulated videos of the performing musicians so that they took on an animated, ethereal quality.
Sometimes I am adverse to these sorts of multimedia extravaganzas. I find that many times collaborations between the various artistic disciplines more often than not produce a dumbed-down result. And yet, in this case, just the opposite was true. Labbé's compositions are fierce, energetic and strong, and the free-improvised material was inventive and relentlessly creative. Place that alongside a video-artist who is highly skilled and not overly concerned with a parallel narrative to the music and the show is nearly over-stimulating in its magic.
So the result was bigger than the sum of its parts. Maybe it's that the visual--like that provided by Parant--can get an audience to think along narrative lines. William Forsythe, a choreographer, once told a group of students that all an artist needs to do is suggest a narrative without actually using one. A hint of narrative will get an audience thinking, and this is exactly what you want; but an actual narrative, adhered to like a fly on flypaper, can be stifling.
The collaboration tonight between Parant and Labbé offered the perfect hint of visual and musical narrative in the context mostly improvised content. A real feat for the Off Festival.
-Adam Kinner
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