Gypsy-jazz party in the park

BASYA LAYE

In the mood for an early-summer dance party this weekend? Last time Halifax-based septet Gypsophilia played Vancouver, more than 2,000 came out to see them play their unique brand of swing, Gypsy jazz, Balkan-folk, reggae, klezmer and funk. This time, Gypsophilia will get Vancouver toes tapping with a sneak peak at their soon-to-be-released album Constellation, and the band will have copies for sale at their free July 3 evening show at David Lam Park.

The group – which includes co-band leader Adam Fine on double bass; Ross Burns on guitar; Sageev Oore on piano, keyboard, accordion and melodica; Matt Myer on trumpet; Nick Wilkinson and Alec Firth on guitar; and Gina Burgess on violin – is currently on the road in Western Canada, where they are hitting jazz festivals in each major city. Later in July, Gypsophilia returns to the East Coast, where they will continue to play festivals, topping off the run with an early 2012 concert with Symphony Nova Scotia.

Fresh off winning the East Coast Music Association award for instrumental recording of the year for their last album, Sa Ba Da Ow (reviewed in the Jewish Independent, Dec. 11, 2009), the band is excited to be playing at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

“Gypsophilia played in Vancouver in 2009 and we were blown away by the best crowd we’ve ever played in front of. Two thousand people who had never heard the band before (I’m sure) and were so ready to listen, dance and react. It was amazing,” Fine recalled in an interview with the Independent.

Fine began his career with music early in life. “I played bad French horn in elementary school,” he said. Inspired by his musical family, he hails from a line of horn players. “My zaide played trumpet, my father plays trumpet. I really wanted to play trumpet, but, in Grade 4, the music teacher went around giving out band instruments to students; he stopped at me and said, ‘Oh, I think you really have the lips for the French horn.’ In hindsight, it’s clear that he needed French horn players,” he mused. “I was stuck with it for the next eight years.”

His musical inclinations broadened somewhat in high school. “I got into music when I started playing electric bass in high school,” he recalled. “I took private lessons with a great teacher (Dave Glabais in Toronto) and got into the stage band at school. It just seemed right to me and I quickly stopped paying much attention to other subjects. I just hung out in the band room all day every day, started bands, played with as many people as possible. I was somewhat shocked when I asked my parents if I could pursue music in university and they said ‘yes.’ They’ve never been anything but open-minded and supportive in my life, but no one really expects parents to be OK with their children going into a career that is so full of work and so devoid of monetary remuneration.” It was while at York University studying jazz that Fine began playing double bass, his primary instrument of choice.

Though the band incorporates klezmer into its sound, among other sonic samplings, Fine’s relationship with Jewish music was circuitous. “I got into Jewish music via my Zaide Itz (the trumpet-playing one). I think I discovered the music of composer/saxophonist John Zorn at exactly the same time that Zaide invited me to play some klezmer with him and my little brother, Jordan, who plays guitar and trombone (now, aka Fine Canadian Forces). Zorn married a Jewish sound with avant-garde music – something I was really into back then and still am – it was exciting and fresh, and maybe the first Jewish cultural thing which seemed hip to me as a young person. Zaide playing klezmer with me made it seem so familiar (and familial), even though Jewish music is not something I grew up with at all. So Jewish music came at me from two directions at the same time, and it’s a sound I still care dearly about now.”

Started in 2004, the band has been characterized as a Django Reinhardt tribute and though Fine doesn’t shy away from this descriptor, he points out that they soon began writing their own material and developing their distinctive sound mixture.

“I was aware of Django before the band began but he wasn’t part of my musical development at all,” he explained. “The band came together over a few different groups of folks who said it would be fun to have a band to play French swing music in Halifax.... I figured out a date for the band at the Halifax Jazz Festival. Although we had a few rehearsals, everyone in the band hadn’t actually met prior to the first show. Coming off stage, we thought it went OK but most assumed that it was just a one shot deal. Then people started stopping us on the street and asking if we had a record, where had we come from – there was a really strong positive audience response to that first show! We stayed together, and its popularity has really expanded from there, and so has our friendship and our music.”

With the popularity of bands like Israel’s Balkan Beat Box and Gypsy-punk super-group Gogol Bordello surging and a klezmer renaissance being played out around the world, Gypsophilia finds itself a member of a richly creative community. The opportunities for collaboration are endless.

“We opened for Slavic Soul Party once at the Halifax Jazz Festival. Just love those guys – [they’re] from the Bronx. They really know how to get a crowd moving! I would love to open for or collaborate with Socalled and/or clarinetist David Krakauer at some point. I’m getting into Arabic music right now, and Simon Shaheen is an idol; I’ll be going to his Arabic music workshop this summer.”

It is partly due to this open musical diversity that audience reaction is so positive, Fine surmised. “I’m not convinced that audiences always know when we’re doing a klezmer thing or a waltz thing or when we’re doing a French swing thing, but it doesn’t exactly matter if they like the results. We tend to be a band that’s really hard to talk about but, when people hear the diversity of what we’re doing, they get it right away.”

The band’s newest songs incorporate the waltz form. “I have a waltz addiction,” Fine joked. “I watched [Stanley] Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years ago and [Johann] Strauss Jr.’s Blue Danube appears prominently; I was shocked with how beautiful and simple it is. Ever since then, I have only been able to write waltzes. It appears that I’m not the only one, as Matt also produced ‘Valse Povero,’ a really wild waltz, on this new record.”

In addition to his work with Gypsophilia, Fine has a hand in the business end of creativity with Little Zaide Music, his booking agency, and he plays with Burgess in Der Heisser, a klezmer side-project, with whom he hopes to more extensively tour in the future.

“My brother and I have joked about JED (Jewish Entrepreneurial Disorder), where we ambitious, young Jews are completely incapable of not starting our own businesses, bands, organizations, etc.

I love the music business (sometimes), and I wanted to turn my experience as a performer and manager into some additional work, matching the bands I’m in and like to potential event clients.

“The point of Little Zaide Music is that there are 1,000 bands available ready to play in the Atlantic region; anyone can point a web browser at random and find one. I act as a sort of curator, to help people find music that’s original, fun and good to make their live event that much more memorable. More to the point, if I can turn even one client away from hiring a Nova Scotian pub band then I will die happy.”

As for the party that Gypsophilia will be hosting at the park this Sunday, Fine promised, “I’m hoping those aforementioned 2,000 folks will come back and bring 2,000 of their closest friends. We will reward them with fun.”

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