<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
<label id="ambiancesjazz" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/boutique/ambiancesjazz/">
  <name>Ambiances Magn&#233;tiques Jazz</name>
  <shortname>Ambiances Jazz</shortname>
  <recording id="am_152" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_152/">
    <artist>Antoine Berthiaume, Michel Donato, Pierre Tanguay</artist>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/152_AM.gif" />
    <title>Ellen&#8217;s Bar</title>
    <catno>AM 152</catno>
    <year>2006</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>22.50 CA$</price>
      <rebate>
        <realprice>25.00 CA$</realprice>
        <percentage>10</percentage>
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    <description>Leading such an outstanding group of players in the production of an album
    requires much candor and courage. Guitarist Antoine Berthiaume is joined by Michel Donato and
    Pierre Tanguay in this dynamic trio that will that will groove your heart and soul. Ellen's Bar
    unveils a different side of Antoine's multifaceted activities. The eleven originals presented
    here are bursting with vitality and showcasing a firm and lively guitar style, while relying
    strongly on the jazz trio tradition. Except for the pieces written by Donato and Tanguay,
    Berthiaume has dedicated all his compositions to friends made in Montr&#233;al and New York
    over the last few years, while he was studying.</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_153" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_153/">
    <artist>Pierre Cartier</artist>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/153_AM.gif" />
    <title>Chansons de la belle esp&#233;rance</title>
    <catno>AM 153</catno>
    <year>2006</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>22.50 CA$</price>
      <rebate>
        <realprice>25.00 CA$</realprice>
        <percentage>10</percentage>
      </rebate>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <distinctions>Top 5 disques de l'ann&#233;e 2006. D&#233;lire actuel, CFLX FM,
    Qu&#233;bec</distinctions>
    <description>Inspired by jazz standards, Pierre Cartier tackles the theme of love. With all the
    lyricism such a quest deserves, he combines the voice of Quebec&#8217;s poets with the energy
    of new jazz.</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_128" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_128/">
    <artist>Ensemble en pi&#232;ces</artist>
    <artistdetail>Gossage, Grogg, King, Lauzier, Papadimitriou</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/128_AM.gif" />
    <title>Jardin d&#8217;exil</title>
    <catno>AM 128</catno>
    <year>2004</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>Led by Philippe Lauzier and Alexandre Grogg, Ensemble en pi&#232;ces is an
    inventive jazz quintet with a velvety yet jagged sound. Here, commanding writing and raw
    improvisation coexist, striking a firm balance between restraint and spontaneity. This sonic
    mosaic is mostly the result of each musician&#8217;s personal contribution: the tight rhythm
    section of bassist Christophe Papadimitriou and drummer Thom Gossage dialogues with the
    virtuoso pianist Alexandre Grogg and supports the master blowers Philippe Lauzier (saxes, bass
    clarinet) and Andy King(trumpet).</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_028" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_028/">
    <artist>&#201;vidence, Thelonious Monk</artist>
    <artistdetail>Cartier, Derome, Tanguay</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/028_AM.gif" />
    <title>Musique de Thelonious Monk</title>
    <catno>AM 028</catno>
    <year>1993</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>&#201;vidence is a tribute to the music of Thelonious Monk, pianist and composer,
    pioneer of bebop, who influenced modern jazz a great deal. &#201;vidence sets itself in
    continuity of an always increasing interest for compositions from this great musician. Founded
    in Montr&#233;al in 1985, the group &#201;vidence is comprised of musicians Pierre Cartier
    (Ensemble Pierre Cartier, Chansons de Douve), Jean Derome (Les Granules, Jean Derome et les
    Dangereux Zhoms), and Pierre Tanguay (Noma, Icarus, l&#8217;Ensemble Steve Watson). These
    musicians, better known in &#8220;musique actuelle&#8221; circles, do indeed demonstrate on
    this record, their intimacy with the jazz tradition. &#201;vidence&#8217;s repertoire includes
    nearly sixty pieces, accumulated progressively through the years. Some are well-known, others
    not much. All are revealing of Monk&#8217;s conceptual harshness and peculiar humour. This
    first album, produced by the authors on independant label Ambiances Magn&#233;tiques present
    ten works including Ugly Beauty and &#8217;Round Midnight.</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_082" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_082/">
    <artist>&#201;vidence, Thelonious Monk</artist>
    <artistdetail>Cartier, Derome, Tanguay</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/082_AM.gif" />
    <title>Live &#224; la Casa</title>
    <subtitle>Music of Thelonious Monk</subtitle>
    <catno>AM 082</catno>
    <year>2000</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>&#8220;Live &#224; la Casa&#8221; is the second record of &#201;vidence a
    Montr&#233;al based trio devoted since 1985 ot the music of Thelonious Monk one of the greatest
    composers in the history of jazz. &#8220;&#201;vidence is a jewel of a little band that
    Montr&#233;alers in the know are extremely proud of. It consists of Jean Derome, heard here on
    alto, Pierre Cartier, electric bass and Pierre Tanguay, drums &#8212; individually, musicians
    at home in many musical genres. If you add the eight compositions on this CD to the 10
    contained on the earlier &#201;vidence &#8212; Musique de Thelonious Monk [AM 028] you have
    about a quarter of Monk&#8217;s compositional legacy.&#8221; &#8212;Len Dobbin</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_179" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_179/" new="yes" recent="yes">
    <artist>John Geggie</artist>
    <artistdetail>Crispell, Fraser</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/179_AM.gif" />
    <title>Geggie Project</title>
    <catno>AM 179</catno>
    <year>2008</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>22.50 CA$</price>
      <rebate>
        <realprice>25.00 CA$</realprice>
        <percentage>10</percentage>
      </rebate>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>In the Fall of 2003, Ottawa double bassist John Geggie invited the internationally
    renowned improvising pianist Marilyn Crispell to perform with him as part of his annual jazz
    concert series staged at the National Arts Center. Eight months later, this duo was reunited on
    stage at the concert hall of the National Library of Canada during the city&#8217;s
    international jazz festival. Buoyed by these performances, the bassist set out to capture some
    of their musical magic for posterity, this time with a long-time acquaintance of his,
    Toronto-based drummer Nick Fraser. On October 31, 2006, the trio convened for a three day
    recording session in the aforementioned hall, a room with a reputation for pristine acoustics
    but an even greater one for the famous instrument it now houses: the Steinway D owned by the
    legendary Glenn Gould and bequeathed to this institution in his own will. Given these assets,
    there is a special aura that glows over the fourteen pieces of this side. Divided equally
    between composed themes for group improvisation (all penned by Geggie) and spontaneously
    created pieces, the tracks span a wide array of moods and textures, ranging from the lyrical,
    to the driving, to the spiky, even the abstract. Who knows? Maybe Glenn may have been smiling
    from above&#8230; And if it were so, chances are you will too when listening to this most
    vibrant musical offering!</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_134" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_134/">
    <artist>Normand Guilbeault Ensemble, Charles Mingus</artist>
    <artistdetail>Guilbeault</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/134_AM.gif" />
    <title>Mingus Erectus</title>
    <catno>AM 134</catno>
    <year>2005</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>What a privilege it also is to present this still underrated music to audiences in
    Quebec and abroad, year in year out, with my friends and colleagues Jean Derome, Ivanhoe
    Jolic&#339;ur, Mathieu B&#233;langer, Claude Lavergne and, in the past, the late Michel
    Ouellet. Right from this band&#8217;s inception, I had decided to include a few Mingus tunes in
    a repertoire of original compositions. In fact, my first two albums testify to this
    infatuation, as each one contains at least one piece by the famous bassist. The feeling I had
    for this music could only drive me deeper into a project that would be solely devoted to this
    prolific composer. The idea of devoting ourselves to Mingus exclusively came to life in 1995
    and a year later we recorded a first album, &#8220;Hommage &#224; Mingus,&#8221; for the label
    Justin Time. Despite the fact that &#8220;Hommage &#224; Mingus&#8221; was moved to the back
    burner (between 1997 and 2003) in favor of other important musical endeavors, we kept playing
    our 3-4 concerts a year, which allowed us to keep the project alive by adding new Mingus tunes
    each time we performed. &#8220;Dense, complex, unpredictable compositions full of sudden
    changes in rhythm and tempo, and even though they occasionally feature pretty harmonies similar
    to the ones his mentor Ellington could have thought of, these harmonies are often subjected to
    savage destructuring or surprise accelerations, and can even resolve into dissonances that were
    absolutely avant-garde at the time. (&#8230;) Through his words, actions and writings, Charles
    Mingus has left the image of a boisterous, short-tempered, even violent character, but his
    recorded works highlight different qualities, such as the intensity, spontaneity, and power of
    his music, along with an unconventional conception of jazz as it was performed during the
    &#8217;50s and &#8217;60s.&#8221; * All in all, Charles Mingus has released over 60 records
    credited to his name and has left to posterity over 300 original compositions. This album
    offers seven Mingus tunes for your pleasure, including a few standards like Pithecanthropus
    Erectus and Moanin&#8217;, but also a few more obscure numbers, such as All the things you
    could be by now if Sigmond Freud&#8217;s wife was your mother and Conversation, plus a
    revisited version of Fable of Faubus, here rechristened Fable of George Dubya (with appropriate
    lyrics). And to round up the album, Jean Derome&#8217;s beautiful composition MDMD. I wish you
    a nice listen. &#8212;Normand Guilbeault * DragonJazz &#8212; Pierre Dulieu, 100 CD de Jazz
    (http://users.skynet.be/sky19290/) This album is dedicated to the memory of Michel
    Ouellet.</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_149" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_149/">
    <artist>Robbie Kuster, Philippe Lauzier, Miles Perkin</artist>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/149_AM.gif" />
    <title>Today is a Special Day</title>
    <catno>AM 149</catno>
    <year>2006</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>The debut album by these young, excellent musicians blends original compositions
    and improvisations into a dynamic and open contemporary jazz. This modern jazz trio has a
    fluid, nuanced sound, and its debut album delivers surprisingly varied dynamics. Through
    experiments in rhythm, melody and texture, the group finds its own musical identity, in which
    rock and contemporary chamber music influences meet without being obviously felt. Irradiating
    curiosity, the open-ended sound of the trio is alluring, as it always offers something new to
    discover. The playing is articulated, interactive, and it marvelously conveys the creative
    spirit and collective fun of the three musicians. Philippe Lauzier, Miles Perkin and Robbie
    Kuster have been working as a trio for the past year. They perform regularly together and
    separately in a number of other groups. They recorded Today is a Special Day in December 2005;
    the title commemorates that day they spent creating together.</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_154" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_154/">
    <artist>Gianni Lenoci</artist>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/154_AM.gif" />
    <title>Sextant</title>
    <catno>AM 154</catno>
    <year>2006</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>22.50 CA$</price>
      <rebate>
        <realprice>25.00 CA$</realprice>
        <percentage>10</percentage>
      </rebate>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <distinctions>Coda Top Tens of 2006 - Marc Ch&#233;nard</distinctions>
    <description>Sextant - the second release by Gianni Lenoci on Ambiances Magn&#233;tiques - was
    born out of the new teaching methodologies&#8217; workshops given by the Italian pianist at
    Nino Rota Conservatory in Monopoli.. Lenoci&#8217;s experiments cover a large musical territory
    in which jazz draws inspiration from contemporary music. Acoustic and electronic instruments
    meet in harmony to form a highly dynamic whole. Here is how the artist explains his approach:
    &#8220;For years now, my main focus has been to try to create music that is not
    &#8216;contaminated&#8217; but rather &#8216;informed&#8217; and intelligent. Multiple and
    multifaceted music, yet coherent music nonetheless. Organic music made with gestures shedding
    light on the unclassifiable areas of language.&#8221;</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_144" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_144/">
    <artist>Robert Marcel Lepage</artist>
    <artistdetail>Russell</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/144_AM.gif" />
    <title>Pee Wee et moi</title>
    <catno>AM 144</catno>
    <year>2005</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <distinctions>Coda Top Ten of 2006, Ken Waxman</distinctions>
    <description>Pee Wee and Me: Lepage has created a sweet and slighly skewed homage to the
    legendarily idiosyncretic American clarinettist Pee Wee Russell. Each and every blues of this
    suite are an affectionate tribute to the great swing player. Deeply troubled clarinetist Pee
    Wee Russell rose to fame through the 1930&#8217;s and into the 1950&#8217;s where his
    musicianship was on par with leading jazz players of that time. &#8220;Pee Wee and I are in
    contrary motion: he was a drinker, played the clarinet in an eccentric style in a conventional
    world and took up drawing towards the end of his career. I started my own by drawing. I
    don&#8217;t drink, and I play the clarinet in a more or less conventional manner surrounded by
    eccentric musicians. Pee Wee and I were destined to meet each other. Jazz, also, is a world of
    encounters. In Pee Wee&#8217;s day, traditional musical fanfares springing from European roots
    were discovering and integrating Afro-American blues. My own musical language also has
    references to fanfares within a blues context. The distance between the solo and its larger
    musical context is where Pee Wee and I come from the same family. Add the tendency to transform
    the clarinet&#8217;s timbre and you see where, over time, our paths cross. Each of the blues in
    this suite is an invitation to explore a particular aspect of Pee Wee&#8217;s phrasing.
    Somewhere along the way, Pee Wee said: &#8220;There are hundreds of clarinetists that play
    better than me, but nobody plays like me.&#8221; I&#8217;ll buy that line and use it as my own.
    I would even add that I never even play twice&#8230; exactly like myself&#8230; This disc is
    dedicated to my friend Raymond Gervais, who led me to discover Pee Wee Russell.&#8221; &#8212;
    Robert Marcel Lepage, Montr&#233;al, November 2005</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_121" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_121/">
    <artist>Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay</artist>
    <artistdetail>Derome, Guilbeault, Tanguay</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/121_AM.gif" />
    <title>10 compositions</title>
    <catno>AM 121</catno>
    <year>2004</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>A cult Montr&#233;al jazz band, Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay is loved for its
    irresistible swing, audacity, sophisticated group playing, highly original repertoire and
    authentic style. All these elements are the result of a vast comprehension of the history of
    jazz, not to mention a vigorous proposition as to its reinvention. With this first album, the
    Trio delivers ten new compositions by Jean Derome. Each note of the bass line in Marcher sur
    des braises (Stepping on Hot Coals) has been written slightly before the beat, as if one wanted
    to touch the stove element (or to step on hot coals!) and was afraid to get burned. The
    structure of the piece is rather standard (it evokes Impressions or So What), but the shifts
    between 8-bar and 6-bar sections give it a distinctive drive. As indicated by its title,
    V&#233;rone (Verona) was written in Verona, Italy, while on tour with Fred Frith and Keep the
    Dog in the early &#8216;90s. The piece is built over a D pedal but presents different modal
    colors, particularly in the B section where the harmony explores modes in a tense relationship
    with the fundamental. Each musician is constantly presented with the option to play the
    ostinato or to play a slow or double-time walking line. The A section is in 4/4, but there is a
    3/4 bar hidden in there somewhere in order to destabilize the jazzmen&#8217;s tendency to play
    on auto-pilot. The B section is in 7/4. L&#8217;Africaine (The African) adopts a meditative
    mood established by an ostinato bass riff switching between 6- and 7-beat bars. The head
    consists of only a few notes followed by an ever-changing modal improvisation inspired by the
    flexibility and rhythmical creativity of African singers. As for Pierre Tanguay&#8217;s
    percussion work: he is playing on the wood logs used to heat the cottage where we were
    recording the album. Pangolin is an old composition. It has rarely been performed live, but I
    often play it on the piano. The head appears three times, but the accompaniment for the third
    occurrence shifts from 12/8 to 4/8 time, giving the impression that the floor has just vanished
    under your feet. The pangolin is a large, massive, slow and short-legged mammal resembling an
    anteater or wolverine with scales. &#201;tymologie (Etymology) goes back to the early
    &#8216;80s. It was written as a tribute to Ornette Coleman. The piece is only 7 bars long and
    is highly difficult in terms of rhythm and harmony, mostly because of the rhythmic shifts of
    the chord chart. The head is reminiscent of the speech-singing style of some of Ornette&#8217;s
    heads, but it also refers to Monk. &#201;tymologie was embedded in the piece Les Aventures de
    Sacha le chat, released on the LP Le retour des Granules. La baignade (The Swim) was written
    for Jeannine Gagn&#233;&#8217;s film Au fil de l&#8217;eau. The piece is built over a bass
    ostinato switching rather unpredictably between bars in 5/4 and 6/4. The head introduces more
    rhythmic rifts, including some 5/8 figures dancing and hovering over the bass line.
    Que&#8217;kun! (Som&#8217;one!) is the word my daughter Rapha&#235;lle used to utter as a baby
    whenever she heard someone at the door. I also remember she used to say "noune" for mouche
    (fly) and "wawane" for fromage (cheese). The 3/4 piece is in AAB form, but the B is only subtly
    different from the A. Que&#8217;kun! evokes an unknown and unexpected visitor knocking at the
    door; he represents both a threat and a chance for change. Fluide (Fluid) is a piece without
    any fixed bars, written &#224; la a Gregorian theme. Saxophone and bass play the head to the
    octave, and then the several scale options opened by the head are investigated and freely
    developed through improvisation. Cannelle (Cinnamon) is probably the oldest piece appearing on
    this album; I must have written it in the mid-&#8216;70s. I often performed it on flute (I only
    played the flute back then) with the bassist Claude Simard, who played in N&#233;bu, the group
    started by the pianist Pierre St-Jacques. Cannelle&#8217;s head reminds me of the music of Dave
    Holland and I dedicate it to him. The apparent simplicity and the jovial, almost &#8220;Country
    &amp; Western&#8221; mood of the piece hide in fact some fearsome rhythmic and harmonic
    complications. Michka was premiered by the trio for the music of the film La position de
    l&#8217;escargot by Michka Sa&#228;l. The music of this film has been composed by the Derome
    Guilbeault Tanguay trio, almost entirely by freely improvising to the images (the same method
    Miles Davis used for Louis Malle&#8217;s film Ascenseur pour l&#8217;&#233;chafaud), except for
    Michka, which had been previously recorded to be used as background music in a scene where the
    main character is listening to a jazz record. &#8212;Jean Derome, February 04</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_145" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_145/">
    <artist>Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay</artist>
    <artistdetail>Derome, Guilbeault, Tanguay</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/145_AM.gif" />
    <title>The Feeling of Jazz</title>
    <catno>AM 145</catno>
    <year>2005</year>
    <format>
      <code>CD</code>
      <price>25.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>A cult Montr&#233;al jazz band, Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay is loved for its
    irresistible swing, audacity, sophisticated group playing, highly original repertoire and
    authentic style. All these elements are the result of a vast comprehension of the history of
    jazz, not to mention a vigorous proposition as to its reinvention. With this second album, the
    Trio presents eleven jazz standards &#8212; Ellington, Waller, Cole Porter&#8230;</description>
  </recording>
  <recording id="am_166" href="http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_166/" recent="yes">
    <artist>Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay</artist>
    <artistdetail>Derome, Guilbeault, Tanguay</artistdetail>
    <cover href="http://www.electrocd.com/res/couv.lrg/166_AM.gif" />
    <title>&#201;tymologie</title>
    <subtitle>Live &#8226; L&#8217;Off Festival de Jazz de Montr&#233;al 2006</subtitle>
    <catno>AM 166</catno>
    <year>2007</year>
    <format>
      <code>DVD-V</code>
      <price>30.00 CA$</price>
      <availability></availability>
    </format>
    <description>DVD-Video [NTSC, multi-region]: Surround 5.1 (Dolby Digital) + Stereo 2.0 (Dolby
    Digital) &#8226; English Subtitles Recorded at the historic Lion d&#8217;Or in front of a full
    house on June 29, 2006, this performance is a living embodiment of the ongoing musical
    conversation among three great friends&#8212;and great artists. Their playing is imbued with
    the essential spirit of jazz modernism, featuring group interplay of the highest order. &#8212;
    Mike Chamberlain, April 2007</description>
  </recording>
</label>
