IN CONCERT
What: Gord & Olivier Clements Quintet
Where: Hermann鈥檚 Jazz Club, 753 View St.
When: Tuesday, Feb. 4, 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30)
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students)
Information: 250-388-9166
Gord and Olivier Clements have crossed musical paths countless times over the years 鈥� for four years, the father and son have played together in a tribute to Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan. But the two professional performers wade into uncharted collaborative waters on Passages, their new album as the Gord & Olivier Clements Quintet.
The newly formed modern jazz ensemble is the product of several years of woodshedding under the umbrella of their popular Baker and Mulligan tribute. When they put the project together, neither was lacking in musical opportunities: Gord has been one of the busiest classical and jazz musicians in Victoria for decades, while his son spent years on the road with singer-songwriter Aidan Knight.
But the idea of an album of material written by the two had been percolating.
鈥淓very time we played a show or talked about projects, we always talked about how we wanted to perform more and more of our own music,鈥� Olivier said Tuesday, in an interview from his home in Whitehorse, Yukon.
鈥淒uring that time, my dad had been writing a musical based off the work of Emily Carr, so he had been in this three-year writing spree. He had a huge amount of repertoire that hadn鈥檛 been performed.鈥�
Passages will be celebrated Tuesday with a release concert at Hermann鈥檚 Jazz Club. The album was recorded live at the same View Street venue during a concert last year.
Though it represents the first recorded collaboration between the two, Passages is the latest in a string of projects for them. When Olivier was a student at 茅cole Victor-Brodeur, Gord taught the school鈥檚 jazz combo, and Olivier was brought into the fold on occasion when Gord was leading ensembles at the Victoria Conservatory of Music as the school鈥檚 head of jazz studies.
In later years, while Gord was playing with the Victoria Symphony and the Palm Court Orchestra, among other projects, Olivier was studying for his music degree from Humber College in Toronto.
Once Olivier returned to Victoria, they eventually played together in Olivier鈥檚 eight-piece jazz-fusion group, Dissonant Histories, which inspired the idea of a more formal collaboration.
Gord (on tenor saxophone and bass clarinet) and Olivier (on flugelhorn and trumpet) were joined by Rob Cheramy on guitar, Dave Emery on drums and Louis Rudner on bass for the recording, the lineup for Tuesday鈥檚 show at Hermann鈥檚.
The project comes at a crossroads of sorts for the Clements. Olivier spends his non-music hours working as a hiking guide based in Whitehorse, while Gord, who recently retired from his position as band director at St. Michaels University School, has a number of projects in the works. They are both open to the idea of the project lasting beyond a single album, in part because it was such an easy collaboration, Olivier said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a really interesting way to be creative, because in that father-son dynamic, we鈥檙e not really tiptoeing around each other. If you鈥檙e working with someone you don鈥檛 know as well, you鈥檙e trying to be really polite and democratic. We both have different ideas and different styles, but we have been working in this ensemble for four years, so we know what the sound needs to be and the ensemble is capable of. We butt heads, as fathers and songs often do, but at the same time, that has benefited the group, because we鈥檝e made something totally new.鈥�
