Halifax Jazz Festival preview: Peter Van Huffel

By | Jun 28, 2010

The most beautiful thing about the Halifax Jazz Festival (July 9–17) is the way it offers local music fans the chance to experience artists who just wouldn’t perform in the city otherwise. Case in point: Peter Van Huffel, a Canadian-born saxophonist, now based in Berlin. His music is raw, wild and full of crazy improvisations. Here’s one example.

Although Van Huffel is currently touring, we were lucking enough to secure an interview with him. Read on for highlights from our chat.

What can fans expect from you at the Halifax Jazz Festival?
What the Halifax Jazz Festival fans can expect from me, or more correctly from all four of us in my group, is an evening of music that is strongly based in the improvisational and interactive aspects of jazz, while at the same time incorporating all of our individual influences and backgrounds into one musical presentation. The musical influences evident in both the compositions that we play and in the overall performance of the group and each individual member, includes everything from traditional to modern jazz, classical and chamber music, rock and folk, and structured and free improvisation. Aside from the musical styles that stand out in this group, the musicians in this band—although still relatively unknown on the international scene—are some of the most exciting, energetic and musical voices emerging on the present world stage. Over the past year this group has worked intensely together on developing a language that emerges from the compositions I wrote for our last recording; however the music continues to change and I find that the group is now performing with an intense stream of collective consciousness that brings the music to new levels and new directions with each performance.

How do you stand out amongst the other acts at a festival like that?
It’s very hard for me to compare my band to the other performers at the Halifax Festival, because I don’t necessarily know the music of all of the other performers. What I can say I find unique about my group amongst the general jazz world though, is that we are a band that is structured as much in composition as we are in free improvisation—this is something that I think is not so common. It would be highly incorrect to call this group a “free jazz band” because most of the music we are playing is composed… Some of the pieces have up to four of five pages of rather complicated written material, often following a through composed format instead of the typical jazz structure which usually consists of the melody form being continuously repeated as a solo form as well. However most of the compositions we perform are free of “chord changes” very typical in jazz, and most of the improvisations are completely free of form. We improvise off of the written material but allow ourselves and each other to take the music where it feels it should go at any given moment. Also, many of our compositions tend to be highly based in rock or modern classical, sometimes more so than swing or other traditional jazz styles, and the band tends to play with an immense dynamic range, everything from intense rock style energy, to swinging “free-bop”, to very quiet and gentle slow moving structures.

How important are events like the festival to you as an artist?
As a musician, festivals give us the opportunity to reach out to a much greater public than the usual live club performance. Although there are still many places around the world that cater to this kind of music, and many well educated audiences that know where to find a show that they will enjoy, it is a great opportunity to play in a situation where you have the chance to reach out to so many people that might otherwise never get the chance to hear you. Often you may end up with an audience who has never heard jazz the way you play it and they walk away completely inspired by what you do with two or three CDs in hand! Festivals draw greater attention and tend to mix lesser-known emerging artists (like myself and the members of my band), into a large condensed event that also features top names who will help to attract the larger audiences. Therefore, while performing a festival show I may have the opportunity to exceedingly increase my audience and fan base far beyond what I could do during a regular club performance. The festivals also tend to draw attention from the not-so-typical jazz audiences which I also find a great treat – I often discover that some people who would usually not be so interested in jazz end up being very inspired by my shows, and these are people that are generally hard to find and to reach out to in other circumstances.

Is this your first time in Halifax?
Yes, this is my first time in Halifax… at least as a musician. I was in Halifax once as a child with my family so I have faint memories of the city, the coast, etc. However I am excited to experience the city as an adult and I hope that I will have a chance to take in a bit of the city atmosphere as well as that of the festival.As a musician/performer, I am very excited to be bringing my group to Halifax. I am not extremely familiar with the Halifax jazz scene in general but I am aware that the East coast of Canada is full of great musicians. I have also been told, by multiple people, that the Halifax Jazz Festival tends to be one of the most exciting and open-minded festivals in Canada, bringing in more cutting edge and avant-garde artists than many other festivals in Canada. I feel that my band will fit in well to this atmosphere and I am extremely happy to be a part of it this year. I look forward to performing for the Halifax audience and to hear their reaction to my music.

It sounds like you spend a lot of time touring. Why does that appeal to you as an artist?
Touring is very appealing as an artist/musician because it is what helps us to spread knowledge of our music and of what we do. Without the possibilities of touring, musicians are restricted to playing only in the cities in which they live, or at least within the region in which they live; and this tends to limit your audience and therefore limits the future opportunities you could have with your music. The jazz audience, although still thriving in some areas, is quite limited nowadays; and therefore to be a musician wanting to create your own projects, write your own music and perform in public with your band and in turn sell your music and CD’s to interested people. It is nearly impossible to build a career out of this without touring. There is a large jazz community in the world, but it is spread out amongst various countries and cities; and without trying to tour at least a couple of times a year it would take a long time and be very difficult to build a career doing what we all dream of doing. I cannot say that I am yet making a career out of my music or out of touring, but that is my goal, and that is the reason that I am trying to tour a lot with my projects. It is a very tiring business. The booking and organizing even more so than the touring itself – however, it is something that I find unconditionally important for my career goals; and although I often wish the business end of it would be easier, I hope that my touring opportunities will only continue to increase in the years to come.

You’ve been doing a lot of collaboration in the last few years: What have been your favourite collaborative experiences?
Collaborating as a musician is extremely important. It is always good and fun to be a band leader, but it is also great to co-lead a project or work in a situation where everyone has equal pull, although that can also be difficult at times. My favourite collaborative experience by far has been the group that I co-lead with my wife, Belgian vocalist Sophie Tassignon. We co-founded this group about two and a half years ago with the idea of creating a more chamber style music setting that could incorporate both jazz and classical influences with free improvisation and avant-garde musical approaches.We originally started the group with Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser and Canadian/New York-based bassist Michael Bates, and released our first album together on the Portuguese label Clean Feed Records in the fall of 2008. Many tours followed the release of the recording and we are now in the process of restructuring the band, writing and arranging new music, and making plans for future tour periods and for the recording of our next album. This collaborative is obviously extra special to me considering I also share my home life as well as music with my co-leader; however, from a strictly musical stand-point it is extremely special to share a musical vision with someone else and to share the responsibilities of making a band work well. This is actually something that is often done much better by one person with one specific vision or goal, but when a collaborative works well it says a lot about the ability of the collaborators to work together. I credit the success of this group to the fact that Sophie and I share a very similar musical vision and luckily have the same sound in mind for this project. This makes the group work amazingly well because the workload is split in two and the strength of the musical vision is doubled. Thanks to my collaborative experiences, and this one specifically, I have definitely learned more about my own musicianship and had the fortune to explore different musical styles and approaches that I may not have found alone. The one thing I think that Sophie and I have both noticed is the immense influence we have had on each other in this group equally as composers and improvisers.

What’s the secret to a successful collaboration?
I find that the secret to a successful collaboration is making sure that you and your collaborators have an equal respect for each other, both on a musical and a personal level. When this happens it can be wonderfully rewarding and enhance one’s artistry greatly. If your musical goals don’t match, then the collaboration often ends after too many stressful rehearsals and disagreements about the overall sound and result of the project, and this unfortunately can happen often. I have tried to work in many different collaborative groups in the past but many of them have ceased to exist after just a few concerts or a couple of tours, often simply because of the fact that everyone involved was also a band leader themselves, and carried multiple responsibilities for their own groups which limited their available time for the collaborative. In this situation it becomes extremely hard for the members to commit enough time to the collaborative to make it succeed. It is very special to find people that you can work with closely and be able to create music together without egos or personal tastes interfering. Luckily they sometimes work amazingly well, and from these experiences the musical result is usually wonderful.

The Peter Van Huffel Quartet performs in the Imperial Ballroom at the Lord Nelson Hotel on July 13 at 8pm. And which JazzFest concerts are you eagerly anticipating? Post a comment and share your thoughts.

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