Gordon Grdina, François Houle, Kenton Loewen, Benoît Delbecq – Ghost Lights (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:24 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Songlines
Since 2014, the collective Grdina-Houle-Loewen has forged a new stream of complex compositions that meld together density, ferocious energy and technical virtuosity. The group’s versatility and wide dynamic range has become finely honed, creating an ensemble that can change course dramatically. The group just spent some time at Afterlife Studios in July 2016, recording a set of quartet music with French pianist Benoît Delbecq, that been released by Songlines Records in the spring of 2017.
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François Houle, Alexander Hawkins & Harris Eisenstadt – You Have Options (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:25 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Songlines Recordings
This new international chamber-jazz trio with classical and avant leanings features beautiful tunes and tasty improvisation. Canadian clarinetist François Houle, British pianist Alexander Hawkins, and NY-based Canadian drummer Harris Eisenstadt are highly regarded leaders and genuinely sympatico. The program features original compositions by all three plus pieces by Steve Lacy, Andrew Hill and Charles Ives. The group first came together for the 2014 Vancouver jazz festival and played some wild improvisational music but the record is mostly on the more lyrical and contemplative side. Houle and Eisenstadt and Hawkins and Eisenstadt have long histories of performing together, but Alex and François had not met previously. Their performing blend is different from previous Houle projects on Songlines with European pianists Benoît Delbecq and Håvard Wiik – perhaps more classically poised and spacious, but warm rather than cool, and with an edge when needed. Harris’s fastidious, highly textured drumming is the perfect percussive complement. Both Houle and Eisenstadt have extensive back catalogue on Songlines.
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François Houle – Aves (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 01:08:24 minutes | 2,34 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Songlines
This project came about when Ken Pickering, artistic director of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, programmed a duo concert at the 2011 festival. Houle, based in Vancouver for almost 25 years but originally from the Montreal area, and Wiik, Norwegian but living in Berlin, had performed together before a few times before: Francois had played with members of Atomic and with Ken Vandermark’s Free Fall Trio, and sat in with Havard’s own trio at the 2009 Vancouver festival. But this was their first program as a duo. They both brought new compositions to the project, as well as playing a number of free pieces and one by pianist Benoît Delbecq. The result, according to Pickering, is “an incredible set of music, a triumph”.
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