Jordan Officer

Jazz is jazz, no matter what language its lovers speak, but we can’t help but wonder if it sounds just a little sweeter in French. The Montreal Jazz Festival kicks off this week, and the Vancouver Courier is there to check out the scene and report back on how the jazz fest from that side of the country does it. And then there’s the jazz. Look for names like composer Wadada Leo Smith (July 7), trumpeter Roy Hargrove (July 6 and 7), and rising star Jacques Kuba Séguin (July 8) for your fix.

Ms. Lauryn Hill

July 5 and 6, Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.

If her Vancouver concert was any indication, expect jazzed up greatest hits, mixed with some soul stirring and unexpected covers. Oh, and a smile that literally makes every note feel like a gift from her heart straight to the core of yours.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/i3_dOWYHS7I

The 15th Annual Jazz Organ Jam by Certified Organic Quartet featuring Vincent Stephen-Ong, Cordell Henebury, Martin K. Petersen And Al Bourgeois

July 9, 10 p.m. Brutopia Bistro Lounge

Les sessions Jordan Officer avec invités

Place Heineken 11:59 PM

Full details at http://www.montrealjazzfest.com


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- See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/living/montreal-busts-out-le-jazz-1.2293147#sthash.YLZZnorS.dpuf - Kensley Klassen

Jordan Officer has done his New York City album. Now it’s time for his Los Angeles record.

The New York disc was his previous album, I’m Free, which came out last year. To prepare for that collection, he and his family lived in Soho for six months, with Officer sucking up the heady musical atmosphere of the town. The singer-guitarist is a veteran of the local roots scene, both as a solo artist and as the longtime guitarist and musical collaborator in the Susie Arioli Band.

But it was a whole new ballgame in the Big Apple where pretty well no one at first knew who he was.

“I was playing with people I hadn’t met before and making contacts while I was there,” Officer said in an interview this week at a café near his home in Mile End. “Just taking a lot of risks. I did a lot of shows while I was there. Solo shows for the first time.

“There was a challenging aspect in that no one expects you to be good. No one is sold on you when you get up on stage the way that I’m used to it being up here. So you have to prove yourself.

“At the same time, there was freedom because they don’t expect anything. They don’t have an idea of what style you are. So it made it easy for me to really be myself. That was really fun.”

Blue Skies, which comes out Friday, is the fruit of a very different trip, a month in L.A. this past March, during which Officer soaked up as much as he could from two seasoned Californian studio guitarists, Mitch Holder and Dennis Budimir.

Part of the idea was that Officer wanted his wife to see Los Angeles because he would like to live there at some point.

“It’s so many things all at once and that’s something I love,” Officer said. “It’s so close to Mexico. It’s so Spanish. It’s also hippie, it’s west coast. It’s Hollywood. It’s so many different extremes, so many worlds, all in the same place.”

Officer began recording for Blue Skies while in southern Californian but ended up laying down most of the tracks once he got back home to Montreal. It’s a mighty original collection, featuring Officer with his regular backing band of bassist Sage Reynolds and drummer Alain Bergé (who also plays with Jean Leloup). There are also some songs with busy local session drummer Tony Albino.

They deliver a unique bluesy-jazzy-whatever take on an eclectic set of songs from a bunch of different eras. It includes Tom Waits’s Blue Skies, Fats Domino’s It’s You I Love, Big Joe Turner’s Chains of Love and Louis Armstrong’s That’s For Me.

Two of the most unusual tracks – and two of the best – are Officer’s sparse swing re-imagining of The Crystals’ 1963 hit Then He Kissed Me, which becomes Then She Kissed Me here, and the poppy blues of When the Deal Goes Down, a great tune from Bob Dylan’s 2006 album Modern Times. Officer showcases his nuanced guitar stylings throughout.

MONTREAL, QUE.: NOVEMBER 03, 2015 -- Singer Jordan Officer takes a break from rehearsal on Tuesday November 03, 2015 at La Vitrola. (Pierre Obendrauf / MONTREAL GAZETTE)
“I still call it blues because I just don’t know what else to call it,” Jordan Officer says of his latest album, Blue Skies. PIERRE OBENDRAUF / MONTREAL GAZETTE
Blues Skies was the first song Officer ever sang when he was just starting to play guitar as a teenager in Montreal West. He says he tried out close to 100 songs before he whittled them down to the nine covers and two original instrumentals that made the cut for the album.

“Most of the covers really represent different moments of my life,” Officer said. “The ones that ended up sticking were songs that meant something to me.

“There’s also something in the style that reminds me of the work that I did with Susie Arioli for many years. It’s been three or four years since we’ve worked together and my first records after and my live show seemed to show what I wasn’t doing with her. Whereas now it seems like all of me is in there, including the more tender side that really lived in the collaboration I had with Susie.”

Arioli contributes vocals to one track, Shot of Rhythm and Blues.

Officer is commonly pigeonholed as a blues player but an album like Blue Skies is anything but your traditional old-school 12-bar blues set.

“I still call it blues because I just don’t know what else to call it,” Officer said. “You couldn’t call it a jazz album or a country album or a folk album. The one that’s least wrong is blues but even so, it would be misleading to say it’s a blues album. But I consider myself a blues player. Even when I first played with Susie, I felt like I was a blues guitarist trying to play jazz.”

Officer heads to Europe next week for a two-week tour and then he’ll be doing shows in Quebec in the first months of 2016, including a pit stop March 10 at Club Soda. - Brendan Kelly

Montreal, QC based blues artist, Jordan Officer has just released his new album, “Blue Skies”, which features eleven tracks starting with the title track, and it’s the perfect way to start the album. The song showcases Jordan’s vocals, and leaves the listener wanting much more.

“It’s You I Love” got stuck in my head within the first few notes. It’s the type of song that will continue to play over and over in your head as it just has that type of beat. It’s fun, upbeat and easy to sing along with, what more can you ask for?

The fourth song, “Shot of Rhythm & Blues” had a similar effect on me. Jordan is joined by Suzie Arioli on this track and their vocals pair together perfectly. This track gives me a Beach Boys vibe and I have to say that I just loved it.

Whether you like blues, jazz, country or pop, there is definitely something on this album for you. There’s a great mixture of upbeat and slower tracks, which will likely please the listeners. - Jenna Melanson