René Lussier, NOW Orchestra

Victo 40th Anniversary Super Sale. If Alice had a map of Wonderland it might resemble this score, this suite of vignettes, travelogue-turned-tone poem-obstacle course. What appears to be a short walk metaphorically streches from Québec to British Columbia, Montréal to Vancouver. The space in between, always West, is filled with sound. From its opening whiplash rhythms to the finale fading into the horizon. Le Tour du Bloc provides its own escape route from the well-traveled paths of jazz. Composed specifically for the members of the N.O.W. Orchestra and shaped in workshops and performances to fit their particular talents, individual and collective, Lussier’s music follows no singular style or point of view. Ensemble writing reflects the buoyant spring of the orchestra en masse, with solo challenges fit to the temperament of each instrumentalist. Sometimes they blend together, witness the stop-and-start theme of “Le Tour du Bloc”, with holes cut out to give soloist their say, or the stylistic interruptions (trumpet tarantella, industrial noise, saloon jazz vocal, drum thunder, unison shout), like sonic channel surfing in “Mon Pied dans L’Air”. Lussier’s incorporation of diverse sources, rock rhythms to jazz parodies, free improv to pastoral ballad, is discrete and dynamic, each juxtaposition of scene a detour or road block along the journey.

Art Lange, October 1995