My review of Joel Harrison 5's performance at Gigspace Performance Studio, Ottawa, Canada on 2014-03-1, today at All About Jazz.

Tucked at the end of a small strip mall in an unlikely location, Gigspace Performance Studio has, since opening in the fall of 2011, garnered a reputation as an intimate performance space where magic often happens. A not-for-profit 46-seat venue, "created by musicians for musicians," it sports surprisingly great sound, despite a stage where even a quintet like the Joel Harrison 5 had to shoehorn itself in. And while a sell-out of a space this small might seem like a small victory, for the 56 year-old guitarist/composer and 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship Award-winner, it was a chance to play in between gigs in Toronto and Kingston, rather than take the night off. For the full house at Gigspace, it was a great decision because, over the course of two sets, magic did, indeed, happen, and if Harrison is a lesser-known name than he should be, it's small victories like these that incrementally grow his profile.

Of course, it didn't hurt that he brought with him a crack band of fellow New Yorkers. Saxophonist Chris Cheek is another name deserving greater attention, though in projects like bassist Steve Swallow's recent Into the Woodwork (XTRAWATT/ECM, 2013) and his ongoing relationship with Argentinean expat composer/pianist Guillermo Klein, if nothing else he's certainly gained a significant reputation as a musician's musician. Pianist Jacob Sacks—operating with just nine fingers on this cold winter evening thanks to a torn ligament in his right-hand pinkie finger, something nobody would notice unless they happened to see the splint keeping his finger raised above the keys—is another player better known to musicians than to a larger jazz audience, but his work with Dan Weiss on Timshel (Sunnyside, 2010) and David Binney—both on Bastion of Sanity (Criss Cross, 2005) and in a 2010 performance in Montreal—has given the pianist more than his share of street cred.


Continue reading here...