The Toronto Sun n Friday, November 11, 2011

Festival out to reinvent jazz

rOy ayerS
Its a good bet you wont bump into a jazz purist at the NuJazz Festival thats in full swing right now. In fact, you dont even have to glance at the roster to come to that conclusion. Just look at the name of the event! Back in the day, jazz was about innovating; the pursuit of pushing the harmonic boundaries of music, festival founder and programmer Jay Cleary tells me from New York City where he recently moved. Now, jazz means playing standards and a walking bassline. NuJazz is about taking that same aesthetic, but pushing the envelope even further by incorporating new technology, modern electronica sounds, yet retaining the musicality and harmonic sophistication of jazz. This explains the stellar lineup for the fourth annual edition of the hip event. It includes legendary vibraphonist Roy Ayers, Philadelphia-based DJ King Britt, New Orleans sensation Trombone Shorty, U.K. breaks producer Krafty Kuts, Afrofusionists Toubab Krewe, retro soul and funk outfit Slim Moore & The Mar-Kays, Breakestra, and local jazz trumpeter Mike Field. Cleary credits some musician friends from Montreal for inspiring him to fire up

SHOWBIZ

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Rhythms N Rhymes

nazareth

errol

the festival. A few years back theyd told him that a successful NuJazz festival had been held in that city and he should consider starting one up here. I saw that there was an opportunity to create something similar since Id noticed that many of the jazz festivals were programming more of this NuJazz sound that incorporated elements of electronica and world music with jazz. Cleary says his goal has always been to celebrate the role of jazz in the larger musical universe improvisation, musical excellence and innovation and bring it into a contemporary context so that younger audiences in particular come to appreciate this incredible genre. One thing we dont get hung up on is the whole question of Is it jazz? he says. I love jazz and appreciate it as a musician, fan and presenter, but Im not a purist in that sense. Clearys love affair with jazz and flair for promoting shows goes back to his days at St. Francis Xavier Univer-

sity in Nova Scotia where he earned a minor in Jazz Performance and brought in groups like Big Sugar and Great Big Sea. He helped f o u n d t h e hu g e l y p o p u lar Evolve Festival, which has been going for 12 years, and since moving here hes helped promote hundreds of shows. NuJazzs popularity has grow n over the last four years, but now that Cleary has moved to New York, inquiring minds want to know if the festival is destined to breathe its last funky breath this year. I definitely plan to continue the Nujazz Festival, he assures me. My w i f e t o o k a g re a t opportunity here and Ill be living between both cities for a few years. With family and so many friends in the arts community in Toronto Ill always have a strong connection to the city. No doubt, though, the fact that 2011 might be the last time I put it on as a full-time Torontonian makes this year extra special. NOTE: King Britt presents his new project, Saturn Never Sleeps, tomorrow at the Great Hall. On Thursday, Trombone Shorty and Heavyweights Brass Band blow the roof off the Opera House. And Roy Ayers plays the Mod Club next Sunday. For more details and ticket info, go to nujazz.ca

No happy endings for afghan boy Mir

JIM SlOtek Toronto Sun
With or without the Taliban (but particularly with), the life of the ethnically Asian Hazara people of Northern Afghanistan has been a brutal, grinding struggle. They were the people just outside the camera frame as the world sat transfixed by the demolition of the idolatrous giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. They live in caves, their poverty augmented by episodes of brutality visited upon them by the regime. Documentarian Phil Grabsky gets points for determination for completing The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan (opening Friday at the

the Boy Mir: ten years in afghanistan

1/2
1 hour, 30 minutes
StarrINg mir, abdul, Khushdel DIrectOr Phil Grabsky

Projection Booth on Gerrard), a year-by-year, childto-man account of the life of a mischievous kid who stuck his grinning face into one such camera shot. Draw n to Bamiyan by the crime against culture, he was intrigued by the boy and his life, and started film-

ing. Somehow compelled to carry the project on for a decade, Grabsky has created a human picture of that benighted country, and the experience of abject poverty in general. The first revelation is how Mir came to have a halfbrother named Khushdel who is at least 20 years older. Seems Mirs dad, a twicewidowed, disabled coalmine worker named Abdul, arranged a swap to address their destitution. Hed traded his daughter to Khushdel for Khushdels mother (who would give birth to Mir), two marriages which produced a new breadwinner for the family (or would have if

there were jobs). An argumentative bunch, Mirs extended family scrambles to survive making food with grass and organ meat discarded by a local butcher. About the only thing that goes right in the life of Mir is that the Taliban disappears (preoccupied with maintaining a stronghold in the South). Consequently, the only c o n t a c t t h e y h av e w i t h NATO soldiers is when they show up for oddly thoughtout humanitarian missions. One day an ocean of latrines appears, but no housing. Weeks later, 100 homes will be built for the hundreds of homeless families. Later, we

see them distributing gifts of, um, notepads. When expected NATO foodstuffs dont arrive, and the family loses out on the house lottery, they head North to the village theyd abandoned as the Taliban were flushed out, and move into their now-bombed-out home, trying their best to fix holes with tape, boxes and packaging. Whats fascinating about the 10-year experience (punctuated with news reports of the deteriorating Afghan situation), is how everyone knows the NATOprovided school could be Mirs ticket out of poverty, but poverty seems to be like gravity. There are no happy

endings here. The stark mountainous beauty that framed the Buddhas remains a terrific backdrop for Grabskys doc, their sheer crushing mass serving as a metaphor for a life of inevitabilities (like a Third World version of Michael Apteds Seven-Up docs). Its also interesting to see the Americans fall from saviour status for want of amenities that would have cost a tiny fraction of what it cost to pound the countryside with drones. jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca
@jimslotek blogs.canoe.ca/ent Jim Slotek