Aperture Trio
Aperture Trio - Live at Open Waters Festival 2012
Aperture Trio Sculpin - Undercurrent Recordings UR002
Review
The Aperture trio consists of singer Tena Palmer , saxophonist Paul Cram, and guitarist Arthur Bull, three imaginative improvisers residing in or hailing from Nova Scotia, where the group first came together. The CD’s namesake-sculpin-is an ancient bottom dwelling fish with venomous spines, whose strongest similarity to this music lies in the element of surprise. That quality will strike a listener within moments of the opening No One Home to Complain: each musician seems to improvise independently of the group and yet what emerges is a complex tapestry of ultimately connected bits, each performer feeding, anticipating, and ignoring his or her partners at the same time. A common stylistic element shared by the three is a fondness for the string of discontinuous events and timbres, a special kind of linearity that creates a sense of continuous and unpredictable sonic collisions, each one yet possessing a sculptural sense of integrity. The musicians speed of thought is something to behold, as is the expressive range from guttural emissions—Cram’s instruments include a duck call-to sweetly liquid lyricism, such moments often occurring in close conjunction. – Stuart Broomer
APERTURE TRIO from CD Sculpin/UR002
1 no one home to complain Audio Track by Paul Cram Upstreamus
Aperture Trio - 2 blissful genesis
Aperture Trio - 3 dog day evening stories
Tena Palmer “Palmer soars where angels fear to sing". – Mark Miller - The Toronto Globe and Mail.Nova Scotia native, composer/vocalist Tena Palmer; graduated from St Francis Xavier U. with performance diplomas in baritone sax and flute and a B.Mus. in voice. With Chelsea Bridge, she recorded three critically acclaimed cds, toured internationally and won several awards: Grand Prix & SOCAN @ FIJM, Best Jazz Vocal Group- Jazz Report Magazine. During six years immersed in Reykjavik’s hot bed of new music, Palmer recorded her first solo cd, Crucible, as well as appearing on compilation cds with the arts collective/ think tank, Kitchen Motors. She has made extended tours/residencies in Scandinavia, Holland, Prague and Central Europe, performing Brazilian, jazz, roots, minimalist electronica, Celtic, spoken word and experimental music. 2005 saw the release of her second solo cd, North Atlantic Drift. In all, Palmer's voice and writing is featured on over ten critically acclaimed cds. Called, "the most creative vocalist in Canadian free improvisation", by Stuart Broomer, Toronto Life Magazine, Tena has performed with Hilmar Jensson, David Tronzo, Barry Guy, Johann Johannsson, Pierre Tanguay, Lori Freedman, Gino Robair, Justin Haynes and Jean Martin. Current bands include: APERTURE: improvisations with reedman, Paul Cram and guitarist/harmonica player Arthur Bull. BEVY: originals/jazz mix with Mike Murley, Reg Schwager, Jim Vivian, and Ted Warren. Improvised music with double bassist, Rob Clutton and THeM: original songs with Hilmar Jensson, guitar/electronics & Matthias Hemstock, percussion /electronics ( cd to be released: 2011). www.tenapalmer.com www.cdbaby.com/cd/tenapalmer www.cdbaby.com/cd/tenapalmer www.myspace.com/tenapalmer www.myspace.com/tenapalmer
Arthur Bull is a guitarist and chromatic harmonica player who has been active on the improvised music scene since the mid-70’s. At that time he was part of the early days of the Music Gallery in Toronto as a member of the Monday Night Orchestra., and played with John Oswald, members of the CCMC and many other prominent Toronto improvisers. In the 1980s he was a member of various groups including the Bill Smith Ensemble and Duck Soup. Since moving to Nova Scotia in the early 90’s he has toured and recorded primarily with fellow guitarist Daniel Heikalo. Recent recordings include three CDs by this duo, as well as two solo guitar CDs. He has performed in concert with Roscoe Mitchell, John Tchcai, Paul Rutherford, Joe McPhee, Roger Turner, John Butcher, Peter Kowald, Fred Anderson, and many other leading Canadian and international improvising musicians. Arthur Bull has also played blues and rhythm and blues in various bands since the late 60’s, and is a publisher writer.
Paul Cram grew up in Vancouver playing clarinet in concert bands and tenor saxophone in R&B bands before studying composition at the University of British Columbia. While still at UBC he jammed extensively with Paul Plimley, Lisle Ellis, Gregg Simpson and Ralph Eppel to form the seminal New Orchestra Quintet which eventually led to the formation of the New Orchestra Workshop Society, an organization that to this day fosters large ensemble free improvisation. He released his first solo album in 1982 and set out on a long road trip with the Paul Cram Trio that led him to settle in Toronto where he formed the Paul Cram Orchestra and recorded the Juno nominated Beyond Benghazi featuring Julius Hemphill. In this period, he began writing for film and theatre and has since built an award-winning parallel career. In the 90’s he moved to Nova Scotia with his new family and co-founded the Upstream Music Collective. Since 2000 he has worked to build Upstream into an organization that reaches out to the world of improvised music through collaborations, presentations, touring and recordings. This process has put him in working contact with artists such as Barry Guy, Fred Frith, Tim Crofts, Pierre Tanguay, Lori Freedman, Jeff Reilly, Marilyn Lerner , Marilyn Crispell, Geordie Haley, Adam Linson, and many more. Apart from his larger ensemble work with the Paul Cram Orchestra, A Love Upstream and the Upstream ∆azz Orchestra he finds himself gravitating to improvising trios, notably the new PC Trio and EllisTanguayCram - ETC. The formation of Aperture is another step in that direction.http://www.paulcram.com http://www.myspace.com/paulcram http://www.upstreammusic.org
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