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The October Trio: Respecting the past and aiming for the future.

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The October TrioCanada's west coast has always been home to some of the most innovative and talented jazz musicians in the world. Paul Horn spent a good deal of time in B.C. in the 70's and then came Oliver Gannon, Cam Ryga and Rene Rosnes. Then, Diana Krall and the Jensen sisters from Nanaimo followed. Now there is a new breed of young jazz musician that is personified by the musicians in The October Trio. Bassist Josh Cole gives us the lowdown on the Vancouver music scene. He and his band mates are all under 30. They combine a healthy respect for the past with a driving ambition to make their own mark in the jazz world of the 21 st century. Jim Dupuis interviewed Cole before The October Trio set out on their British Columbia tour.

JD: Why don't you tell our listeners a little about The October Trio; who's in it and how the band came about?

Josh: The October Trio consists of three guys; a young saxophone phenom, just an amazing young player named Evan Arntzen on saxophone, myself on double bass and a drummer from a band, maybe you guys have heard of, named Dave Gautier, from a band called Rabnett5. We are all current or former students of the Capilano Jazz Program and we all met through that whole thing over there.

JD: Yes, it's quite a good program. A lot of people that have come out of it have passed through this area; Brad Turner, for one. I believe that he teaches at Capilano, now. Does he?

Josh: Yes he does. There are a lot of faculty members that you will probably see on your stages, as well as ours and the international stages. People like Dylan Van Der Schyff and Peggy Lee; people who are actively involved in that scene and appear on the international stage. That's really cool.

JD: You mentioned that you are a sax trio and on your web site you let us know that there were people who have really impressed and influenced you. Maybe you could give us an example of somebody in sax trios that you liked.

Josh: Well I think the main highlighted sax trio of the past is the Sonny Rollins sax trio. The main record would be his Live at the Village Vanguard record. We do tunes off that record like �All the Things You Are� and �I'll Remember April�, just as a homage to the greatness that was that sax trio. At the same time when we pull out those tunes, we kind of twist them around, as not to be copycats, per se. I man there's nothing wrong with that, but we're really trying to develop and carve out our own sound and when we play those tunes, we're really trying to put our individual stamp on these classics.

JD: Well improve does play an important role in jazz. How much of a role does it play when you compose music?

Josh: When we are writing tunes for the sax trio, something you have to remember is that we don't have a lot of harmony, because there's just bass and sax. It's basically two lines working to a counterpoint, so I mean, we're thinking about the improvisation as well; so when improvising, how are we going to write harmony that still makes sense and sounds good in a cylindrical fashion? Therefore, keeping improvisation in mind is a huge part of our compositional approach.

JD: I looked on your website, www.theoctobertrio.com and I noticed a Kamloops connection. You guys played with Tara Grimmard at the Tsunami Relief Concert (at Capilano College in North Vancouver). Good on you guys to give back to the community. That's excellent.

Josh: Ya, that was a lot of fun. Terra's an amazing young artist. Actually, Dan and I play in her band on frequent occasions. We're just headed back into the studio, just before we go on tour, to do a CD with her. She's an amazing young artist and we love her to death and love working with her. Everyone in Kamloops, you should be really proud, because she's working her butt off and sounding amazing. Look out for her new record because it going to be really good.

JD: Speaking of new records. Rumour has it that you guys have a new one coming out, too.

Josh: Ya, we recorded ours over a month at our regular gig on Sunday at a place called Rime; this new music club at 1130 Commercial Drive. I'm going to say this about Rime, if you haven't been and you want to see some really good experimental, young, just happening music, just go to that place. The've opened their arms to us and have been so warm and loving to us. We get to play there and recorded it all. Basically we got a disc out of it. The disc is going to be called Live at Rime. It features a bunch of our tunes and a couple of covers. It's really representative of the energy that we bring to our gigs and we're pretty happy about it.

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