Tim Berne/Tom Rainey/Marc Ducret - BIG SATAN

An exciting event at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, that may not be evident at first glance, is that we have a number of great improvisers from France at our festival as part of a Focus France initiative to celebrate this incredible scene. The groups that are taking part are performing at the Fourth Stage and include Pierrick Pedron - Cheerleaders, Helene Labarriere Quartet, Benoit Delbecq, Mederic Collignon, and Marc Ducret as part of the trio Big Satan.

Although these groups are all incredible, for this post I wanted to focus on Big Satan. The trio comprises of three distinct powerful musical personalities and make this a powerhouse improv group.
There is a great interview on Tim Berne's record label Screwgun Records where the interviewer asks everyone to introduces themselves and it is too good not to share so:
Marc Ducret from France, describes himself as "a guitar player, self taught; I don't play any style in particular - I have a tendency to like them all. I play with my own trio, I play solo gigs, I play a lot with Tim Berne's different circuses.."
Tim Berne: I'm Tim Berne; I play mostly with the circus now - my own circus. I've been playing with Tom for 18 years or so. And, despite several attempts, I'm still self-taught.
Tom Rainey: I'm Tom. I play the drums. I took drum lessons. I play with Tim Berne.

Deep rooted in the Downtown scene in New York from the 80's these musicians blur the line between jazz, rock, thrash, improv, grooves, sounds... one of my favorite thing about all three of these musicians is that they all have their own sound, they are all not afraid to use it and they are guaranteed not to hold back during a show. I also love that as abstract as this group can get, the music is coming from an understanding of the jazz tradition and when they lock into a groove it is simply awesome!

Big Satan is performing at
NAC's Fourth Stage
June 29th at 9pm
Buy Tickets $25 for single show

www.ottawajazzfestival.com