What can I say? The music in FONT this week has been such a blast, everyone creating a new take on their music, trumpet music, and music in general. It’s been a thrill to see and hear.

Lina Allemano came in from Toronto especially for this event. Lina is a great composer and trumpeter who I originally met at Banff some years ago. She brought a few of her pieces to the stage and I found myself humming one called Concentric after the show. You can hear it here. Very tuneful, and she really puts the trumpet right in the sweet spot of the song. Canadians can catch her on tour next month. Maybe us southerners next year?

Ingrid Jensen, also originally from Canada, did something I hadn’t heard her do before. She was really powerfully able to switch between acoustic trumpet and electrified, processed tones. Another Woody Shaw freak (like me and K-Lassik, among others), she played the fierce chromatic lines and tension filled rhythms of contemporary jazz, but the electronics flipped the music over into another dimension. It didn’t seem forced or artificial at all and added a significant new facet to her strong playing.

The most impressive thing about the gig was the way the two trumpets were integrated into the music, the two voices creating all the harmonic framework and song forms necessary.

The only downside was that my pictures came out all murky, and I’m not going to embarrass myself or them by posting them.

Maybe I’ll have better luck tonight with Marcus Belgrave, Greg Glassman and Sean Jones…