It’s difficult to generalize – these people in this country are like this, these people are like that. Do you get different receptions in different destinations? You head to Europe next week for a tour that will make stops in Germany, Greece, France, the U.K., Switzerland, Belgium and Turkey. I think it makes for an album that’s really rich in colour, yet somehow still cohesive. We play more than 30 different instruments on it, so we had to polish up on our doubling chops: I woodshedded the vibes and the orchestral harp quite a bit the horn players all dusted off their old clarinets: Marielle (Rivard) learned to play quite a few new percussion instruments, from sistrum to goat hoof rattle. We really pushed ourselves, especially as far as the orchestration is concerned. I see this latest album as a bit of a synthesis of everything we’ve touched on throughout the years: it has some of the Afro elements of our earlier albums, Freedom No Go Die and Manifesto, with the spiritual jazz of Rising Sun, and the tropical roots music of Solidarity. Well, I think that our music is becoming more and more personal and creative, and as a result, more difficult to classify. How would you describe the evolution of the band and where is it now? Inner Fire is Souljazz’s sixth disc in nine years. The Ottawa-based sextet’s latest burst of activity includes just-released CD Inner Fire and a run of shows that includes a performance Saturday at Babylon and a tour of seven European countries that begins next week.īelow, Chrétien, Souljazz’s keyboardist and composer, elaborates on where the band is now and where it’s headed. His group, The Souljazz Orchestra was “just getting together to jam and have fun” with a mix of soul, jazz, Afrobeat, Latin and Caribbean sounds.īut that was before six albums, two Juno Award nominations and innumerable gigs in Canada and the United States happened. “Originally, we didn’t have big ambitions,” keyboardist Pierre Chrétien told the Citizen a few years ago. Tickets: $12, Compact Music(s), The Record Centre (Hintonburg), Vertigo Records (19 + only)
THE SOULJAZZ ORCHESTRA FREEDOM NO GO DIE SONGS FULL
“Our goal was to build our new creation on the sound and the central message of the scheme, so what I did was to introduce some of the French influences of the Caribbean, as well as some French-speaking West African, whom I loved since my first youth”. Eventually the new album includes dances from coupe-decale, zouk, and ndombolo that are added to an already rich music pallet of afro, soul and jazz sounds.įollowing their previous recordings, the Souljazz Orchestra achieves the writing of lyrics that tie up with the soul of their music and deliver horrible social criticism combined with messages of hope. Recorded with the traditional analogue techniques that the format always uses, “Resistance” is a musical statement, a celebration of social justice and human emancipation.įormally completing their 13th year of existence, the Souljazz Orchestra continues a journey full of record releases. With Do Right! From Toronto, they released “Freedom No Go Die” (2006, including the single “Mista President”) and “Manifesto” (2008), raising the bar very high to continue with three albums through Strut Records, the impressive “Rising Sun” (2010), “Solidarity” (2012) and “Inner Fire” (2014), which were once recognized as station releases, each in the musical genre they represent, leading the band to nominations for a number of Juno awards Canada. “We’ve reached this album with fresh and fresh ears,”explains Pierre Chretien, lead composer. The multicultural colloquium has come back to record with the release of “Resistance” in the fall of 2015, which has come to continue the partnership with the British Strut Records. Having made their first appearance on the Canadian scene, on the turn of the millennium, the Souljazz Orchestra never stopped pushing the limits of their personal sound, which is a mixture of soul, jazz, afro, latin and Caribbean sounds, executed by majestic horns, dusty vintage keyboards and a percussion arsenal, capable of causing earthquakes.
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