In a lot of ways, it seems as if the Stretch Orchestra was born to play the Guelph Jazz Festival.
For one thing, all three members of the group have a geographical connection. “Kevin [Breit] and I live close by Guelph,” says cellist Matt Brubeck. Percussionist Jesse Stewart also lived in the area until he got a job at Carleton University. “So he is in Ottawa,” Brubeck says. “But he has long and deep roots in Guelph.”
Further, the trio has been a regular at the festival, which kicks off this Thursday, pretty much every year since its formation five years ago.
In previous years they were known as the Tallboys, but when the three began work on their first CD earlier this year, they discovered the name wasn’t as unique as they’d imagined.
“There’s a bluegrass band called the TallBoys, and there’s another band,” says multi-instrumentalist Breit. “So we thought, we’re putting out a record; if we have a website, we’re going to have problems with the name Tallboys.” So they became the Stretch Orchestra. Their self-titled debut will be released later this fall.
“Actually, I feel that ‘the Stretch Orchestra’ not only reflects our height,” says Brubeck, laughing, “but also the eclecticism of the band – its elasticity, as it were.”
That last bit is perhaps the biggest reason the group is such a perfect fit for Guelph. Although their music is built around improvisation, the path it takes and the ground it covers is – like most things at the Guelph Jazz Festival – individualistic and idiosyncratic.
“Jazz is a very big tent,” says Brubeck, whose father is the pianist Dave Brubeck. “There’s all sort of things you can have. People who are more on the new music/improvisation spectrum, some of that may not be directly related to African-American music-making and that tradition. But it’s still presented at the Guelph Jazz Festival.”
While the music at Guelph can be difficult to pigeonhole, that indifference to genre boundaries is perfect for the Stretch Orchestra. As Brubeck puts it, “I’m more interested in pursuing music than pursuing ‘jazz’ or ‘rock’ or ‘folk’ and all those things.” At Guleph, he adds: “There’s much more emphasis on improvisation, regardless of genre. There’s a way that all sorts of bands can play at Guelph, and the unifying theme is just extemporaneous expression in what they’re doing.”
But as Breit points out, what the Stretch Orchestra does is not just improvisation. “With this band, we try to make it so there’s something kind of memorable to the songs,” he says. “Groove is always great, but melody seems to be very important. It’s something you can always return to.”
Although Breit has played in a lot of free-form bands, what he tries to do with Brubeck and Stewart is make improvised music that has a strong melodic element. “In a lot of improvised music, anything that’s a repeated motif seems to be illegal,” he says. “In pop music, repetition is the cardinal rule. You have things that repeat so people can remember it.
“I don’t know why you can’t have both,” he says “Stretch the heck out of it, and also have something that you can go back to. The journey back can be nice.”
The Stretch Orchestra performs Friday at 11:30 p.m. at Mitchell Hall in St. George’s Anglican Church, Guelph, Ont. Further information at www.guelphjazzfestival.com
