People on the street would often stare at the unsightly growth on Alan Matheson's lip. Kevin Statham photo.

Cool is still casting its spell

History is always open to interpretation, but musical archivists agree on one thing: the nonet that Miles Davis led in the late 1940s was remarkable for a number of different reasons. Collected as Birth of the Cool, the dozen tracks it recorded introduced Davis as a bandleader with a unique vision; established Toronto-born Gil Evans as the most influential arranger of his time; posited a calm alternative to the heat of bebop; and legitimized classical music's influence on jazz.

More than a half-century later, Davis's advances are still echoed by many of the groups booked for this year's Vancouver International Jazz Festival - and of those ensembles, none shows their stamp so clearly as the band that local trumpeter Alan Matheson will lead at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Wednesday (June 29). The Alan Matheson Nonet - recently featured on the CBC-recorded Intrada - mirrors the Birth of the Cool unit's lineup, and will even play some of Evans's original arrangements. But, as its leader stresses, the group is no mere revival act.

"We're not really replicating Birth of the Cool, although the impetus for the ensemble came from wanting to play that music," says Matheson, pointing out that his band will perform older pieces by Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke as well as new compositions by himself, saxophonist Dave Branter, and trombonist Rob McKenzie. "From where I came from as a young player, the Birth of the Cool was probably the first modern-jazz record I enjoyed. I grew up listening to King Oliver and Bix and Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman, things like that. And when they reissued Birth of the Cool, around 1972, I got it and I liked everything about it: the writing, and the various soloists, and the concepts behind the arrangements. I just liked that whole approach to a rich ensemble sound, plus soloists - Miles, and (saxophonist) Lee Konitz - that really fit the band."

Strangely enough, Matheson felt some trepidation about diving into Davis's modernist waters. "I'd listened to lots of Dixie and trad and swing, but I was starting to think 'There's got to be something over the hill,'?" he allows. "But a couple of the books I read when I first got into jazz were older books, and they were pretty negative about bop and post-bop music. And I'd come to this music as a classical pianist, wanting to be a composer, so I thought 'Oh, maybe I won't like it.' It was kind of a strange response, I know. But one of my favourite players at the time, Coleman Hawkins, was a natural advocate for what they used to call 'modern jazz', and so I thought 'Well, I really want to check this out.'?"

The young trumpeter was pleasantly surprised, and although today he's primarily known as a mainstream player, he doesn't turn his nose up at guitar-based fusion or the avant-garde. And, as another of his jazz-fest projects indicates, he's also able to look outside North America for musical inspiration.

In recent years, Matheson has taken several "working vacations" in Scandinavia, getting to know its languages and landscapes while also establishing some enduring bonds with like-minded musicians in the region. One of those contacts, Finnish bassist Atro "Wade" Mikkola, has hired Matheson and drummer Craig Scott to join forces with two other Helsinki-based players, saxophonist Pekka Toivanen and pianist Lasse Hirvi, in Muistatko (Remember), a remarkable tribute to the Finnish pop music of the pre-rock 'n' roll era. (The Finnish- Canadian collaboration plays CBC Radio-Canada's Studio One on Friday (June 24) and Gastown Jazz on Saturday (June 25).)

"What he's done is taken Finnish pop songs from the '30s, '40s, and '50s and done a kind of Wayne Shorter-ish take on them," the trumpeter explains. "I've played with him every time I've gone over there; he and I did a short tour of Sweden together, and we've played in Estonia as well. He's a really great composer and arranger, and it's a really neat concept, and we've been wanting to do this for some time. And they're really interesting tunes. As I said, they're sort of pre-rock tunes, and they sound kind of reminiscent of the American pop tunes of the time, like (George) Gershwin and Harold Arlen. But there's this Finnish melancholia to them as well."

Matheson will also be featured in a trio format, with guitarist Jon Roper and bassist Laurence Mollerup, at the Granville Island Brewery's Tap Room on July 2. This, he says, is a looser situation than either of the other two projects, and offers the three musicians a chance to explore some rarely played jazz classics as well as a selection of Roper's original tunes.

Whether Matheson's working with a trio, quintet, or nonet, however, his music is always marked by the kind of elegant intelligence Davis pioneered on Birth of the Cool- an album that might be just as relevant today as it ever was.

Alexander Varty