Drip Audio Night at the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, The Imperial, Friday, June 29 at 9 p.m.
Jesse Zubot isn’t exactly sure what the performance will sound like, but he’s certainly not worried about it.
“I haven’t played with him before, but I’ve played with a lot of people that he’s worked with, so I have a little bit of an idea as to what it’s going to be like,” Zubot admits, referring to his duet with Chicago-based virtuoso sax player Ken Vandermark that’s sure to enliven The Imperial in Vancouver tonight.
Zubot and Vandermark are both noted improvisers, with Zubot’s unique practice spanning many genres, instruments, and roles within Vancouver’s creative music scene.
“The first times I started really being serious about improvisation it took a little while to learn how to do it,” Zubot says, noting that it’s a skill that takes time, patience and trust.
“At first you spend time just listening to the other musicians that you’re performing with. It involves a lot of deep listening and the developing of your own maturity as far as having enough personal belief that what you’re doing is important or contributing to the situation.”
Zubot is best known as a violinist, though when it comes to contributing to a musical situation he often wears many hats.
His duo performance tonight is part of a larger Vancouver International Jazz Festival show billed as Drip Audio Night that, in addition to Zubot and Vandermark’s performance, will feature eclectic sets from groups SICK BOSS, Peregrine Falls, and Fond of Tigers.
“My performance will be pure expression, improvisation, and there’s SICK BOSS, which is a combination of that but with more melodic content and arranged composition. It’s kind of a mishmash of a bunch of different styles,” he says.
Drip Audio is the name of the music label that Zubot started in 2005 in an effort to give a voice to experimental musicians and bands on the cutting edge of improvisation, studio gadgetry, or music that didn’t necessarily conform to any specific genre.
“There needed to be an avenue for these albums to get released. So basically it turned into a label where I started releasing albums by friends of mine,” he says, noting that Drip Audio to date has put out 43 albums mainly from Vancouver artists.
“The jazz fest has been a very supportive event for the Vancouver creative music scene for quite a long-time now,” Zubot explains. “It’s kind of a little bit like a celebration, you could say, for the label too. … I feel like it’s a bit of a turning point right now because it’s the end of an era to some degree for me because I have had to stop putting as much effort and energy into the label because I’m too busy with my own career.”
Zubot’s long list of current preoccupations includes producing, performing and touring with Polaris Music Prize winning artist Tanya Tagaq, and a lot of work scoring films, such as the recent drama film Indian Horse that sheds light on the dark history of Canada’s residential schools.
“I like the amalgamation of sound with visuals because it creates emotion that is tangible in more than one way. It just feels rewarding to have music work when it is supporting a film clip and it’s making you feel something about humanity,” he says.
He’s also currently working with a group he describes as a “Mexican psychedelic mariachi rock band” based out of Winnipeg, not to mention his own treasure trove of unreleased music from throughout the years that he says he wants to release “at some point.”
Zubot notes he has a short attention span, which explains why he’s content to dive into one project, and then another and another. “I just find it to be inspiring and interesting,” he says. “I also like the idea of learning, having knowledge in different avenues.”
Growing up in Saskatchewan, Zubot underwent an “extremely regimented” course of classical music instruction, but also lived in a household where his father exposed him to the likes of jazz luminaries such as Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, leading to many impromptu jam sessions between Zubot, his brother, and his father that paved the way for his early love of improvisatory music.
A passionate advocate for music from a multitude of genres, including highly experimental and creative music, he’s proud of the work that has emerged from the Vancouver scene – much of it from Drip Audio – over the decades.
“I think all forms have been influenced by experimentation that has happened and it seems to be in everything now, even if it’s just a little bit or almost subliminal. It’s pretty full on. It’s exciting,” he says.
