release date:10.10.2025 on Elastic Recordings
Toronto tenor saxophonist and composer Harrison Argatoff is still a fairly new addition to the city’s jazz and improvised music ecosystem, and yet he has managed to ascend rapidly within its ranks, garnering admiration and collaboration from a number of his elder peers. One could easily attribute this to the imaginative array of projects he has hatched since graduating from the University of Toronto’s Jazz program seven years ago.
release date: 20.10.2023 on Cassiar Records
“Each track stretches across several minutes, but the experience they create is one of a fractured, or fragmented, forum of ideas—motifs come and go, each with their own sense of internal coherence[…] Every so often, the trio fnds union in a shared melody or brief glimpses of consonance. But these moments are feeting, and the ensemble’s search is ongoing—they keep turning over stones, exposing wriggling bits of life.” — Brennan McCracken, Musicworks
“I like the trio’s unique musical vision, its tender and determined sound and the way it is delivered: with quality and precision. To create your own voice in the crowded musical environment of today is a feat.” — Stef Gijssels, Free Jazz Blog
“Phrases often seem deliberately tentative, and exclamations sometimes evaporate into question marks […] The group’s use of space allows for their improvisations to possess distinctive shape and structure, so that when Kind Mind goes full throttle the element of surprise is on their side.” — Yoshi Maclear Wall, The WholeNote
The virtuosic violinist Aline Homzy – hailed by Jean-Luc Ponty as “sensitive and musical…original” – introduces us to her dazzling musical world on her debut album Éclipse with her group Aline’s étoile magique, out today August 25, 2023 via Elastic Recordings.
The album features Homzy with vibraphonist Michael Davidson (Joe Chambers), guitarist Thom Gill (Knower), Dan Fortin (Bernice) on bass, and Marito Marques (Ivan Lins) on drums, with special guests João Frade on accordion and vocalist Felicity Williams. The 11-track recording was ten years in the making and is a debut that showcases Homzy’s brilliant musicianship and compositional point of view with impressive clarity and maturity.
“Homzy makes music that doesn’t push the boundaries of jazz as much as it blithely and cheerfully ignores them. Her compositions unfold with something like dream logic – they’re genuinely weird but always feel like they make sense while you’re listening…. This is an utterly unique album, and a great one.” – Rick Anderson, CD Hotlist.
“Aline Homzy’s virtuosic violin is dazzling… unique and completely entertaining… Her composition is bold and melodic; forceful and power driven.” – Dee Dee McNeil, Musical Memoirs.
“A spectacular debut.” – Jazz Quad
