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The Quartertones
Party of five Ottawa Xpress The Quartertones - Hidden In Plain Sight [URBNET Records] By Matthew Harrison - June 30th, 2005 No longer hidden : The Quartertones' "human" side Quartertones make sure the jazz fusion actually fuses At first it would seem that fusing hip-hop and technology with jazz wouldn't present much of a problem. After all, jazz fusions of this kind have been around for years with several recent Canadian groups making noise, including Kobayashi, Lal, Sekoya, The Pocket Dwellers and others. But there are problems with this kind of fusion: differing interests, and egos, can throw a monkey wrench into the works, as in the recent case of Montreal jazz collective Kobayashi who recently lost their vocalist over a conflict of egos. Then there's the difficulty of striking a balance between technology and live instrumentation. As technology becomes more sophisticated, duplicating live instrumentation is easier, making actual musicians less important. I recently caught up with The Quartertones' DJ Serious (Dave Yan) and jazz vocalist Ms. Bates (Katherine Bates)-two of the five Quartertones-in a phone call from Toronto to plug their Jazz Fest performance on Friday July 2. I asked them what the collective-a hip-hop DJ, programmer, jazz vocalist, and two classically trained jazz musicians-thought of all this balancing. "We like to have a mixture of both," Bates said, referring to digital and live instruments, "and we always go for the more organic side of things whenever we can." The Quartertones don't have a live drummer. Planet Pea (Philip Rae) programs drum samples instead, and even when they've used a drummer in the past, Serious tells me it was still based on sampled drums. Treading on Bates' territory, I asked them why they didn't take the same approach with vocals. "Let's say you have a vocal piece you've written, with notes and cadence ... how are you going to sample that?" says Serious. "Some things work (as samples) and others don't. "Using your argument, why not replace the bass or guitar with samples and then just get rid of everybody?" Serious adds. Hmmm. "Why not?" I wonder. But speaking from experience, live computer shows suck, and watching the beautiful Bates sing along to Jimmy Green's and C5-KO's guitar work while Serious and Pea provide samples, drums and other technological wizardry, is worth keeping the sound as organic as possible. With their debut album Hidden In Plain Sight recently released, no apparent conflicts, and a solid team, the collective is ready. Aside from their debut, check out DJ Serious' solo hip-hop/DJ-based album Cold Tea-with guest vocals (not samples!) by Masta Ace and D-Sisive-released back in April. THE QUARTERTORNES FRIDAY JULY 1 At 10:30 P.M. NAC STUDIO | ||||||
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