Preview
MRC TRIO
Thursday, March 13
Beat Niq Jazz and Social Club
The MRC trio is one of the few jazz groups that can claim influences ranging from Led Zeppelin to world music and the avant-garde.
Composed of violinist Hugh Marsh (M), drummer Barry Romberg (R) and cellist Rufus Cappadocia (C), this Toronto-based jazz group has played few live performances, but its musicians are veterans nonetheless. Marsh’s violin has been a staple with Bruce Cockburn, Loreena McKennitt, Robert Palmer and Moe Koffman. Romberg, nominated for three Junos and leader of his own group for many years, is one of the most innovative jazz drummers in Canada. Add Rufus Cappadocia, inventor of his own five-string cello, and you have the ingredients for an exciting jazz trio.
Marsh, Romberg and Cappadocia have a lot in common – they refuse to stay static and they are passionate musicians.
"Music, at its deepest level, takes control of you," says Romberg.
One of Romberg’s earliest jazz influences was drummer Philly Jo Jones, but his scope has always been larger.
"As much as I wanted to be Philly Joe Jones, I’m like, ‘I’m white, I’m Jewish, I’m from North York’ – so I had to get in touch with my roots," he says with a laugh. Romberg was in a quandary because those roots included rock and fusion, and listening to bands like Led Zeppelin, Genesis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. After some soul-searching, he decided there was a place for those elements in his music.
"I think once I put a handle on the fact that it wasn’t a deterrent to use the influences that I grew up with, I was able to incorporate them into my own sound," he says. "There’s nothing that I hate more than hearing guys that are my age or even younger that sound like they haven’t heard a recording past 1967. There’s so much great music, it’s important to be always evolving, changing, influenced."
Part of that evolution brought him together with Marsh and Cappadocia for MRC. It’s interesting that its members call MRC a "project," because that reflects its impermanence and also its potential. From the beginning, MRC has been known for totally improvising with no preconceived ideas – fitting for a group that assembled by accident.
At the time of the band’s formation in 2001, Marsh and Romberg were playing with Michael Occhipinti’s Creation Dream, while Cappadocia was with the Paradox Trio.
"Hugh and I were doing a gig," Romberg says. "(On) the afternoon of the gig, we met Rufus for the first time and we were both thinking the same thing: ‘Why don’t we get Rufus to play with us?’"
The three of them wound up playing at the Khyber Club in Halifax. It was, as Romberg says, "a really happening thing that night – there was something magical about it."
That magical quality has become MRC’s trademark. The trio has been nominated for this year's National Jazz Award for Best Electric Group and, since that first live performance in Halifax, has gained many fans. And those fans are listening intently. You’d never guess it, but their new album, Tribal Dance, was recorded live at The Rex, one of Toronto’s noisier nightspots.
"I play there a lot, and I’ve never heard a crowd be so quiet," says Romberg. "I recorded the gig just really for posterity, but it came out so good – it was just one of those nights."
Still, jazz fans are talking about the group’s ability to combine improvisational work with a hard groove. MRC may not be a jazz band in the strictest sense, but their music is certainly challenging – both for the performers and their audiences.
"I love this particular trio," says Romberg. "It’s really open and the guys are a lot of fun to play with. The fact that it’s open (means) it can really go some exciting places (musically), we’re not locked into any one specific thing." |
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