Jazz violinist steps up

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This article was published 24/06/2023 (923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For casual music fans, the list of jazz violinists is a short one.

Stéphane Grappelli, the Frenchman who teamed up with guitarist Django Reinhardt to create a new style of jazz in the 1930s and 1940s, usually begins and ends the strings-and-bow roll call, although American Regina Carter has become a 21st-century leader in the instrument more commonly associated with classical and folk music.

Aline Homzy, who leads the Toronto group Aline’s étoile magique, aims to join the club.

“I did grow up playing classically, but my dad taught jazz studies at Concordia University in Montreal, so jazz was always around the house,” says Homzy, who also adapted the sound trumpeters such as Clifford Brown made to the violin. “As a younger person I got to see a lot of live music, especially jazz, so I had an early exposure to that whole scene in Montreal.

“One day, I was like, ‘Hey, can we improvise on the violin, too? What are the limitations here?’ It’s an instrument like any other instrument.”

She found her answer quickly, often jamming with her father as a youngster at home, and Éclipse, the upcoming debut album from Aline’s étoile magique, shows how catchy improvisations on violin can be.

Homzy’s violin soars in the track Caraway, which the group released to streaming services earlier this month, creating an earworm-y riff before she passes the musical baton to bandmate Michael Davidson, who solos on vibraphone.

The interplay between Homzy’s violin and Davidson’s vibes are a key element in Aline’s étoile magique, but Éclipse takes a Latin turn when Joao Frode, an accordionist from Portugal, works his way to the forefront.

While the recording debut might suggest the violinist and the rest of Aline’s étoile magique are jazz rookies, Homzy, who is in her mid-30s, is no newbie to the global jazz scene.

She has been slowly putting Éclipse together for the past 10 years between all her session projects and supporting other performers’ live shows.

Her violin playing as a session artist has made her a hot commodity for other artists’ recordings, including Iskwe, the Cree singer-songwriter formerly from Winnipeg, as well as experimental folk group the Weather Station and Canadian guitarist David Occhipinti.

“I’m so excited and so thankful that this is happening and we’re almost playing every province. It’s hard to put it into words,” she says.

Homzy has performed at Montreal’s jazz festival in the past but only as part of a group or supporting another artist.

Being a bandleader with gigs across Canada has stepped up her responsibility, whether it’s onstage leading the group or the many behind-the-scenes tasks in getting everyone to the recording studio or from one festival to another.

“Just having to book flights, get funding, approach jazz festival artistic directors — the whole admin part of it is new,” she says. “I love collaborating with graphic designers and artists but the actual ancillary things are a little more tedious.”

Another Montrealer will close out Jazz Winnipeg’s series at the Royal Albert tonight.

Pianist and composer Gentiane MG, a CBC/Radio Canada Jazz Award winner, takes the stage at 9:30 p.m. with songs from her latest album, Walls Made of Glass, which came out in 2022.

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall