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Band vs. decor Jazz Pharmacy look beyond the lounge by MIREILLE SILCOTT Every week, I get a sequence of faxes from the lounge clubs: Jello, Wax, Harem, Le Lounge, Sofa. They always read something like this: Mon: Atomic Cocktail, Tues: Swing Dynamique, Wed: Bullfrog, Thu: Jazz Pharmacy... All of them read that way, and all of them sit, rather unfairly, in a thick pile tagged "Unremarkable" near the ladies' nights and the Genesis cover bands.
So it was a jolt to discover that they were not a just a date and time buried in a listing, but a cheeky three-piece that could give Madeski, Martin and Wood a run for their wood-paneled organ. Like the equally talented Bullfrog, they have been nonchalantly clumped by the venues into "background bands," something to order doubles to. Yet they are anything but. "The problem with the lounge clubs," says Pharmacy drummer Eddy Cola, "is that they sell the club, not the band. They are a strange type of venue, because the drinks and the decor are more important than who's on stage." Cola name-checks Patricia, who masterminded both Jello Bar and Wax Lounge, as a great help ("She let us become a working band"), but finds the two-short-sets lounge formula intrinsically stunting, given the nature of his group. "People like dancing to us," Cola says. "What we want," adds keyboardist/vocalist Phil Clarke, "is to be able to play for five hours straight." They might get that chance soon. Jazz Pharmacy (the trio is rounded by Fraser Nash on bass) call their sun-smoked, tone-ish wah-wah urbania "drugstore funk" or "ambient funk hop." But the average joe might call it acid jazz, a genre undergoing a resurgence of respect, given clubland's trip hop-edged recognition of slower and rarer grooves as something good for the big room, too. The band, only a year old but 120 gigs wise, smack with cool-youth appeal: the double blade of being laddish, dandified young intellectuals-in-desert-boots and sounding like seasoned chompers of Metheny, Sun Ra and Roy Ayers all at once. "We've been thinking lately that the rave scene appeals to us and we'd like to start experimenting with original jams there," says Cola. "Montreal is known as more of a club city than a live music city, and rave promoters take care of their acts and DJs." Clarke pipes in: "They have a bigger vision of what music in clubs can be because they place importance on who's playing the music and work around that. So, artists don't compete with decor." Jazz Pharmacy play their last shows of the month (before going to the country on a musical retreat) at Sofa, 451 Rachel E., on Sunday, July 27, 10:30pm, midnight & 1:30am, $3, and at Roy Bar, 351 Roy, on Thursday, July 31. 10pm, free |
You see, when other local bands, say, the Paper Route, play somewhere, promoters send a heap of clippings, photos and assorted bells and bribes ("buy you a beer?"), accompanied by calls marked "urgent." The first time I saw Jazz Pharmacy, all I had as background was "Mon: Jazz Pharmacy (acid jazz)."