My Country is Music The Beginning of Free Improvisation in Quebec

Author John Gilmore

Quebec, late 1960s. A society in revolt against Anglo-Canadian domination. The Free Jazz Quartet, the first free jazz group in Quebec, embarked on a revolutionary journey that culminated in the Canadian army taking to the streets of Montreal. Hot on their heels was a new generation of avant-gardists who rejected political activism but wanted to go further artistically, emancipating themselves from jazz to create a new language of improvisation. Organized around their Atelier de musique expérimentale (AME), these young innovators aspired to total creative freedom and a transformation of music's place in society. But the timing was not right. Rejected by a sovereignist movement that valued song and language arts, and struggling with financial insecurity, the AME finally collapsed in 1975, the same year as Jazz libre. This is the intertwined story of the two groups in the social context of the time, told not by a detached observer, but by eleven musicians who were at the very heart of this quest. Here are eleven remarkable lives whose audacity paved the way in Quebec for the vast experimental music movement known today as musique actuelle. My Country is Music is a unique work of oral history, which offers original insights into a pivotal period in Quebec's cultural and social history. Based on interviews recorded by John Gilmore, it unfolds like a conversation between the musicians, revealing their personal journeys, the creative explosion of the years 1967 to 1975, and what became of them afterward. Among the musicians who speak are Guy Thouin, drummer and founder of the Free Jazz Quartet; Tristan Honsinger, an American rebel who found his musical voice in Montreal before launching himself onto the international scene; artists Raymond Gervais and Yves Bouliane; and film music composer Robert Marcel Lepage. The author lets the musicians express themselves freely in their native languages, eight in French, three in English. The stories unfold as conversations often do in Quebec, embracing both languages in a playful way. The book also includes (in French): the AME manifesto; a short history of the AME by historian Eric Fillion; and footnotes for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the people or events mentioned.

ISBN 9780986786631