Saxman Linsey Wellman goes it alone
Photo: Jackson Couse
by Allan Wigney
It was perhaps an act of purest optimism to expect Linsey Wellman to arrive at the appointed time. Wellman’s reality, like that of many jazzers, only occasionally intersects with that of the remainder of society.
For confirmation, one need only listen to any of the nine interlocking tracks that form the local saxophonist’s debut solo album Ephemera.
And we’re talking solo album here —nothing but Wellman and his saxophone, captured by co-producer Ross Murray. According to Wellman, who arrives less than 10 minutes late thank you, “at least eight” microphones were employed to create a spacious effect. Maybe more — the versatile saxman was too busy melding his structured ideas to improvised passages to notice.
The free-jazz-flavoured results are not for the faint of heart. Or, at least, not for those in search of toe-tapping poptones. And Wellman, a graduate of Carleton University’s music program and a musician active with everything from the Mayfair Theatre’s house orchestra to Mike Essoudry’s Mash Potato Mashers, is quick to admit as much.
“It is odd, I suppose,” he allows. “There are people that get weirded-out by it. But there are also people that like it and didn’t think they would. The big test is: Do you like it? Nobody can tell you what you like and what you don’t like. Popular music is only popular by consent. And I think when people go out and try to find new music they’re surprised by what they like.”
Which brings us back to Ephemera, a likeable music-poem that provides the card-carrying member of the Improvising Musicians of Ottawa collective with a forum to combine his love of improv innovators like Albert Ayler with the discipline gained through membership in the genre-hopping touring band Kobo Town.
Wellman hopes the album will find an audience, and enable the artist to play more solo shows like Thursday’s Club SAW gig.
“I would like it if there were a larger audience for it,” Wellman says. “I really enjoy it, but I’m not sure how much of a market there is for this.”
