Like a number of his fellow members of Vancouver’s improvised music community, guitarist Gordon Grdina keeps many balls in the air. Ottawans are as likely to know him as a member of singer-songwriter Dan Mangan’s ensemble as for his contemporary quartet. Meanwhile, his 2006 trio album, Think Like the Waves, with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian remains one of the most impressive debut albums of the past 20 years.

One of his longest-running projects, Haram, is actually a West Coast supergroup in disguise, including a who’s who of Vancouver improvisers such as François Houle, J.P. Carter, Jesse Zubot, and Tommy Babin. Featuring Grdina on Iraqi oud, Haram combines elements of Arabic music with electronics, noise rock, and free improvisation. As the Georgia Straight noted, “The music’s backbone is traditional, but wild outbursts of free improvisation and subtle injections of noise make it quite unlike anything you’d hear in the shisha dens of Cairo or Baghdad.”

Presented by the Ottawa Jazz Festival in collaboration with the NAC’s Canada Scene