Bellbird: Montreal's Jazz Collective Heeds the Call

Today, we're putting The Tonearm's needle on the Montreal jazz collective Bellbird.

Bellbird formed during pandemic park jams and has since become one of the more compelling voices in Canada's avant-garde jazz scene. The quartet consists of Claire Devlin on tenor sax, Allison Burik on alto sax and bass clarinet, Eli Davidovici on bass, and Mili Hong on drums. No guitar, no piano, just three mostly single-note instruments and a drum kit, which turns out to be more than enough. Their debut, Root in Tandem, earned serious praise. Their second album, The Call, came out on February 6th on Constellation Records. It was built from bird sound transcriptions, Mary Oliver poems, and sessions in the countryside, and it doesn't sound like anything else on that storied label's roster.

Two members of the collective, Claire Devlin and Eli Davidovici, are here to take us through the story.

(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Bellbird's album The Call)

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Dig Deeper

• Artist and Album:

• Visit Bellbird at bellbird.band and follow them on Instagram and YouTube
• Purchase Bellbird's The Call from Constellation Records, Bandcamp, or Qobuz, and listen on your streaming platform of choice
• Visit Bellbird's page at Constellation Records

• Individual Members:

• Claire Devlin — tenor saxophone; follow her on Instagram
• Eli Davidovici — bass
• Allison Burik — alto saxophone and bass clarinet; follow them on Instagram
• Mili Hong — drums; follow her on Instagram

• Label:

• Constellation Records — Montréal's celebrated independent label, home to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Matana Roberts, Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush, and more

• Recording and Compositional Context:

• Hotel2Tango — the Montréal studio where The Call was recorded
• Orford Musique — the Quebec residency center where Bellbird developed the album's material

• Musical References and Inspiration:

• White Bellbird (Procnias albus) — the Amazonian bird whose recorded call Allison Burik transcribed and analyzed as the foundation for the title track
• Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese" — the poem that inspired the track "Soft Animal," published in House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990)

• Montréal Scene:

• Casa del Popolo — Montréal venue and community hub
• Suoni Per Il Popolo — Montréal's annual festival of experimental music, free jazz, and improvisation, presented at Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa

• Previous Release:

• Root in Tandem (2023) — Bellbird's self-released debut

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