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The Nick Ayoub Quintet
The Montreal Scene
RCA Canada International - 1965
Michael Panontin
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Nick Ayoub was a fixture on the Montreal jazz scene for nearly forty years. Born in Trois-Rivieres but raised in Montreal, the talented musician studied clarinet and saxophone at the prestigious High School of Montreal (with fellow students Oscar Peterson and Maynard Ferguson). From there he went on to study with Arthur Romano at the Conservatoire de musique du Quebec and Harold Gomberg of the New York Philharmonic, ultimately mastering a slew of instruments, including the oboe, the English horn and the flute.
Ayoub began his professional career in 1943. As a saxophonist, he played under a number of bandleaders like Johnny Holmes, Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Nichols and Jiro 'Butch' Watanabe. And though he would serve for a spell as oboist in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, he spent the bulk of his time in the jazz world both as a performer and as a studio musician.
By the early sixties, the Montreal jazz scene had really started to take off, helped of course by the nascent Montreal Jazz Society and the plethora of clubs that dotted the central city, like Le Jazz Hot and The Black Bottom. It was then that Ayoub formed his Nick Ayoub Quintet, originally for a half-hour show to be aired on the CBC International Service. Almost fortuitously, that 1963 broadcast caught the ears of the corporation's Laurier Hebert, who just happened to be the president of the Montreal Jazz Society. A few strings were pulled and the quintet found themselves at the Montreal Jazz Festival sharing a bill with none other than the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
The following year Ayoub and his band - trumpeter Al Penfold, bassist Michel Donato, pianist Art Roberts and drummer Emile 'Cisco' Normand - headed into the studios to record their first and only long-player, the evocatively titled The Montreal Scene. Though not quite the finest jazz record to come out of this country, it is most certainly one of the most overlooked. And toughest to find as well, with mintish copies of the album going for pretty big bucks these days.
Which will hardly come as a surprise to those fortunate enough to hear it. Ayoub's sax playing is superb here, especially on sultrier pieces like the opening 'Report from Cairo'. Ditto for Penfold, whose trumpeting skills shine on the more modal tracks. But what really makes The Montreal Scene a record worth hunting down is the closing 'Montreal East', a hard-bopping number that is easily as exciting as the city it commemorates.
Ayoub would go on to record seven albums in all. He was a familiar face in the clubs around Montreal and on various CBC radio jazz programs throughout the 1970s, but his appearances became much more sporadic after that. One of his final performances was at the 1988 Festival international de jazz de Montreal, just three years before his last show of all, that great gig in the sky.
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