Scott Bevins is a trumpeter and producer who grew up in Connecticut but relocated to Montreal to go to school.
“My Montreal connection is my mother,” he tells me during our Zoom call. “She grew up on the West Island, so my whole life, I was like visiting family members, and when it came time to decide where to go to school, McGill seemed like a good choice economically.”
Scott has played with Pierre Kwenders and Moonshine and performs with Busty and the Bass, an r&b and soul collective in Montreal. This month though, he released his own full-length album, ‘you iii everything else.’ The record is a combination of collaborative improvisation and interaction with a recursive AI bot, a bit of a trip-hop/post-rock-infused experimental take on jazz.
The most recent single “everything else……” is a cosmic voyage in 3 minutes: horns clash with vocals before eventually finding harmony over propulsive drums that pulsate with chaotic freedom. It’s a truly excellent, inspired hybrid of post-rock and jazz.
Growing up, music wasn’t a big part of Scott’s life until he discovered a love for trumpet.
“There was always a piano in the house. I would sometimes bash on the keys, and my dad plays a little bit of piano. He would play organ and church a little bit as a kid, but neither of them were particularly passionate about music. They’re both journalists, so they really care about words and books and stuff. So I was reading a lot and drawing and not really playing music until I was about nine years old which is when they start you, in my particular town, I started on the trumpet completely by accident. There was like some day that you’re supposed to try out all the instruments and see one that’s a good fit for you. And I guess I was sick that day or something, and I missed that day. So they just handed me a trumpet and that’s how it started!”
In around Grade 9 of school, Scott first discovered a real love of jazz music. Not common for your average 13 or 14-year-old!
“I remember the first week of class someone put on a Roy Hargrove record and a Chris Potter record and a Jackie McLean record all back to back, like one song from each. So it was just this crazy swath of fifties, hard swinging old-school stuff, and then this kind of super modern, like power fusion stuff, and then this kind of like groovy, you know, Roy Hargrove, hip hop influenced kind of jazz music. And it was all just very overwhelming all at once, getting that whole sense of the umbrella right away. But I’m pretty grateful for that.”
A project is only a way of making an escape. No Cosmos is here to break the machine and collect the magic that spills out of imperfection, in order to remain truer to human form. Bevins is the visionary behind the vortex. Inviting his collaborators in with vague directions, or none at all, he sets a temperature that requires trust and spontaneity to maintain. No tune is ever played the same way twice.
“Someone always picks up where someone else leaves off,” he says. Drummer Kyle Hutchins is the backbone, with an earthy rhythmic voice that is equally impressionistic and grooving. The ghostly and highly virtuosic vocals of Sarah Rossy create myriad timbres and countermelodies. The two-horn blend of Bevins’ trumpet and Evan Shay’s tenor saxophone is a partnership comparable to CatDog. Shay pulls more explosiveness out of Bevins, and Bevins pulls more lyricism out of Shay. Combined, their voices offer punkish declarations. And when not unruly, they deliver melodies charged with sentimentality. When asked what he wants his trumpet to sound like, Bevins said a short-circuiting fuse box and velvet.
you iii everything else is the first release via Lighter Than Air Records. The 8-song offering asks, “Do computers care?” The title is inspired by a puzzling dialogue between rogue social media chatbot AIs.
“Their speech is oddly recursive and meaningless, but underneath what was so coldly digital I felt something deeply alive,” says Bevins. What is more human than expressing oneself for no reason or particular meaning? “For this album, I put a spotlight on human expression, each instrument a person with their own story. Underneath, I kept a hidden machinery of 0s and 1s – careful digital sonic crafting, midi sequencing and sampling.” In short, Bevins’ writing process creates a tender dialogue between the human and the digital.
Scott says he feels very much a part of the eclectic music scene in Montreal.
“I did a couple of gigs with Pier as his own music, and then a couple where I was just kind of a trumpet player while there was like a rave going on, which is really fun. The more I kind of get deeper into the electronic music scene, it’s just such a different side of performing music and experiencing music than jazz. But still, there’s so much overlap I find, and I think that’s kind of been my experience. I’ve played like these crazy free jazz gigs in a loft for 10 people and it’s been life-changing, but also at a rave for 500 people where I’m just sort of playing one note every 32 bars and it’s still life-changing.
And then, Busty and the Bass is totally its own thing as well. So, yeah, it’s been very interesting. It feels like now I’m in a moment where I’m trying to pull all these things together, all these very different experiences and try and find the common threads, I suppose.”
Watch the full interview below:
you iii everything else is out now via Lighter Than Air Records.
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