Burgundy Jazz mobile application

I created five interactive, augmented reality soundscapes for the Burgundy Jazz iPhone app, produced by Catbird Productions to accompany the web documentary Burgundy Jazz.

Using headphones, people can access the soundscapes at particular locations in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy, offering an imaginative rendering of the history of jazz in the area. For instance, at a place where there are now two parking lots, two jazz clubs used to be located across the street from on another. With the app, users can hear music and sounds of the audience spilling out of the now absent jazz clubs. If they are facing one club they hear the sounds from that club the loudest; as they turn to face the other club, the soundscape shifts to emphasize the sounds of the club they are now facing.

 

iPhone App Store Description:

“Burgundy Jazz explores Montreal’s incredible contribution to jazz music history through the legendary musicians of Little Burgundy – the primarily black neighbourhood that was a hub of musical creativity, private clubs and speakeasies from the Jazz Age 1920s to the Golden Era of Jazz in the 1940s and 50s. Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones, Norman Marshall Villeneuve, the Sealey Brothers, Nelson Symonds, Charlie Biddle, and Louis Metcalf are among the greats who lived or played in “Burgundy”.

Plug in your headphones and go exploring! With this iPhone app, you can visit the specific locations in the neighbhourhood that were key to the rise of Jazz. Four different walking tours bring you to nightclubs, community centres, and even Oscar Peterson’s birthplace. Rich three-dimensional soundscapes create an immersive sonic world recreating the voices and ambiance of the Golden Era of Jazz, and in some hotspots you can even manipulate the sound by interacting with your iPhone.”