La Belle Ville: A Conversation with David Binney and Tommy Crane on ‘The Isle’

Music has always pulsed through Montréal’s DNA, from its origins to the present. Legend tells that when the city’s founder, Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, battled loneliness in the then-frontier outpost by picking up a lute. Seventeenth-century missionaries spread faith through the territory by relying upon choral singing and notation. After the British conquered New France in 1760, church organs began popping up everywhere. The 1800s brought to the fore secular music and a new French-Canadian folk tradition built upon fiddling and chansons. But the Paris of North America holds a particularly strong affinity for the music many would identify as jazz. When the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibited alcoholic beverages in Canada’s Southern neighbor for thirteen years, Montréal provided a mecca for Americans – including Black musicians – seeking to escape such draconian restrictions. Jazz dominated in areas like the Little Burgundy neighborhood – nicknamed “the Harlem of the North” – and gave rise to artists like Oscar Peterson. But as swing turned to bop, tastes shifted, and the city once derisively called “Sin City” moved on. Or did it? For the past forty-five years, the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal has been one of the largest jazz festivals anywhere. In 2004, it even received a Guinness World record designation as the largest by attendance. The city continues to boast a very hearty improvised music scene, as is reflected well on David Binney and Tommy Crane’s The Isle (Mythology/Elastic, 2025).

Thematically, Montréal lies at the heart of The Isle. It is the artists’ muse and their place of recording. However, it is worth noting that neither saxophonist Binney nor drummer Crane is a native of the city. Both are Americans, with the former having moved to Canada and the latter only frequently visiting. Their somewhat more removed status, however, does not make their perspectives on the city shallow. If anything, it reveals the depths of the city’s musical scene. Just as Alexis de Tocqueville was able to fully reveal the layers of American democracy because of his outsiderism, so Binney and Crane can share insight into their beloved city in a way someone born and raised there could not. Binney’s soaring horn echoes the city’s jazz heritage. Crane’s beats reflect the metropolitan’s bustling sounds of bilingual communications, travels over cobblestone streets, and urgent freeways. Synthesized sounds recall experimental centers in Mile End warehouses and downtown basements. Tracks like “The Plateau,” “Villeray,” and “Canal Moms” evoke specific neighborhoods as well. 

Interestingly, however, the album was not initially intended as a commentary on Montréal. While the city is loved by both artists, it is one of many shared passions of the two friends. The Isle began as a duo record that built upon their collaborations over the last two decades. But slowly the project evolved, incorporating more and more gifted artists from the city – flautist Dave Gossage, bassists Levi Dover and Jordan Brooks, keyboardist Parker Shper, and guitarist Thomas Carbou – until the record was nearly full of them. Los Angeles-based bassist Logan Kane was thrown in for good measure. The deeper the artists went, the more their love of Montréal came to the fore. 

But one thing stands out on The Isle more than its yearning to honor its city of choice; it is a laidback, profoundly soothing excursion. It is a fully collaborative affair where the artists allow the music to slowly grow and develop organically. Crane’s subtle percussion gently flows and leads the listener, while Binney – long ago established as one of the most distinctive saxophonists of the contemporary era – continues to navigate new terrain. 

PostGenre: How did the two of you first meet?

Tommy Crane: I moved to New York in 2001 to attend The New School. In New York, my buddies – people like Logan Richardson – and I would go over to 55 Bar and see David play there. Ultimately, David called me a couple of times, and we did one or two gigs together.

David Binney: Yeah, we met a long time ago and played together, but then lost contact and ran into each other on and off. We wouldn’t see each other for years at a time. But at some point, I had heard Tommy moved to Montreal. Montreal is like a second home to me, and whenever I was there, I tried to get in touch with him, but nobody ever seemed to know how to reach him. But, eventually, I figured out how to get in touch with him.

TC: We were always a degree or two away from one another.

DB: Exactly.

TC: Then we did a little tour of Europe in 2008 or 2009 with John Escreet.

DB: That was a really great time. A lot of fun. And it ultimately led to us staying in touch and, now, recording together.

PG: Do you have any sense of how, over the last twenty years or so, how you communicate musically with each other has changed the most?

DB:  Well, I think we’ve both changed individually. We both came from New York, as so-called “jazz musicians,” but I never considered myself only one thing. I have always considered myself an artist and have tried to make many different kinds of music. But as I got older, I became able to put them into effect; I started doing the different projects that I really wanted to do. And knowing Tommy, at least from a distance, I know that he also got into many different things musically.

When we reconnected, I think we were both in this place of commonality in a way with some things that resonated with both of us. We had both been through the New York experience, but we were also both working on ambient music and all kinds of other stuff. So, when we got together musically, it worked well. But, on a personal level, we’ve always worked well together;  we’ve always had fun hanging out or going to eat together.

TC: I agree. I’d also add that pretty soon after I moved to New York, someone turned me on to Dave’s record South (ACT, 2001). I don’t know exactly where it comes from, but I have always had a love for ambient music and electronic music. I feel like I could hear that on South in some way.

DB: Yeah, there were elements of it on that record  

PG: So, you both were in New York but, later, moved elsewhere – David to Los Angeles and Tommy to Montreal. How do you feel moving out of New York has most shaped your music?

DB: I think the biggest change was that I was able to do more here than I could in New York. I found music in New York very compartmentalized creatively. There are little circles of people who make similar music. But here in Los Angeles, everybody’s together, and people just create whatever they think of. That greater openness allowed me to further pursue musical ideas I already had. So it may appear my music changed when I got here, but I was already thinking about those changes before I left New York. It just became easier for me to pull them off after I moved here. New York is a great, great teacher. But it brings all kinds of economic strains and different things that sometimes keep you away from doing certain things. I think that getting out of New York can open things up a bit.

TC: It doesn’t mean that we weren’t thinking about other musical ideas in New York. I was playing in bands that were drawing from ambient elements or working with singers. But, yeah, New York used a very clear-cut way of looking at the scene sometimes. Though that may have changed, at this point, since I haven’t lived there in a long time.

DB: I feel it’s actually even more like that now. When I go, things seem very compartmentalized because of the economy. Especially so if you play certain instruments. For a saxophone player, it’s hard to break into other things sometimes. Especially when you are already known as a leader. It’s hard to suddenly get into something like a pop band as a saxophone player. You kind of have to just start the band you want by yourself. That’s why I just put things together myself; it seemed like no one else would do it. With an instrument like the drums, however, you get called to do many different things, so while I can’t speak for him, Tommy probably had many more opportunities to make different kinds of music in other people’s bands.

TC: Totally, yeah.

PG: As far as Montreal specifically, it seems most people do not hear about the city’s improvised music scene here in the United States all that often. Do you have any sense as to why that is?

TC: Good question. Of course, there is just the national divide between Canada and the States. My fiancée is Canadian, and sometimes we talk about history. We realized that when I was growing up in the US, I was never really taught about Canadian history. And she did not learn much about US history when she was growing up in Canada. And I feel that enters into the equation too.

Obviously, the [Montreal] Jazz Festival has put the city on the map in one way. However, there are also some very incredible players up here that most people in the States don’t know. For example, I wasn’t familiar with Dave Gossage – an incredible flautist who is an old friend of David’s and plays on a few songs on the album. But in Montreal, everybody knows who he is.

The divide between Canada and the US could also be related to the way the arts are funded in Canada. There are significant subsidies for artists and musicians here. There are many more opportunities for grants here than there are in the US. If you have a good proposal and a good angle, you can likely find a grant. It is possible those opportunities partly keep musicians here from traveling more. Many do, but not everyone.  But, overall, I’ve been kind of floored by the talent up here.

DB: It is pretty remarkable. I’ve been going to Montreal for a long time and have many friends there. And I’ve always really loved the scene there. I think you know, in the states people tend not to look outside the country for much of anything, especially for the arts.  

Even though Montreal is only a six-hour drive from New York, you don’t see people going between the cities much. And that means that the people in New York generally don’t know what’s going on up in Montreal or vice-versa. There’s not as much cross-pollination as it seems like there should be, given they are relatively close.

I think part of that decreased cross pollination is partly because French culture is such a huge part of Montreal, the city tends to be a little insular. You do not see as much of a divide between New York and Toronto, for instance. Don’t get me wrong, I love the French aspect of Quebec and Montreal. But I do think it creates a little bit of a barrier because it makes Montreal seem more foreign to New Yorkers, whereas, for many people, Toronto almost feels like you’re still in the States. The French elements of Montreal may keep the city’s reach limited, but it’s also great and unique.

TC: The weather also keeps people away from Montreal. The winter is intense. People go into their cocoons and do not go out. I’ve grown to love it, but it also limits cross-pollination.

DB: A lot of creativity happens in those kinds of cities because people are forced to be inside. That’s the same reason Europe was industrialized first and, in the US, industry rose in the North before the South. A lot of those kinds of things are tied to the weather. People made things because they were stuck inside and had time to think about it. I feel that in Montreal because there’s a lot of creativity in the city in many different areas. And I  think the weather contributes to that, for sure.

PG: Solely in terms of listening to the record, how do you feel Montreal can be heard on The Isle?

TC: That’s a good question. One thing is a piece we have called “Canal Moms.” The name, as ridiculous as it sounds, comes from the Lachine Canal in the southwest of the city. I live near the canal and, on most mornings, will go for a jog along the canal. When I do, I see these exercise classes of moms with strollers, doing aerobics. That has become a visual backdrop to the morning for me.

In general, the tunes are taken from fragments of the city or like something having to do with it. As another example, “Villeray” is a great neighborhood in the northern part of the city, and with that piece, we tried to capture the neighborhood a bit.

DB: I think by using musicians from Montreal, we also capture a picture of the city. The Isle started as a duo project but, as we kept going, we realized it would be nice to add more musicians and started calling people that we both knew. Tommy also called a couple of people from Montreal that he knew that I didn’t know. And I called a couple of people I knew well, like Dave Gossett who has been my friend since 1990 and I’d always wanted to put on one of my records. Actually, Tommy, I originally planned to have Dave on South. I thought it would be cool to have Dave’s flute on it, but it was one of those things where Dave couldn’t make it to New York, where we were recording in the studio.

TC: No way. Wow.

DB: For all the years I lived in New York, Dave kept talking about coming down and hanging out with me but he never did. And since then, I’ve been in LA, so it just never happened. But we were able to finally record together for [The Isle].

TC: Yeah, big shout-out to Dave. He’s the greatest flute player.

DB: Yeah, I have taken musicians visiting Montreal from New York to Hurley’s where he had a regular gig. And every time, the visiting musicians have freaked out about how good Dave is. He’s also such a great guy. He’s a very, very close friend of mine. And I’ve always wanted to put him on one of my records. This one was a great opportunity to do so.  And truthfully, he adds a massive sound to this record. He adds a lot of beautiful color.

PG: To ask about another artist on the album, while most of the musicians are from Montreal, you also have Logan Kane – from Los Angeles – on bass. Why not another Montreal musician for that part?

DB: I play with him all the time, and he’s a really close friend of mine here in LA. He’s such an unbelievable bass player, and there were tracks for the album that I could just hear him on. I just heard him on the music, so we asked him to join us, and he ended up sounding amazing.

PG: Viewing The Isle at a broader level, it often seems to emphasize texture over melodies. Is it difficult to compose in a way that puts less emphasis on melody and more on atmosphere?

TC: I’m hesitant to say that I compose music because of how we put the songs together. Obviously, as a drummer, I use rhythm as a starting point. I mean, there are tunes that Dave wrote and ones that I “wrote” but we added things to each other’s pieces. In the moments where there aren’t as clear-cut melodies, I probably wrote those because I tend to emphasize layering and have a lot of fun seeing how things unravel.

DB: We put this album together at the very last minute. We had no initial plan to make a record. We were just playing some gigs and hanging out and an opportunity came up to record. Tommy suggested we could get some studio time if we wanted. We had access to a great studio, so we decided to go for it. We put the album together from nothing, literally within a matter of days.

I know Tommy says he doesn’t write melodies, but he does have such a strong sense of sound. He does not approach composition in the traditional sense so much. But when he puts things together – and I’ve noticed this with his other albums as well – there’s a consistency that I really love. In some ways, his approach reminds me of a lot of electronic musicians I love; people like Deadmau5, who is also Canadian, where they put things together in a very interesting way and sound really great. I think Tommy has that aspect in his music and brought in those kinds of elements.

But I love how we put the tunes together for the album. I sat at a table every night for three nights and wrote some tunes. Nothing too crazy, but something melodic. And I brought those in when we recorded. We then took what Tommy had and what I had written, and added ideas to each other’s work. We layered stuff together. We didn’t sit in a room and write music together; we just presented what we had and then each added to it.

TC: It was interesting how we both brought in these little themes or ideas, but they all have a similar thread. They all sound like they come from a similar world.

DB: That’s the key: getting that thread going, and I think we did well with finding it. The album really has its own sound, and  I love that about it. The whole album flows in a way that has a sound and consistency to it. You wouldn’t expect that each of the tunes came about separately.

PG: As a closing thought, what do you enjoy most about working together?

DB: I said it earlier, but I think it is primarily how great we get along. It’s great to work with someone that I respect and who I know will have great ideas I wouldn’t have considered.

TC:  The same goes for me. I deeply respect Dave, especially his musical openness. It’s rare to meet people and collaborate with a sense of trust during the decision-making process. It’s been a great experience.

‘The Isle’ is out now on Mythology Records and Elastic Recordings. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information on David Binney and Tommy Crane can be found on their respective websites.