Created by Jill McKenna, Marivon is a truly eclectic group of international recording musicians who have joined forces to make an album of music, surpassing geography and genres.
Originally from Hamilton, Ontario, McKenna is a New York City-trained jazz upright bassist. Now living in Nelson, BC, McKenna appears on 8 different instruments on her debut album, None of this is Mine, and is a self-proclaimed coffee-obsessed, wannabe farmer.
McKenna created Marivon in 2020 as an excuse to bring together her favourite artists. It is her love of both the places and the people that surround her that motivated this project, in combination with a realization that she can take her most beloved parts of music of all genres, without compromise.
None of this is Mine is an album challenging the way music is structured, both literally and figuratively. Inspired by a cup of coffee in the mountains with the Late Jerry Granelli, it is a conversation on connection. Created in recognition of our lineages, this body of music is an acknowledgement to the line of people who have come before us and made the scene what it is today, and to all those that will continue afterwards, be it within our families, among artists, athletes… or coffee farmers.
Furthering the conversation, this album is an attempt at expressing the connecting of dots as we experience life – that feeling of something novel somehow also being familiar. For McKenna, the connections that insisted on being heard were improvising and psychology, composition and regenerative agriculture, and coffee and groove.
The process of making this record took over two years. The music was written and recorded three times before the mixing process began, which took another eight months after that. Then began the epic 17-line poem, written by Hannah Epperson, that serves as the track listing, as well as album design with Erika War and Lexi McKenna. With every artist she worked with, McKenna’s priority was true collaboration, so each artist had space to honestly contribute to the conversation.
What resulted is 44 minutes of music spread throughout 17 tracks with 14 musicians, rooted in songwriting amongst a landscape of improvised music.
After making all of this music with so many people, it didn’t make sense in her mind to release it under her own name. Marivon is named in honour of the incredible lineage of women in McKenna’s family; her great-grandmother was named Mary, and her grandmother, Yvonne.
