In the mid-'90s, Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms was Montreal saxophonist Jean Derome's prime project. The group released three albums from 1994 to 1998. Although activities later slowed down, the group continued to perform around the world; in the Ambiances Magnétiques roster it stood as the most popular act abroad. The year 1992 was a good one for Jean Derome. He recorded the final (and best) album by his duo Les Granules with René Lussier and the first by his trio Évidence, among many other projects including music for dance and theater. He was touring like crazy and began to keep a travel diary in which he jotted down musical impressions. It appeared to him that this "road music" screamed for a band of its own. Drawing from all of his activities, he put together Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms ("Jean Derome and the Dangerous Guyz," to pick up the intentional misspelling in the last word). The group, conceived as a road band just like the music, consisted of the avant-garde jazz trio Évidence (Derome, bassist Pierre Cartier, and drummer Pierre Tanguay), plus Les Granules (guitarist Lussier), plus two of Derome's regular sidemen, trombonist Tom Walsh and keyboardist Guillaume Dostaler. For this unit, Derome penned a repertoire of pieces that blend avant jazz, avant rock, and free improv, focusing on jazz stylings Évidence derived from Thelonious Monk, the saxophonist's idiosyncratic contrapuntal writing, and the warped stage humor that was the trademark of Les Granules. They gave one hell of a dynamite show. Les Dangereux Zhoms made their live premiere opening the tenth annual Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) in Victoriaville, Quebec in October 1992, and then began to perform in Montreal and the East Coast. A first CD, Carnets de Voyage (Travel Diaries) was recorded and released in 1994. Navré came out a year later. The group continued to tour extensively in the United States, and soon in Europe too. By the end of 1997, tensions between Derome and Lussier had reached new heights and the two parted ways after two decades of close collaboration. The group was put on hiatus and Derome produced a live album from tapes recorded at the Théâtre la Chapelle in Montréal in February 1996. Torticolis was released in 1998 and the three Dangereux Zhoms CDs were packaged together as the box set 1994-96. The chapter was closed...or so it seemed. In 1999, Derome reactivated the unit, minus Lussier. Local performances were infrequent and limited to special events (like a two-week Derome residency/retrospective at the same Théâtre La Chapelle in 2000), but the group still performed regularly outside Montréal and appeared at jazz festivals in Guelph and Vancouver, at the 2001 RingRing festival in the Czech Republic, and at the 2002 Edgefest in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. In 2007, Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms were back with another album on Ambiances Magnétiques, the appropriately titled To Continue, and the following year the group was invited to open the 25th anniversary of FIMAV. For the occasion, the five-piece core band (Derome, Tanguay, Cartier, Walsh, Dostaler) was augmented by seven guest artists from the AM roster and Montreal musique actuelle scene: vocalist Joane Hétu, guitarist Bernard Falaise (of Miriodor), turntablist Martin Tétreault, clarinetist Lori Freedman, violist Jean René, violinist Nadia Francavilla, and trumpeter Gordon Allen. The extended ensemble performed two lengthy suites composed by Derome -- with plenty of idiosyncratic structures and improvising opportunities, of course -- and the concert was documented on the album Plates-Formes et Traquenards, released by the Victo label in 2009. Les Dangereux Zhoms (in this case Derome, Tanguay, Cartier, and Dostaler with guests Olivier Maranda [marimba, percussion] and Ellwood Epps [trumpet]) also appeared on Derome's 2015 contemporary classical album Musiques de Chambres, 1992-2012, performing his 1992 composition "Cinq Études Pour Figures." ~ François Couture