Montreal Jazz Festival- part 1 - Jun 28-Jul 1

Certainly one of the huge attractions of the festival so far has been the city as well as the music.

But lets start with the music;. The whole festival spans 11 days of which I will see 7 days worth. There are impressive names that come for reasonably priced concerts such as Gilberto Gil, McCoy Tyner, Taj Mahal and Keb Mo, Abbey Lincoln, Orchestra Baobab, Betty Levette, Brad Mehldau, Ladytron, Aretha Franklin, Richard Thompson, Steve Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra, Martin Sexton and Blind Boys of Alabama.

I’ve seen a couple of acts from my neck of the woods which I have not seen yet at home: TV on the Radio (energetic), Pistolera (fun) with Chica Libre and Las Rubias del Norte still to come. All of these are from Brooklyn, NY.

The high quality Canadian acts are Leonard Cohen, SoCalled (excellent about which we will say more later), Buffy Ste-Marie, Sarah Slean, and Daniel Lanois (sold out way ahead of time)

Many of the free outdoor acts are very high quality and a good way to discover new acts that come from all corners of the world such as Maya Andrade (Cape Verde).

The musical highlight for me so far is the concert by SoCalled made up of Josh Dolgin, and many others including Katie Moore (singer). It’s a magical mix of Klezmer, hip-hop, and anything else that might interest Josh at the time (including magic acts). A lot of this very diverse concert seemed improvised very successfully; one never knew what to expect next. Collaborations seem to be Josh’s thing and it adds so much to the live concert experience (you know they are one-of-a-kind)! There was a fantastic folk instrumental duo between Adam ?? (sorry I didn’t catch all the names but I assume this is a local luminary) on the violin and Josh on the Accordion. Josh can play a lot more then just a Sampler. The group for most of the songs included some great musicians: a clarinetist, drummer, guitarist, violinist, and singer. There was also a local rapper dignitary on stage for several numbers (whose name I’m afraid I didn’t catch). The closing number was a great rendition of a folk Song (The Ballad of Springhill originally written by Ewan Macoll and Peggy Seeger) as a vocal duet between Josh and Katie. Other standouts was You are Never Alone about a Jewish Cowboy and the insanely catchy These are the Good Old Days.

TV on the Radio wowed the crowd (with a stimulating opening act called Vivian Girls). My only qualm (and perhaps it’s just me) is that the mix did not do justice to the falsetto voice of Tunde Adebimpe that makes their vocal harmonies so unique.

Now, to Montreal, a great city for walking all over and eating almost every kind of food (cafe au laits in a bowl are addictive). Montreal bagels are excellent and different; they are somehow more crispy.
There are at least 2 great art museums of art one of which (Musee d’art Contemporain de Montreal) had an impressive group show of imaginative contemporary art and another (Musee des Beaux Art de Montreal) had high-quality stuff from all over but especially a good show on early 20th C art in Quebec. St. Denis is the street that (almost) never sleeps (well okay on late Sunday night my favorite coffee bar was closed). I really enjoy trying out my French on the populace

If you missed this festival there’s always another; we saw posters for Nights in Africa, Blues Festival, and a Free Speak Festival. More soon …