Jazz fans and historians have long contended that their music constitutes a language at least as universal as basketball. And as it turns out, you need go only as far as our neighbor to the north for compelling proof.
For years, the effort to contain cultural encroachment from the U.S. has molded-some might say curtailed-the entertainment menu of Canadians, particularly in the French-speaking province of Quebec. Yet all such reservations seem to take a back seat when it comes to that singularly American creation, jazz.
Perhaps there`s an as-yet-unexplored Gallic connection: Montreal is Canada`s bastion of French culture, and jazz took root in our own country`s most Frenchified city, New Orleans. Whatever the connection, Canada`s annual slate of carefully programmed and widely acclaimed jazz festivals ranges from Vancouver`s scintillating Du Maurier Festival (in late June) to smaller but prominent events in Toronto and Ottawa, to the ear-opening ”new music meeting” in tiny Victoriaville, Quebec each October.
Topping the list is the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, the 13th edition of which wrapped up in mid-July after attracting an estimated 1.3 million people. The Montreal gala is arguably the biggest jazz fest on this continent, probably the largest-budgeted-at $6.7 million-and certainly the best organized, with some 800 full-time employees during the event`s run.
Some would extend the superlatives even farther. Bassist Charlie Haden was stunned and gratified when festival organizers presented a panoramic series of eight concerts devoted to his music a few years ago. Guitarist Pat Metheny respects Montreal so highly that although he was not on tour this summer, he went to the festival anyway-just to host a ”listening party”
preceding the release of his new CD.
And vibraphonist Gary Burton, a 30-year veteran of the jazz-festival circuit who played Montreal on July 2, states flatly, ”It`s the best of the North American festivals. The programming is the most imaginative and tasteful, and there`s a truly international lineup.”
One source of Montreal`s success lies in its unusually savvy blend of free and ticketed events, a harmonious hybrid of the festival philosophies that hold sway in Chicago and at the JVC Jazz Fest in York.
As in New York, paid-admission concerts-starring the likes of Sonny Rollins, Elvin Jones, Branford Marsalis, and John Scofield-are spread among several venues.
But as in Chicago, the bounty of free music-emphasizing Quebec artists but including such established foreigners as vibraphonist Jay Hoggard, the guitar-playing Ferre Brothers of France, and bluesman Junior Wells-was impossible to ignore.
In fact, the uninitiated needed to step back and catch their breath at the sheer size of the Montreal bash, which this year expanded from 10 to 12 days in order to accommodate a bold goal: celebrating Montreal`s 350th birthday with 350 concerts.
As is the case at major festivals the world over, the slate encompassed more than jazz. A heavy dose of blues, some indigenous French-Canadian music, a Brazilian-styled drum ensemble, and the Afro-pop of Ethiopia`s Aster Aweke and Nigeria`s King Sunny Ade all vied for attention. But unlike the New Orleans or Montreux Jazz Festivals, to name just two, these were just the trimmings at Montreal, where the heart of the schedule remains the heart of the music.
Logistically, Montreal presented a festival-goer`s dream. None of the four halls and clubs used for this year`s paid-admission concerts was more than three minutes` walk from the others (thanks, in part, to the closure of several blocks to downtown traffic). The perimeter of this nexus was defined by nine outdoor stages, tents and plazas offering music that started at noon and ran past midnight.
Says Andre Menard, the festival`s co-founder and vice president, ”The thing that really surprises our American colleagues is that we have all these free concerts competing with our paid programs. `Why do you stage free events right in front of your concert halls? That`s competing with yourselves,` they say.” Yet ticketed sales this year reached over 90 percent capacity. Menard credits the festival`s penchant for assembling innovative programs and the availability of series passes, allowing concert-goers to buy a ticket for all the concerts in a given venue at half-price.
Montreal`s commitment to free performances (always the most ”festive”
aspect of a jazz festival) goes even further. Each year, midway through the festival, a major headliner performs a free concert at the largest outdoor stage.
This year, the choice was UZEB, a top-selling fusion trio from Quebec that disbanded last year. Amidst two-story remote-viewing screens and a light show projected on surrounding buildings, they staged a reunion that drew 96,000 non-paying fans. (The music itself, bloated and negligible, took flight only during guest shots by trumpeter Tiger Okoshi and violinist Didier Lockwood.)
But five days and nights of intense concert-hopping suggest that even those paying $20 to $35 per seat got much of their money`s worth at the festival. A perfect example was the concert entitled ”Three Pianos and a Sax,” with saxophonist Frank Morgan and powerhouse pianists Kenny Barron, Barry Harris and Roland Hanna playing solos and duets (including plenty of two-piano pieces).
Morgan`s upcoming CD, which features five keyboardists, inspired this arrangement. The relationships between the pianists` contrasting tones and styles proved so fascinating that they pushed Morgan into the background; he made a genial master of ceremonies, lit up the hall on ”Parker`s Mood,” and suffered such extreme intonation problems on one ballad that he seemed to have stumbled upon a previously undiscovered key.
A typical Montreal touch was the late-afternoon lineup of solo concerts in the 800-seat performance space of the city`s new contemporary art museum. Many festivals offer a solo-piano series, as has Montreal in the past; this year, though, the eight concerts presented solo saxophone, guitar, and bandoneon (button accordion) in addition to two pianists and the harpist Deborah Henson-Conant.
The series highlight was Dave Holland, quite possibly the finest bassist in all of jazz. Holland has a prodigious technique, which he utilizes without preening, and a concision and purposefulness that make even his most complex improvisations clear and immediately accessible. He held the full house spellbound for almost 90 minutes, in a concert reminiscent of and yet miles beyond his 1978 solo album (”Emerald Tears,” on ECM).
Not that Montreal`s best-laid plans always succeed. ”Three Sides of Al DiMeola” promised to place the guitarist in the best light by tempering his overblown electric band with his World Sinfonia, a South American-influenced group that featured the rarely seen bandoneon virtuoso Dino Saluzzi. No such luck: this half of the concert, which ran close to two hours, brimmed with repetitive solos, inexcusably extended forms, and the arrogance that marks DiMeola`s every note-symbolized when he took the microphone and matter-of-factly admitted that the concert was, in effect, a ”work-up” for the following week`s recording project.
Other efforts, like the four-hour concert built around the group Oregon, or the unadorned presentation of such artists as the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the German organist Barbara Dennerlien, fared better. In any case, this is a festival willing to go the extra mile-quite literally, in the case of pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba.
Following another concert, Rubalcaba found himself marooned in the Caribbean when his flight to Montreal was canceled. The festival responded to his phone call by renting a Lear jet to take him to Montreal. He arrived at the airport 90 minutes past the scheduled start of his concert, was whisked to the hall, and began two hours late-in front of a full house that had waited patiently for his arrival.
Oh, Canada.
