David Beckett is a good friend of UKJN and has been visiting, writing about and photographing the Montreal Jazz Festival for many years. Here are his thoughts on the 2025 edition:
Living just over the American border, in the state of Vermont, I’ve been visiting Montréal, and the Montréal Jazz Festival for many years. Yet I still experience a frisson of pleasure and disorientation when arriving. That hour drive brings me not just to the largest jazz festival in the world (The Guinness Book of World Records made it official in 2004), but to Quebec, a place where the cultural and musical frame of reference is different. As David Bowie (with The Pat Metheny Group) famously sang, “This Is Not America”.
The Montréal Jazz Festival offers some 350 performances, the majority of which are free, over ten days. They happen in the “Quartier des Spectacles”, which is a bit like a theme park for the performing arts, and home to some four dozen festivals every year. There are more seats in performing arts venues here than in the downtown core of any city in the world, save NYC because of the Broadway theaters. Visitors can choose not only the artists they’d like to see, but also take the venues into account. Spoiled by the choices available, I’ll frequently choose to see artists I’ve ever heard of, because I enjoy the venue and trust the people who select the artists. I discover remarkable artists this way, frequently people I’d never encounter at any other jazz festival. The Festival District offers all sorts of delightful distractions, too: a large array of fountains built into the street, acrobats performing, musical instruments and giant games for kids of all ages to play, and food trucks galore.
The site itself is lit so brilliantly that it competes visually with the stages themselves, occasionally bringing to mind a science fiction movie. I’ve never seen stages lit so beautifully. Musicians from America and Canada (and notably from the province of Quebec) join musicians from Europe, Africa, Latin America, and seemingly dozens of other places.
I used to hear the phrase “Two thousand musicians from twenty countries” bruited about, and that still seems about right: I heard musicians from at least 14 countries and several Canadian provinces, and that was just in the first two days. Being as cosmopolitan as this province and city are, visitors are likely to hear half a dozen languages spoken – and sung – while strolling the Festival District, during any given day or evening. And there’s a constituency of people who turn out, along with everybody else, for everything which happens at the festival.
The Inuk singer “Elisapie” appeared on the largest of the outdoor stages. Singing well known pop music from recent decades – but in her native language – she thrilled the capacity crowd, a number of whom were First Nations people. The singer grew up in (very) far northern Quebec, eventually moving to Montréal to study communications. She’s made a trilingual documentary film and has quite a singing career going right now.
I caught the extravagantly talented 28 year old Sicilian guitarist Matteo Mancuso playing in a trio setting for an enthusiastic crowd of listeners who’d only seen him play on YouTube. He’s fascinating online – he uses his fingertips rather than a guitar pick – but seeing him live he’s dazzling and seems to be the future of jazz/rock guitar. Another highlight for me, was a rare chance to hear the trio Azymuth, from Brazil in the perfect little “Salle Gesù”. Most days during the festival, this room
offers ticketed performances at 6:00 and at 10:30. Seeing music in this room – the basement of a Jesuit church, is a joy.
Free and outdoors, at Pub Molson – the only outdoor venue I’ve ever seen at which people play table tennis while listening – I caught trumpet player Peter Evans, who had vibraphonist Joel Ross and drummer Calvin Weston in his band. Tuba wiz Theon Cross, bass ace Linda May Han Oh and Camille Thurman and The Darrell Green Quartet all appear at that stage during the festival. The venue offers each performer twice during the course of a day so listeners have two chances of
catching them.
Photo credit: Heidi Fleming
In addition to the free performances outside, there’s also an indoor venue offering jazz performances free of charge, at both 6:00 and 10:00. The much lauded Montreal saxophonist Christine Jensen appeared for a capacity crowd there Wednesday, with Adrian Vedady on bass, drummer Jim Doxas, (the winner of this year’s Oscar Peterson Award) and New Yorker Gary Versace on piano. Touring Canada now, they’re a working band, and sound like it. Jensen’s uptempo playing is exciting, and on a ballad hearing her warm woodwind sound is the aural equivalent of stepping into hot bath after a winter day.
I was fortunate enough to catch a ticketed performance by the great singer Dianne Reeves, (who recently collected another honorary Doctorate degree) with guitarist Romero Lubambo, her frequent collaborator, who’s been the first call Brazilian guitarist in New York for 3 decades. Having seen them both in other settings, I found this duet performance captivating and memorable. Two nights later, in the same venue within the Place Des Arts complex, I caught guitarist Bill Frisell’s trio with Thomas Morgan and Rudy Royston.
Frisell plays an introduction to a tune and time stops: a few seemingly random notes hang in the air and twinkle, and very gradually the aural kaleidoscope turns and a melody emerges. Nobody makes sounds like this. Or approaches a composition like this. It’s breathtaking. Guitarist Mike Stern’s performance was memorable too. He had the drummer Dennis Chambers in the band as well as his wife Leni Stern, also a terrific guitarist. The opening number featured her on ngoni, a traditional West African stringed instrument.
Look for me at next year’s edition of the Montréal Jazz Festival. There’s no place else on earth I’d rather be at this time of year.
One Response
Terrific article with incredible photos! Especially, loved the video of young, Sicilian performer Matteo. Good to hear about the other talented performers, who also appeared this year. Thank you, David, and look forward to next year’s review!