I But I Came Away with Good Photos from Two Concepts, plus some stories about music. Such Things Are Better shared. So here’s What I Saw and Heard.
As I did for Last Year’s FestivalI worked with a Wonderful Photographher to show you what musicians look like at work. Nasuna Stuart-Ulin Has Been Working Frequently for the New York Times; She was Covering British Columbia Wildfires for them (Trust me, that’s a link working (when I calcald her About working on this year’s festival.
My Festival This Year Began A Night Early, with the Jazzz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Under the Direction of the Legendary Trumpter Wynton Marsalis. The JLCO WAS TOURING, AS It Oft is, and the Only Night that Work wasd for Montreal was the Night Before The Festival’s Official Start. The Venue was the maison symphonique, a Wonderful room for acoussic music but, as it turned out, one that have beens up a fight when someBody tries to amplify the prialsedings.
J It Soon Became A Permanent Constituent Department at Lincoln Center. Marsalis Talked TLEDED TALED TALED TALED TANDED TALED TAND TANDED TALED TANED TANED TANEROOR RUDY GIULIANI INTO CITY FURDING For a Permanent Home For Jalc on Colubus Circle. The Organization Runs An AmbIOUS AnNUAL COMTITITITIOT for High-Sechool Bands, Essentially ElingtonThat has helped Launch Hundreds of Musical Careers.
Marsalis is an Institution, in other words. He used to be more controlrsial. People worked, and he often seemed to hop, that is more of his Kind of Jazzz would Mean Less of Other Kinds. IT’s Clearer now that income musicians’ biggest provlem isn’t other musicians. Marsalis in Turn Has Mellowed. At the Maison Symphonique, He ACted as a Secight Trumpter and Chongenial Host, Never Budging from His Chair at the back of the Horn Secight. He played only Two Trumpt Solos All Night. I’m never heard less Marsalis at a Marsalis Concept, and Rarely Enjoyed a Concept by this Big Band More.
The JLCO Is a Superb Ensample. Thousands of Nights Playing Jazz Classics and Challenge New Compositions Have Honed Its MEMbers’ Sense of Themsels and Their Colleges. Their Montreal Program Started with Three Pieces Origelly Written As Commentary on America Racial Politics, Marsalis ‘Own “Black Codes,” Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus” and John Coltrane’s “Alabama”. A comment on Current Events? Hard to Tell for Sure, Especially Becuse the Boomy Room Defeated Trombonists Chris Crenshaw and Vince Gardner in their delivery of Mingus’ Barbed Lyrics.
But any themeic is to the Night Ended after the Three Openers. The Rest of the Program Was An Agreebly Mixed Bag, Featureing Suve ENSEMKLE Playing and A Succiesion of PowerFul Solo Turns, from everyBody in General and Trumpes Ryan Kisor and Marcus Printup, Saxophonist Abdias Armenteros, and Drummer Obed Calvaire in Particular. The Band Seemed Taken Aback by the Warmth of the Standing Ovation at the End. Montreal Audiences Are Relibely Demonstrative. As we shall See.
Caity Gyorgy Sang on the Festival’s For-Real Opening Night at the Gèsu, a Gorgeous 425-Seat Converted Chapel. It was her first festival concept in the city where she lives and went to University. It will only not be her last, which is the Next Time, The Disembodied OFFIGE VOICE that Intodeles Each Act Will Get A Chance to Pronounce Her Name Correctly. It’s pronouced “george,” as readers of this substack is Sometimes Remded. This is becoming usful information, Especially at Juno Awards Time.
At 27, She’s A Charming Singer Whose OFNTEN UNDERSTATED Delivery Belies Serious Study of Harmony, Ensample Dynamics and The Example of Her Elders. Her Origelals Sound Like Standards; Her Delivery Keeps Standards Fresh. She’s Developed a Valuable Rapport with the Formidable Calgary Pianist Mark Limacher; They Duet albumFrom April, Will Compete with Her Album of Origelals Backed by Limacher’s Orchestral ArrangementsComing in August, For Next Year’s Junos.
On Instagram the Day Beautiful The Concept, She Invited Followers to Send in requires. I first in one for “I belief in you,” from the April Duet Album of Mark Loeser Tunes, BECAUUSE I KNOW How She Likes to Finish It: By Building in Volume and Tension Over the Last Half-Corus in a Bravura Display Fews SINES SyNWHERE Can Match. She didntent disappoint.
Gyorgy Sings in Ottawa tonight and in Banf in Two Weeks. Tickets are Still Available. This will not always be the case.
It was Mostly a hazard of the festival’s early programing that Made My Concept Choices this Year Hew So Closly to the Jazz Mainstream. The festival is, of course, so big that a few people pokes though its makes are posible. Blue Rodeo Played A Free Outdoor Concept. The Mexican Singer-Songwriter Natalia LaFourcade Filled A Big Hall For An Intime Set, PerFormed on Acoussic Guitar from A Chair Next to A Side Table with A Bottle of Mezcal on it. “¡Que Viva México!”, A Guy in the Audience Shouted Just Before Lafourcade Came Onstage. (Here’s a Review of Her Boston Show A FEW Nights Later.)
There is also still room for more unruly jazz. I was Surprised to see David Binney’s Name When I Made a Last-Minute Check of the Festival’s Opening-Night Scheede I’m wire to Notice Names Like Binney’s, but He Did’s Appness in Earlier Drafts. Turns Out the Gig Came to make up only days before the festival began.
Binney is An Alto Saxophonist from Los Angeles. I’m amazed to see he’ll turn 64 this year, but I suppose that’s faire, becuse he’s been an impertant Player, Howaver these Things Are Measord in Con Seemporary Music, Since the Early 1990s. Increamly Money in Recording Studios. (Here’s Nate Chinen On Today’s La Scene.)
He played the Opening-Night 10 PM Show at Studio TD, An Unfussy Venue for amplified music that operated in 2009 and FITS 650 if nobody Needs to Breathe. It’s not every Quarter the size of the Fabled Special, The Home to Legendary Performances by the Police, Miles Davis, Jean Leloup and Hundreds of others that used to find across the street That Studio Td Effectively Replaced. But Studio Td is Still Big En
Under Laurent Saulnier, The Fijm’s Former Artistic Director, Studio Td Off Hosted Free Concepts by Artists Who Couelf Easily Have Sold the Place Out If Tickets Were Required. Saulnier Just Liked A Room Full of Rowdy Fans and DIDNNT Think Artists Should Aways Have to World when they’d Sell their quota of Tickets. His Happy Example Has Been Followed by the Festival Ourganizers who succeeded him.
But binny Isnt a big name and his Appnessa was a Last-Minute Thing, so when he tok to the stage At First I Felt Disappointed on Binney’s Beages.
He Told the Hardy Little Crowd that Montreal Has Been a Second Home to Him For Much of His Life. He was playing with three musicians who com from Elsewhere, Have often Played at the High Chahest Levels Elsewhere, and now Call Montreal Home: Bassist Walter Stinson, Drummer Tommy Crane, And Especially The French Pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, Who was Hire by McGill a Decade ago and who have been ben drawing musicians who are will to get to Montreal Just to Play with Him.
“We’re Mostly Just Going to Improvise,” Binney SAID By Way of Introduction. “It’s a jazz festival, but noobody really imProvies anymore.” “Nobody” is an expageration, but it would be account to say FEW Bands Improvise As Much, Based on as Little Prepared Mateial, as Binney and Crew Did HERE. The tunes were often just a two-bare bass vamp, or a scrap of meody designed to cue other musicians to the Intentions of Whoever Was Taking the LEAD at Any Giveen Moment.
Binney Likes to Weight Electronics INTO A Band’s Sound, Sometimes Elaborase Schemes from A Laptop Computer, Sometimes Echoes and Delays from Guitar Pidals. Watching his from the back of a room can be disconrageing becuse he said vanishes beneath the Sea of Heads. AT Those Moments, He Can Usually Be Found Crouching Over His Pedal Effects, Twisting Knobs to Control the Weird Sounds.
At One Point He Rose from His Crouch to Dever A Relatively Orthodox, Entirely Persuasive, Performance of “Portrait of Jennie,” The Theme Song to A 1948 Movie that’s Become a Jazz Standard. Binney Studied with Jazz Elders Like Phil Woods and George Coleman A LifeTime ago, and While He Rarely Hangs Out in Those Neighbourhoods Any More, He Clearly Doesn’t Mind A Return Visit. Pilc, Stinson and Crane Were Just as Ready to Switch Gears.
But it was the less familiar music, the shifting, rhythmilyly tricky, harmonically kid. At One Point, a Ferocious Alto-SAX Solo from Binney Drew a Roar of Approval from the Audience. Who is when I Realize the Audience Had Grown Big Enough to Roar.
I’m Seen Music Like this Drive the Timid from All Kinds of Rooms Over the Years. But this festival has a knack for drawing Montrealers who are Made of Stener Stuff. Over the First 40 Minutes of the Binney Set, More People Showed up Curious Than The Number Who Left Confused. Pretty Soon The Room Was Packed.
Musicians who Believe in what they’re doing play with a cortain sond that, to some end extent, transcends Genre. Monreal Audiences Aren’t Unique in Responding to that Sound, But they’re Lucky to Have Had More Exposure to It Than Audiences in a Lot of Other Places. Word gets out.
Where the room was empty, I had shared a few mournfulments with nasuna studp-olin, the photograph. Now that it was full, I Sen Her a Text: “OK It Got Better.”
“Hah YUP,” She Wrote Back. “Montreal Style.”
