Montreal Jazz Diary, Day 1

Submitted by Seth Rogovoy on July 8, 2009 - 2:12pm


 
By Seth Rogovoy
 
DAY I:
 
I got in last evening to Montreal, settled into my room at the Delta Hotel on Rue President Kennedy just one block away from the festival grounds. After a walk through the Place Des Arts, where most of the outdoor stages are located, I grabbed a terrific evening meal of Indian food (my choices ranged from Italian to Vietnamese to sushi to French to Thai to steaks and then some), and then made my way back to the festival, where I caught three main acts playing outdoor stages.
 
 
Michael Occhipinti’s Sicilian Jazz Project was an inventive blend of Italian folkloric melodies and modes with modern jazz and Henry Threadgill-like electric guitar shredding. The seven-time Juno Award nominee (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys) creates a unique blend of electro-acoustic jazz that could appeal both to classicists and avant-gardists – or, perhaps, to neither, if the listener is a purist. All the more power to Occhipinti for seeing no boundaries in music.
 
 
Chris Velan was a powerful solo acoustic singer-songwriter. These days it’s not surprising to find a singer with guitar able to command a stage with they dynamics of a rock band – Ani DiFranco, anyone? – and Velan was very much in that vein. The would-be lawyer who did a stint touring refugee camps in the Republic of Guinea for a documentary project on the group Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars is now a one-man band taking advantage of looping technology to turn his voice and guitar into a one-man band on his affecting, compelling folk-reggae tunes.
 
 
Velan was the perfect warmup for the evening’s highlight, “Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae,” a mini-festival concert within a festival, featuring an all-star cast of early reggae (rocksteady) talent. Presented on one of the outdoor stages for free, the event seemingly attracted a crowd of at least 20,000 (although I’m no professional crowd estimator) lined up the length of several city avenues to hear reggae pioneers including Stranger Cole, the Tamlins, Leroy Sibbles, Ken Boothe, Hopeton Lewis, and Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths, both of whom sang with Bob Marley, pay tribute to the Jamaican sound that transformed world pop music as much as any other indigenous style.
 
 
The band assembled for the evening was rock-steady perfect, kicking the minimalist arrangements that relied almost totally on bass and drums, using keyboards, guitars, and horns only for color and texture. That also enabled the vocalists to command front and center, and it was Mowatt and Griffiths alone and together who succeeded in raising the spirit and sound of Bob Marley on a series of his tunes, including “No Woman, No Cry.” The vibe running through the enormous crowd standing in the middle of the city was one of unity and peace such that one has never felt in the midst of so much diverse humanity. It was a fitting way to conclude the first night, and my personal re-entry, into the musical and spiritual wonders that await at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.
 
 
Today’s highlights to include Jason Bajada, Alpha Blondy, and the inimitable Charlie Haden.

 

 

Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living's award-winning music critic.

 

 

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