THE JAZZ FEST GOES ONLINE
Free all-montreal event helps fill the music hole
When I reached Laurent Saulnier by phone recently, he had to call me back. The Montreal International Jazz Festival’s VP of programming was finishing up a conversation with his contractor about renovations to his back deck.
That says everything about this summer like no other. In normal times, Saulnier would have been running himself ragged at the other big festival he runs, Les Francos, and gearing up for the 41st edition of the massive music marathon that is the jazz fest. But for the first time in four decades, there will be no jazz fest in Montreal’s summer.
“To be honest with you, I felt a great sadness about it,” Saulnier said. “When you have been working for months and months to do something, and that thing is the culmination of all that work, for sure it hurts (to see it cancelled).
“But there’s not one festival in the world happening right now. All kinds of other festivals are suffering — some maybe even more than us. So I’ve been feeling relatively Zen about it since the first wave of shock passed.”
It’s difficult to quantify all that has been lost. The jazz fest usually puts on around 500 concerts, including 350 free shows. Just over 40 indoor ones had been announced when the COVID-19 lockdown led to the cancellation of all of Quebec’s summer festivals in early April.
Some of those — such as Nigerian Afrobeat heir Femi Kuti and the Positive Force, scheduled to play this past Thursday at Club Soda; or jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, Sunday at Monument National — were cancelled outright. Others — such as Brazil’s Bebel Gilberto at Théâtre Maisonneuve, French indie-pop star Woodkid at Mtelus and American soul singer Gregory Porter at Maison symphonique — have been rescheduled.
But there was more — so much more. The bulk of the indoor programming and all the free outdoor programming, including the three big blowouts, were yet to be
announced when everything was put on hold.
Saulnier is secretive regarding the specifics of all that we’re missing. He doesn’t want to show his hand, in case he can get some of those acts back for next year’s festival — assuming there is one.
But he is clear on one thing: next year’s jazz fest will not simply be a repeat of everything we’re missing this year.
“Between now and the summer of 2021, so many things can happen. I said to my (programming) team, ‘We have to be careful not to just replicate what we would have done in 2020, from A to Z.
There are new artists coming up, and we have to leave room for them.’ ”
As for the big gaping hole in this summer’s calendar, Saulnier and his team didn’t want to leave us high and dry. From Saturday through Tuesday, the festival presents Jazz Is in the Air, a free online event.
On the menu is a combination of livestreamed and pre-recorded performances by an eclectic array of acts on stage at L’astral; along with recordings of some classic concerts from the jazz fest vaults by Oscar Peterson and Oliver Jones, Jaco Pastorius, Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughan.
“It’s important to have jazz anyway in Montreal at this time of year,” Saulnier said. “We’re just trying to bring some of the festival spirit into everyone’s homes.”
Inspired by the enduring popularity of the festival’s free shows, the all-montreal lineup features sets by Jordan Officer and Charlotte Cardin, as well as a globe-trotting array of sounds by artists of diverse backgrounds, including Malika Tirolien (Guadeloupe), Pierre Kwenders (Congo), Djely Tapa (Mali), Bïa (Brazil), Jeremy Dutcher (Wolastoq First Nation) and Elisapie (Nunavik).
Rising Haitian- Québécoise singer-songwriter Dominique Fils-aimé welcomed the invitation to perform.
“It makes me feel like even when everything seems to be going to hell, there are institutions that remain proactive and creative, and stick with artists to help them reach the public,” she
said. “It’s an opportunity to not completely cancel everything, but to find solutions. It’s like a balm on my heart while waiting for us to be able to all get back into a room, all together, and have a live event.”
The jazz-soul phenom has become a festival regular in recent years, playing ever-bigger indoor venues, including last year’s sold-out performance at Théâtre Maisonneuve in support of her Polaris Music Prize-shortlisted album Stay Tuned!
And then there’s Clerel, whose Sam Cooke-esque voice has Saulnier reaching for superlatives.
“He’s the discovery of the year in Montreal,” Saulnier said. “If this guy doesn’t explode and become a superstar, I don’t know what’s happening.”
Born in Cameroon, Clerel spent time in Montreal as a kid while his dad was earning a PHD in AI at the Université de Montréal. Clerel moved back here in 2013, after completing a degree in chemistry in the U.S. It was on a trip to Memphis during his third year of university that he visited the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and found his calling.
Clerel released his debut EP, Songs From Under a Guava Tree, in the fall, and competed on the hit Quebec show La Voix this year. Although he has been on stage at the jazz fest before, this will be his first time performing his own songs under his own name.
“Honestly, it means a lot,” he said, “almost as much as if it was a regular jazz festival.”