Now it’s time to pay tribute to blues artist Bob Walsh
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Tribute to Bob Walsh (7, 9 and 11 p.m., Bell Stage, de Montigny and Clark Sts., free). Only two summers ago, Walsh was on a jazz fest stage paying his respects to B.B. King as part of a multi-artist love letter. Now, it’s his turn to be remembered, in a show anchored by longtime collaborators Guy Bélanger and Jean Fernand Girard, with special guests. Walsh, who died last November, was intimately familiar with the joy of the blues. He’ll be grinning somewhere.
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The Robert Glasper Experiment (8 p.m., Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts, $42.25 to $53.25). Glasper, among the more fearless experimenters in contemporary jazz, released Art Science last year and now brings its utterly modern music to the stage. Cool jazz, hip hop with Auto-Tune, prog rock and urban pop coexist happily in this fantastic universe. If you like blurred musical lines, this is your show. Opening act: Kendrick Scott Oracle.
Her (10 p.m., Club Soda, 1225 StLaurent Blvd., $28.25 to $29.75). German-born Victor Solf was weaned on Frank Zappa, Can and blues. His partner, Simon Carpentier, wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix. Things change: hip hop and more contemporary stylists, like Kendrick Lamar, have come along to add their influence to the French duo’s brittle, keyboard driven, minimalist pop-soul, with which they hope to charm North American audiences. Nightcap music.
AfrotroniX (10 p.m., Hyundai/ CBC/Radio-Canada Stage, Clark esplanade, Clark and de Montigny Sts., free). Chadian guitar player and Montreal resident Caleb Rimtobaye, of the band H’Sao, offers an entrancing Afro-electro hybrid of sparkling guitars, Tuareg blues, pulsating rhythms and a visual persona that might remind you of Daft Punk. The soundtrack of the future?
Shabaka and the Ancestors (10:30 p.m., Gesù, 1200 Bleury St., $41.35). London-based tenor sax player Shabaka Hutchings and his bandmates from Johannesburg deliver free jazz, where horns, bass, occasional vocalizing, Fender Rhodes piano and polyrhythmic percussion come together melodically and then branch out into unknown territory, creating wondrous beauty in the process. Influenced by Sun Ra, this is truly exciting, spiritual and unpredictable stuff.
The Montreal International Jazz Festival continues through July 8. For tickets and more information, visit montrealjazzfest.com.