The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal has released its complete programming for the 46th edition, running this summer with over 350 concerts across the city, roughly two-thirds of them free.
The headline announcements centre on the TD Stage, where Angine de Poitrine, Patrick Watson, Willow, and Saint Levant will all perform free outdoor shows. The Saguenay duo Angine de Poitrine has been one of the more unexpected Quebec success stories of the past year, their Trans Musicales performance having circulated widely enough to build an international following well beyond francophone audiences. This will be their biggest local stage yet. Watson’s current Uh Oh tour gives his appearance a specific frame; his surprise set at Place des Festivals last summer drew one of those spontaneous crowd responses the outdoor programming occasionally produces. Willow, making her FIJM debut, brings a mainstream profile the Festival rarely lands on its free stages.
Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Tony Bennett were all born in 1926, and the Festival has built a substantial portion of its indoor programming around that coincidence. Marcus Miller, Davis’s final musical director, will lead the We Want Miles centennial concert at the Maison Symphonique. A separate evening at Le Gesù pairs a live performance of Kind of Blue by trumpeter Ron Di Lauro with a ciné-concert staging of Davis’s 1958 soundtrack for Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. The Coltrane centenary brings Isaiah Collier to the Théâtre Jean-Duceppe for a full performance of A Love Supreme, with the Christine Jensen Sextet handling Modes of Coltrane at the Club Montréal stage. Guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli takes on Tony Bennett at Théâtre Maisonneuve.
Twenty years after Donuts and twenty years after his death, DJ Jazzy Jeff will headline the Donuts 20th Anniversary Celebration Party at Club Soda alongside the Montréal Loves Dilla collective. The record’s anniversary has been marked broadly across the industry this year, and Montréal’s own Dilla community has been building toward something like this for a while. UZEB gets its own milestone with a 50th anniversary celebration and the premiere of the documentary UZEB en fusion, with performances by Alain Caron and Michel Cusson at Le Gesù.
Christian McBride and Julian Lage appear together at Théâtre Maisonneuve. Brooklyn pianist Craig Taborn, last year’s MacArthur recipient, performs at Pub Molson. DOMi & JD BECK return to MTELUS three years after a Place des Festivals show that preceded their run opening for Herbie Hancock. Indian bassist Mohini Dey, playing professionally since age 10, brings her jazz-metal fusion to Le Studio TD. Also at Le Studio TD: the debut appearance of GENA, a percussive-vocal improvisation duo, performing with Liv.e and Karriem Riggins.
Larkin Poe make their FIJM debut on the TD Stage alongside London collective KOKOROKO and Smino. Naïka and Saint Levant both appear on the main outdoor stage. El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico bring salsa to Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier; Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire close out the Bell Centre programming.
Scattered through the free outdoor days: Destin Conrad, Annahstasia, multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Jacoby, neo-bossa artist Mei Semones, Elena Pinderhughes, Nubiyan Twist, and cuatrista Fabiola Méndez, whose profile rose substantially after her collaboration with Bad Bunny.
For more info visit montrealjazzfest.com.
