Month: June 2011

It’s the 32nd annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. MAGNET’s Mitch Myers translates the action.

One interesting aspect of the Montreal Jazz Fest is that it occurs at the beginning of the summer-event season, and many groups appearing are on their way to Europe to tour the lucrative festival circuit over there. This would include the group Fly, comprised of saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier. Before its sterling Tuesday-night performance at the Gesù, the talented threesome hadn’t performed together in six months. By now, the trio is off to Italy, Belgium, France and Switzerland for the month of July. The point here is that there’s going to be some lucky Europeans who get to hear this remarkable jazz trio. Turner has been touted as the next big thing for more than a decade, and the cerebral sax man’s playing is finally starting to catch up with all the hoopla, especially with this group. Ballard and Grenadier are best known as the (amazing) rhythm section of the Brad Mehldau Trio—and amazing they were. Despite their lengthy time apart, the unity and familiarity within this group was quite evident. Approaching their sound as equals, they played compositions by each member but never lost the sense of being a collective. All three played extremely well without hogging the spotlight, and the balance of melody and rhythm shifted from player to player quite naturally. Ballard serves as the onstage spokesperson, and if anyone stood out in the band, it was him. Still, it would be hard for any one person to stand out onstage with these guys, so let’s just say they were Fly.

Veteran bassist and Montreal favorite Dave Holland began his three-concert stint as part of the festival’s Invitation Series, and his first presentation was a duet with pianist Kenny Barron. According to Barron, speaking from the stage of Théâtre Jean-Duceppe Tuesday night, “Playing with Dave Holland is like riding in a Rolls Royce.” And indeed, the ride was smooth and enjoyable with no real bumps on the road. It takes a lot of concentration for a piano/bass dialogue to work well in a large hall, but the crowd was supportive, respectful and invested in enjoying the show. Not a lot of fireworks, per se, but Barron is an elegant player within the tradition and Holland still has all the right chops to make the music move. I could have listened to these two guys play all night long, but instead I shook a tail-feather and headed off to the Metropolis nightclub for a more upbeat encounter that began with Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue.

Trombone Shorty’s career is going straight up like a funky New Orleans rocket ship, and his Montreal show was only hindered by the brief time allotment opening for Metropolis headliner Bootsy Collins. I ran into mega-journalist John Swenson at the gig. Swenson has a great new book out all about New Orleans musicians called New Atlantis, and he has been watching Shorty’s meteoric rise from growing up in the Tremé neighborhood to performing on a world stage. Like Fly, Shorty’s group leaves Montreal for Europe, where they’ll be barnstorming across the countryside all summer long. This show was probably the best thing going all evening long, and that was just with just one hour of playing time. So, get hip to Trombone Shorty as soon as possible, watch the HBO show Treme this season, and buy Swenson’s new book so you can appreciate what New Orleans and its musicians are all about.

Speaking of Bootsy Collins, the funkmaster is pushing a new CD, Funk Capitol Of The World, and they are really going all out to contextualize him as the keeper of the funk flame—after James Brown and George Clinton. Still, I noted that this tour isn’t going as well as hoped. In Chicago, they tried giving free entrance to ladies who would show up before 9 p.m. and gave away cheap ($12) tickets through the Chicago Reader, but to no avail: The Chicago gig was still poorly attended. In Montreal, Bootsy and his funk army started out with a full house still enthusiastic from Shorty’s upbeat revue. The first half-hour was pure unbridled funk showcasing Parliament-Funkadelic veterans like keyboardist Bernie Worrell, guitarist Dwayne “Blackbird” McKnight and drummer Frankie “Kash” Waddy. The early highpoint was a burning instrumental version of Funkadelic’s “Cosmic Slop” and McKnight just killing it with his relentless Hendrix-style lead guitar. Sadly, Collins himself couldn’t hold the center for long. He disappeared in the “middle” of the show and was absent from the stage for far too long while his substitute funkateers tried to keep the crowd dancing. By the time Collins finally came back out, most of the folks in the crowd were either gone or just exhausted. Still, they cranked things out for another hour, and Collins finally played some classic “space bass” on slow jams like “I Got The Munchies For Your Love.”

Verdict: Less than half of the Bootsy extravaganza was totally great funk, and the rest of his lengthy show was kind of weak. So forget the legendary bassist’s funk-comeback story. I’m putting my money on Trombone Shorty.

—photo by Sharonne Cohen