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Montreal International Jazz Festival, Day 4

DavidMurray

It’s the 34th annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. MAGNET’s Mitch Myers translates the action.

Veteran saxophonist David Murray is all about the project. Always changing, and always challenging both himself and his audience, the versatile jazzman has finally found something artistically novel and commercially viable—and that certain something just happens to be Macy Gray. Pushing his latest CD (he’s released well more than 125 discs), Be My Monster Love, Murray is now touring with Macy and filling concert halls simply on the strength of her good name.

When they first debuted this material during the Winter Jazz Festival in NYC, Murray had surrounded Gray with a big band of avant-garde musicians, which proved cumbersome and a little imbalanced. But for their big summer tour, Murray has instead employed  the much smaller, much more focused Infinity Quartet to support the iconic diva. The smaller band also makes this endeavor much more profitable, by the way, and last night at the Montreal Jazz Festival, this proved to be a most winning combination. In between some powerful jazz interludes by the band, Gray came and went from the stage, changing glittering costumes to suit her status as an unqualified star.

Macy’s standout tunes from the record include the swinging, humorous “Relating To A Psychopath” as well as the CD’s title track. The hardcore jazzmen in the Infinity Quartet—Thornton Hudson on piano, bassist Jaribu Shahid and drummer Nasheet Waits—were actually perfect sidemen for Gray, and it will be nice to see them progress together as the tour continues. Most interesting was Gray’s dramatic take on  classic Ellington ballad “In My Solitude,” with Mr. Murray providing dramatic counterpoint on tenor sax—kind of like what Lester Young used to do with Billie Holiday. Gray was amiable and charming throughout and did her best to get the Montreal crowd up on their feet. Now, if only David Murray could stick with the project for more than one touring season and further develop the fascinating rapport he’s established with Macy Gray. Then things could get really interesting.