Glorious evening yesterday downtown as the festival returned to its essence, jazz, specifically that of Californian star Kamasi Washington, his roaring saxophone and his no less vibrant accompanists from his orchestra The Next Step. We salute the gesture: in the middle of Saturday evening, the Montreal International Jazz Festival offers its biggest stage to the most spirited representative of the new American jazz guard. Tens of thousands of festival-goers responded to the invitation, receiving the musician’s groovy assaults in the face.
We began to dream in front of the prestige of the said invitation. What if Kamasi Washington finally served us the total? The orchestra augmented by the choirs that line its latest album (triple!) Heaven and Earth, published in 2018? The strings to satiety, the themes so rich finally magnified in concert by a form of big band to its disproportionate measure? The occasion was right, right?
Well no. Small disappointment: the concert presented last night was, in its form in any case, not so different from the one it had already presented to us twice at the Métropolis – the last in July four years ago. And like the last time, Washington sought to compensate on stage for the lack of collaborators with explosive interpretations of his compositions. He succeeded, the groove was felt even on Sainte-Catherine Street, but sacrificing some of that orchestral luxuriance that makes his recordings so exciting.
Six tracks filled the 90 minutes of her performance. In opening, The Garden Path, the only new song that the composer and conductor has offered since the beginning of the year and which, fingers crossed, announces the release of a new album. Without a choir, the singer Patrice Quinn redoubled her ardor, her strong and ample voice gave a soul to each of the moments when she was called upon.
Followed the most runny Street Fighter Mas (of Heaven and Earth), the original melody propelled on disc by a powerful choir, . Taking the floor, Kamasi Washington then presented the recent Sun Kissed Child (2021) composed for his young child, a version augmented by a succession of well-disgorged solos, starting with that of bassist Miles Mosley (who had written on his instrument “LIBERATE WOMEN” near the fretboard), followed by that of dad Rickey Washington on the transverse flute, son closing the deal by piercing the groove with his strident flights.
It was rough, raw free jazz in the spirit of the Pharoah Sanders of the great albums for Impulse!, seasoned with funk. A maximalist, Kamasi Washington, who demands as much of his colleagues on stage, Ryan Porter on trombone, that devilish Cameron Graves mistreating the ivories on the piano and drummers Antonio Austin and Michael Mitchell. Big, heavy sound leaving little room for nuance, ending in the epic Fists of Fury.
However, for nuance, we would have had to shun Kamasi Washington and stay at the Monument-National to hear the entire concert by the exquisite Cécile McLorain Salvant, which was preceded by a short (unannounced) performance by the Gentiane MG trio – only new material composed during the pandemic and which jazzophiles will discover on record in the fall.
The short half hour spent with McLorain Salvant was already a delight. The American composer and singer, who spoke to her audience in French throughout the evening, already had new compositions to present, just over three months after the release of the superb album. Ghost Song. His accompanists – pianist, guitarist, double bass player and drummer – translated all the madness of his musical imagination, lively and melodious. We find in concert the force of the interpreter, theatrical, inhabited by his texts.
A word, in closing, about the composer and drummer Makaya McCraven, who made us live our best jazz moments of this first portion of the festival. Thursday, faced with the withdrawal at the last minute of the singer Madison McFerrin and in a half-full Gesù, he will have offered the best, the most dazzling of the three scheduled concerts (all very different from each other), his agile quartet playing d audacity in deconstructing jazz and funk with breathtaking rhythm and tempo changes.
On Friday, he revisited the good old grooves from the catalog of the Blue Note label by attracting it to hip-hop and even reggae / dub, inviting two new and famous musicians into his orchestra, Jeff Parker on electric guitar (who gave a solo last Thursday evening) and Joel Ross on vibraphone, famous. This time, the Gesù was almost full; in addition to an encore, McCraven presented Seventh Stringthe superb first single from the album In These Times which he will unveil on September 23.
Finally, last night, still at the Gesù at 6 p.m., McCraven was to perform with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. Again, lack of pot: a communication problem between their respective managements caused Coltrane to miss the boat, replaced in extremis by trumpeter Keyon Harrold, known for his acquaintances with the world of American rap, having played on Beyoncé’s recordings , Jay-Z, Mac Miller, among others. It was the briefest of the three shows, the most amazing (very jazz-fusion at the start of the performance), the most unstable, especially, as the musicians “got to know each other” while playing together, said the drummer. Fresh, innovative, inspired, McCraven wowed with his series at the FIJM.