Looks like there won’t be a small party during this 42nd edition of the Montreal International Jazz Festival. On this rainy Tuesday evening, the offer was great in the rooms requisitioned by the event: the return of the composer, band leader and trumpeter Chief Adjuah to the Monument-National, the visit of the French electro hero Woodkid to the MTelus, and for dessert, the sweet melodies of New York composer Arooj Aftab. Cake for the eardrums.
About ten minutes late on the announced schedule of 8 p.m., Chief Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah went up to the stage of the Monument-National emblazoned, as promised during the interview he granted to the To have to, his new instrument, the Adjuah bow — in its electric “prototype” version, a long chrome-plated handle with strings stretched over a piece of metal rather than a calabash like a traditional kora. Pressing his hands on two rods, he plucks the strings to extract a sound similar to that of an electric guitar.
From the outset, he and his three companions unveiled the title song of his next album, expected next February, and it promises to be rock. The sound is powerful in the room, Adjuah sings in a firm and hoarse voice, smiling; the machine feeds it with a groove that one would like to describe as the griot version of jazz-rock fusion, the sound of the bow passed through the effects pedals at his feet. The piece surprises and at the end, a spectator exclaims: “What is it? about the instrument.
A crash course from its inventor, then another new one that the Montreal public will have been the first to hear, and for good reason: this song, which does not yet have a title, was composed yesterday. The groove flows more, the instrument from which emanates cascades of notes gives a psychedelic character to the song, come to mind the recordings of Dorothy Ashby from the 1970s, soul, jazz, funk and smoky. “That was so much fun! Exclaims Adjuah, laying down her bow to grab the trumpet.
Flutist Elena Pinderhughes then joined her colleagues, Chief, Lawrence Fields on electric piano and Fender Rhodes, the young Elé Howell on drums and Curtis Luques on double bass. The rhythm section bites its teeth into a perfectly reproduced hip-hop-inspired beat; the theme posed, Pinderhughes launches into his first of a series of tasty solos. This ensemble is a pleasure to hear, all exceptional musicians, and Howell, only 23 years old, a revelation.
Chief Adjuah will also take great care to present them to us – never have we seen a conductor have such good and long words about each of his musician friends, which says a lot about his own warm person. , cheerful, chatting with ease with the public. Two pieces later, the orchestra offers Guinevere, song by Crosby, Stills & Nash revisited by Miles Davis. In this buffet of West African, blues and hip-hop grooves, this version will be the most classically jazz moment of the evening, and one of the most poignant, the trumpet, sometimes strident, sometimes whispering of Adjuah giving chills , Fields at Rhodes first setting the table with a tasty solo.
Our stopover at the MTelus will have been only a parenthesis in this beautiful evening, Woodkid also likes to be waited. Let’s just say that composer (and acclaimed music video director) Yoann Lemoine has a sense of showmanship: what a dramatic entrance! The orchestra settles on stage – three violins, two saxophones, a keyboardist, a percussionist, a drummer -, offers an instrumental while the backstage lights up with video images taken from a science film- fiction, to follow the dystopian theme of his album S16 released in the fall of 2020. And all of a sudden, tadam!, Woodkid appears on an elevated walkway behind the musicians.
Woodkid delivers a movie soundtrack for the eyes, and one would expect nothing less from one with a cinematic eye and ear. The opulent sound of the strings offers a kind of counterpoint to his amber and restrained voice, the bass rolling under the laid electro rhythms. His work is tense, serious, but grandiloquent; fans love it, even if we have this impression of being imprisoned in the opening credits of the next James Bond. Woodkid is doing it again tonight at the MTelus.
Quite different atmosphere on the Club Soda side where, past 10 p.m., Arooj Aftab had already started to sing: the room is almost full, the hyperattentive public, already bewitched by the voice of the composer and singer of Pakistani origin. She came to present material from her acclaimed album Vulture Prince, but in a stripped down version. Only two musicians accompany him, Gyan Riley on the guitar (passed through pedals and sequencers) and Darian Donovan Thomas, an extraordinary violinist, less by his technique than by his playing, also increased tenfold by a panoply of pedals and effects – during a solo, his violin takes on the sounds of a synthesizer coupled with a bansuri flute.
In comparison with the studio recording, the songs retain all their evocative power. The emotion is intact, but the colors differ greatly, that of jazz in particular, dissolved in the skilful orchestrations improvised live by superimposing patterns of guitars and small sounds of violins. Aftab sings and behind his voice rises swirls of harmonies drawing his repertoire towards music background. A balm for the soul and the ear, tender and touching conclusion to this beautiful festival evening.