Crowded city center? Blue notes permeating the atmosphere? Queues in front of bars or Studio TD to attend the free Jordan Officer concert? Tourists and Montrealers rubbing shoulders on Place des Festivals? The signs don’t lie, the 44e edition of the Montreal International Jazz Festival got off to a good start, and in style, with the impeccable concert by the Australian quartet Hiatus Kaiyote. It kinda blows my mind “It’s great to see so many of you,” said the singer, guitarist and dynamo of the Nai Palm orchestra during the evening.
“We can feel it, all your love!” she added after an hour of clever and danceable grooves before she and her colleagues launched into the final stretch of her performance.
On paper, opening the ball with Hiatus Kaiyote, experts in jazz, pop, funk and R&B fusions, already seemed like a wise idea; in practice, it was a success, fans and curious people each finding something in this repertoire that was just groovy and melodious enough to invite you to dance, and sufficiently sophisticated, in its arrangements and rhythmic patterns, to satisfy jazzophiles.
There was, however, one hiccup in this show, a very small one, let’s hope: almost halfway through the concert, after having performed the astronomical extract Telescope (with its reminder in the chorus of My Girl (from the Temptations) from the album Love Heart Cheat Code which was released today, Nai Palm invited fans to sing along with her the chorus of their success – a very relative notion for a group whose music is rarely broadcast on the radio – Red Roomtaken from the previous album Mood Valiant (2021), a song that highlights the soulful side of the singer’s voice.
And then everything stopped suddenly. Silence, followed by a question from Nai Palm: Is there a doctor in the Square? In front of the stage, someone in this crowd, so dense as to make one forget the abnormally chilly air for a late June evening, felt unwell. The show will go onbut not before someone came to her aid, the singer calmly explained. The interruption only lasted a few minutes. “Don’t forget to drink plenty of water, it is the source of life!” Nai reminded before resuming her guitar and the song.
Accompanied by three backing singers, Hiatus Kaiyote delivered a performance that flowed naturally as these four musicians master their material – the jazz argument of their proposal even gained strength on stage through their exchanges.
Perrin Moss precise and inventive on drums, Paul Bender versatile with his electric bass that sometimes sounded like a guitar, Simon Mavin seeming to have a second pair of hands to paint so many textures and harmonies with his synths. And Nai Palm in top form who, throughout the concert, could not help but giggle every time she addressed us with a sentence in French learned by heart. “Thank you very much!” “I love you with all my heart!” “Is everything beautiful? Like this, like that? Oh shit!”
Earlier at the Théâtre Maisonneuve, the concert by veteran Stanley Clarke and his young 4EVER orchestra served as an ideal opening act for the Australians’ concert. A pioneer of musical fusion, this Clarke, who spent most of the evening behind his double bass, getting up for one song to put the electric bass around his neck. New arrangements of well-known songs were promised, including the classic Sorceress of the legendary Return to Forever formation that he led with the late Chick Corea, as well as the Brazilian Love Affair from his old friend George Duke.
At his side, chaperones at least half his age; not everyone benefited from the same showcase, the pianist and the guitarist appearing more discreet, while the explosive Chicago drummer Jeremiah Collier and Clarke had the best dialogue during this joyous jazz-rock-samba-funk evening dotted with gestures. spectacular. Finally, let us highlight the contribution of the young saxophonist Emilio Modeste, “a guy in his twenties who plays as if he were sixty! », joked Clarke, and the violinist Evan Garr, whose every intervention managed to take the audience’s breath away.
At the start of the evening, on the Place des Festivals, it was Brooklyn neo-R&B singer Yaya Bey that we were waiting for, just a few weeks after offering her excellent fifth album Ten Fold. And in the simplicity of her proposal – around her, bass, drums, keyboards – was distilled the essence of her vulnerable songs: the right rhythm, often soul, subtly jazz, sometimes more hip-hop and reggae, at the service of a frank voice, soaked in gospel. A concert made even more delectable by the endearing personality of the singer-songwriter.