Even before the pandemic hit us, composer and trumpeter Jacques Kuba Séguin had also come to this conclusion: there will never be too many jazz festivals in Montreal. The creation of the Odd Sound festival, which will take place on April 7, 14 and 15, has therefore been simmering for three years, “but the pandemic has put a spoke in our wheels,” he says. Or did it instead offer the musician and his collaborators Philippe Côté, saxophonist, and Olivier Hébert, double bass player and trombonist, a musical track to explore with this event?
It’s that over the past two years, Jacques Kuba Séguin has continued to give concerts “in the garden, at my house, as a way of keeping my sanity”, while he and his colleagues were prevented from getting on scene. He thus brought together the neighbors in a private group on Facebook called “Jazz under the apple tree in Villeray”, to invite them to a series of summer micro-concerts. “I was cooking, people came through the alley bringing their chairs and came to discover the work of composers from here. It worked: more than a hundred people subscribed to the private page. And lots of people said to me: Me, jazz, I don’t like that, but that, yes! »
“In the Exchange”
Under the apple tree has germinated the concept of the Odd Sound festival: a musical direction focused on jazz and instrumental music of composition. The event will be inaugurated at cocktail hour on Thursday at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with Jacques, Yannick Rieu (tenor saxophone), Jean-Michel Pilc (piano), Olivier Salazar (vibraphone) , Rémi-Jean Leblanc (bass) and Kevin Warren (drums).
On April 14 and 15, the Odd Sound festival will take place at the Sala Rossa for evenings inspired by backstreet concerts, with three “relatively short” concerts per evening. First, Philippe Côté (in trio) and his Ornithologie project, the orchestra of double bassist Alex Le Blanc and the dancing Chomedey Inn. The next day, place at brass band from trombonist Olivier Hébert, to the trio of pianist Emie R. Roussel and to Nonette Odd Sound, “which brings together a lot of musicians who have albums published on our label and who have all composed works especially for this concert”.
A real festival-boutique, what, tucked away but accessible, like the musicians who form the small musical family of the composer and trumpeter. “An initiative on a human scale, where we are more in the exchange, indicates Jacques Kuba Séguin. We want to create collaborations, a festival where the musicians themselves are the artistic directors of the event. »
“Through Jazz under the apple tree, we realized that people need to hear instrumental music, need to discover this kind of music that knows no language barrier, and now we are bringing the idea a little further with the festival”, attached to the self-production structure (of records and shows) Odd Sound, in which, underlines Jacques Kuba Séguin, “each artist has his sound, his vision, his way of making things, but everyone has the same status in the structure since the tasks are separated”.