The 42nd edition of the Festival international de jazz de Montréal ended Saturday evening with a powerful explosion of funk and rap, courtesy of the American orchestra The Roots which, ten years after having marked the festival by playing a few years immediately at Metropolis, showed that he still hadn’t lost the rhythm. To put it simply: for 90 minutes, the imperial leader Questlove on drums didn’t even stop once to tap on the skins, not even to take a sip of water, if not by continuing to keep the tempo with his free hand. They sweated, we sweated, everyone sweated, from the back of the stage to rue Sainte-Catherine.
” How y’all feeling out there? “, asked the master of ceremonies Black Thought from the outset. Answer: we feel ready to dance! What we did, with joy, all of us, old fans or new insiders. With The Roots, there’s something for everyone, the classic songs – as classic as the songs of a band that took root in the alternative rap scene in the early 1990s may be, in terms of reach, we are far from by Drake or Kanye West – and the covers of funk hits that thrill anyone who still has their legs, a not too damaged eardrum and a beating heart.
The Roots, after all, are today recognized primarily as the house band of the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and therefore knows how to play a vast repertoire of popular songs that the musicians string together in concert like a DJ: to maximize the impact on a dance floor. The orchestra does it with a mastery rarely heard, except when this same group set fire to the Metropolis in 2010 and 2011, again at the invitation of the FIJM. At the time, these concerts had stretched beyond two hours; With only (!) 90 minutes left yesterday, The Roots served up a hearty and well-chosen buffet of funk, rap, soul and disco.
After the opening funk appetizer, The Roots fortified the bass (the sousaphone helping) on The Prosthen served his chain of Get Busy (from the album Rising Down2008) with the jungle boogie of Kool & The Gang, a classic of his live performances which did not fail to whip the tens of thousands of festival-goers gathered. Not even fifteen minutes since the beginning of the concert, it was already the ecstasy slipping dangerously on the disco side with, blow after blow, covers of I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl) from Instant Funk, You’re the One For Me of D Train (the synths taking over the brass) and the immense Soul Makossa of the late Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango. In the crowd, no one could stand still.
The cover of a track from the rap group Main Source (Looking at the Front Door), preceded by its source, ThinkTwice (by jazz-funk trumpeter Donald Byrd) paved the way for a selection of classic The Roots compositions, the flowing Proceed (from the classic album Do You Want More? !!! ??!1995), What They Do (from next Illadelph Halflife), The Next Movement (Things Fall Apart, 1999). On stage, three horns, two keyboards, guitar, rhythm section, Black Thought on the microphone, the guys exuded confidence, manipulating the mood by transitioning from festive rap to explosive funk eternally indebted to the sound of James Brown, taking detours towards funk, boogie and r&b.
And this, let us insist, without stopping. What a groove machine, The Roots! What a privilege to be able to enjoy it – the day before on the main stage, Laurent Saulnier, outgoing chief programmer of the FIJM, presented the Bran Van 3000 concert as the “closing pre-party” of this 42nd edition. Such a nice affair, although more messy, having also filled the Place des Festivals to bursting point. The group put the finishing touch to their grueling performance with the unmissable The Seed 2.0 (of Phrenology, 2002), but even before the show was over, rumor had it that the party wasn’t over yet: Questlove would then be off to DJ at Studio TD, just around the corner, starting at 1 o’clock in the morning. We will remember this FIJM final.