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Montreal and Jazz20 Years Together
The year of the voice with the creation of the Ella Fitzgerald AwardThe Festival is taking advantage of an anniversary edition to launch a new annual award. The Festival has received the official blessing of the estate of the great Ella Fitzgerald to create the Ella Fitzgerald Award. Each year the prestigious distinction will be presented in recognition of the range, versatility, originality of improvisation and quality of repertoire of an internationally recognized jazz singer. This takes its place alongside an honor named for Oscar Peterson, which was first bestowed at the 10th anniversary, and one named for Miles Davis, created for the 15th. The Ella Fitzgerald trophy will take the form of one of those old microphones we used to love hearing her sing into. To underscore the occasion, the Festival’s closing evening, in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at the Place des Arts, will be dedicated to the unforgettable Miss Fitzgerald while feting the talent of Montreal’s finest female jazz singers. The brilliant voices of Jeri Brown, Ranee Lee and Karen Young accompanied by Vic Vogel (celebrating an anniversary himself – fifty years as a professional musician) and his Big Band will pay vibrant tribute to the great lady of jazz song, who made two appearances at the Festival. It was already announced that the opening concert, with Cassandra Wilson and guests that include Olu Dara, would be dedicated to the legendary Miles Davis, whose passage through the world of jazz had as much impact on music history as it did the shorter history of the Montreal Festival. Between these two well-deserved tributes many incandescent evenings of song will unfold in this year of the voice, evenings with Diane Schuur, Gino Vannelli, Patricia Barber, Andy Bey, Caetano Veloso – and one of them featuring the irresistible Diana Krall in the Événements du Maurier series. Ms. Krall will be re-creating on stage, as a Canadian premiere and with the help of a 30-piece orchestra, material from her latest CD. The singer has just signed – as Ella Fitzgerald once did – with the prestigious Verve label, who are honoring us this year with a 20th-anniversary CD that comes with the Friends of the Festival Pass. Louisiana artists on the menuAssociated with the Montreal Festival to underscore the fact of the hundredth anniversary of jazz in New Orleans, the State of Louisiana will be represented by many of its artists, some of them the best on offer: Harry Connick Jr. will be performing for the first time as part of the Festival, in a non-series event on June 30 in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. Also in attendance will be Branford Marsalis, Zachary Richard with Freddy Koala, Buckwheat Zydeco, Henry Butler and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. And there will be two daily cruises, aboard the Nouvelle-Orléans, where Louisiana musicians will perform: Wanda Rouzan, Henry Butler and Roland Stone will be playing during the Jazz Cruise (meal and show), while the Original Pinstripe Brass Band and Balfa Toujours will be entertaining starting at midnight on the Cajun Cruise. Jazz from elsewhere...Jazz may have seen first light in the U.S.A., but it’s been around the world a few times since and become the twentieth century’s musical form of expression par excellence. And more often than otherwise the gateway back into America has been the Montreal International Jazz Festival. In that light, this year Festival-goers have a chance to see Louis Sclavis and Richard Galliano from France, Natacha Atlas from Egypt, Petru Guelfucci from Corsica, Caetano Veloso from Brazil, Paco de Lucía from Spain, Toots Thielemans from Belgium, and Oscar D’León and ¡Cubanismo! from Latin America – to name just these few. ...and jazz from hereSince its earliest days the Festival has sought to promote the finest talent from Montreal and from elsewhere in Canada. Besides the official closing show, for its 20th anniversary the Festival is dedicating the second phase of its important Invitation series to fabulous Montreal pianist Oliver Jones, and is presenting a new series especially given over to winners of its prestigious jazz competition launched 17 years ago. Accepting the Festival invitation for that series will be Michel Donato, Roy Patterson, Jon Ballantyne, Hugh Fraser, Steve Amirault, Lorraine Desmarais, Brad Turner and François Bourassa with their respective bands. The Musée d’art contemporain pays tribute to the FestivalJazz Festival posters have been part of our urban landscape for twenty years and are much anticipated each edition. Moreover, since its creation the Festival has produced about twenty silkscreens, several of which have become collection pieces. The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal will this year pay tribute to the event and to its visual approach by presenting a retrospective of Festival posters as well as an exhibit of silkscreens and the original works on which they were based. Admission to the two exhibits is free for the length of the Festival, in the Museum foyer and in the Beverly Webster Rolph hall, which in the evening also hosts a series of contemporary-jazz concerts. Another new feature this year, the Festival is offering the DJ 1999 Bleue Dry series. On display at midnight in the Savoy room at the Métropolis will be free-wheeling and sometimes unorthodox unions between jazz and technology. All tickets go on sale Saturday at 9:00 a.m.Tickets for shows presented indoors as part of the 20th edition of the Jazz Festival as well as tickets for Louisiana cruises on the Nouvelle-Orléans will go on sale Saturday, May 15 at 9:00 a.m. at the Spectrum, at the Place des Arts and on the Admission network: Montreal (514) 790-1245; elsewhere 1 800 361-4595. Other information:
Edited by Dave Shultz |
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TM
The Montreal International Jazz Festival will be marking its 20th
anniversary from July 1 to 11, 1999, the same year as the 100th anniversary of the birth of jazz in New
Orleans.
In 1980, about 12,000
Montrealers gathered on the Man and His World site to attend the first edition
of the Festival – a modest beginning, but one that included twelve shows,
opening with Ray Charles and winding up with the Vic Vogel Big Band. The
event already contained all the ingredients that would mark its success and
originality: a laid-back atmosphere where discoveries and a good time go hand
in hand; eclectic programming, made up as much of big names in American jazz as
of talented local musicians; an important component of free shows; a New
Orleans Dixieland band on hand to entertain. The public could already pick up a
free program, an honorary membership card, and even the black tee-shirt with
the famous logo.
From
success to success, each time attracting some of the world’s greatest musicians
and a growing number of music lovers, first in the Latin Quarter and later in
the area of the Place des Arts. The
numerous prizes awarded it over the years bear witness, but more especially do
the tributes paid it as much by Festival-goers as by musicians themselves.
Musical genres have met and intermingled here in endless combinations, and jazz
has burgeoned in all its glory.