Montreal Jazz Festival 2017 - Brief Personal Review

[Aural Robert]

I spent 5 days recently in Montreal at the Jazz Festival and it was excellent for the most part. My wife and I had planned this for a few months in advance so we had tickets for 4 nights in a row:

1. Hiromi & Edmar Castaneda -  I knew of Hiromi as she crossed paths with Chick Corea at one time but was not really familiar with her. Edmar is a harp player from South America. The two of them were awesome together, Hiromi has enormous talent and energy and I'll be picking up some of her music. The two of them met last year in Montreal at the Jazz Fest, and were actually recording the concert we attended to release as a live album and their first recording together, so very special indeed as they were both totally at the top of their game.

2. Shobaleader One aka Squarepusher: Gob smacking bass player similar to the style of Les Claypool, with a guitarist drummer and keyboard player. Freaking AMAZING LED headgear - check them out on YouTube. We were stunned. I have one of Squarepusher's seminal albums "Music Is One Rotted Note" so I had an idea what to expect music-wise and the show far exceeded my expectations. I have the double live vinyl awaiting in my po box already. FYI just down the street Christian McBride was playing that night too.

3. Roberto Fonseca (from Cuba): We saw him when we were in Cuba and we both felt it was not as good as when we first saw him. The sound guy really did not have things dialed in at all - the only time you could hear the bass was when NO ONE else was playing, horns were out of balance to each other, quite disappointing really since we know he is much better.

4. The Stanley Clarke Band: Stanley is one of the very best and most innovative players in the world. He had a crew of very young musicians who were outstanding and he played some of his classics, opening with "Lopsy Lu". The crowd went nuts when the lights came up and they walked off, and the encore was only like 90 seconds long. I would have liked a longer set but it was great to see him. The opening act was an esoteric / avant garde horn player from NYC. Not my personal style so not particularly enjoyable.

Lots of street music, 4 open stages going from ~ noon til past midnight. A great time and we will go back.

Aural Robert.
... Live music is where it's at ...