Len's look at the Jazz Festival - The Free Outdoor Shows

23rd Edition - June 27 - July 7, 2002

The Festival press release informs us that this year there will be better than 500 concerts/events, of which three-quarters will be of the free variety—not in the avant-garde sense—but dollar wise. I would suggest that the easiest way to follow my picks of scheduled appearances that are, potentially at least, musically interesting, would be to go to pages 148 and 149 of the free Festival program booklet as those pages list the artists in alphabetical order and lead you to the time and place of their appearances.

Let's begin with the ten Canadian groups competing for the General Motors Grand Prize this year. Perhaps you can play judge—last year a Toronto band, Nick Ali and Cruzao, was a surprise winner. A truly great group led by pianist Bryn Roberts, one that included world class players like reedman Seamus Blake and vibraphonist Stefan Bauer, finished THIRD!

In the running this year are:

Great Uncles of the Revolution Time Capsule, a Montreal group led by trombonist Muhammad Abdul Al-Khabyyr; The Montreal Guitar Collective - made up of guitarists Greg Amirault, Kenny Bibace, and Jon Geary with Chris McCann on drums; Quinsin Nachoff, a reedman who splits his time between Toronto and New York; Diane Nalini, a Montreal vocalist, currently studying in England on a Rhodes scholarship; Adam Smale, a Toronto-based guitarist; Montreal multi-instrumentalist Yvan Belleau; the Fair Galloway Quintet, that’s misleading, those are two people, saxophonist Jane Fair and bassist Rosemary Galloway, and they are joined by trumpeter Lina Allemano, Nancy Walker, a superb pianist and (the group's sole male) renowned drummer Terry Clarke; reedman Chet Doxas, the youngest member of a musical West Island family; the delightful Andrew Downing group, Great Uncles of the Revolution – Downing on bass, with Kevin Turcotte, trumpet, Jesse Zubot, violin and Steve Dawson, guitars; the Dan Thouin Quintette, led by a Montreal keyboard artist with wide interests.

- Judging by what I’ve heard on CD, I’d have to go with Downing, with Fair – Galloway, a close second.

For fans of jazz and jazz influenced singers, on view are a couple of delightful, but very different singers from Toronto, Alex Pangman and Melissa Stylianou, the aforementioned Nalini, Dorothée Berryman, Ranee Lee and—again the sole male—Adam Broughton with Panache.

For more straight ahead jazz there are appearances by drummer Guy Nadon’s Quintette, pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs, guitarist Mike Gauthier's group
Organ-ization, the trio of pianist Jan Jarczyk with Michel Donato and Dave Laing, the superb Remi Bolduc Jazz Ensemble, tenorman Jocelyn Menard, and violinist Charles Wizen with Donato on bass.

The rest:

For blues fans there's Steven Barry, Big Daddy G. featuring Dawn Tyler Watson, The Holmes Brothers, Little Freddie King, Big Joe Turner (not that one, he’s dead) and the Memphis Blues Caravan; and the Steve Rowe band featuring Kenny Pearson of Janis Joplin fame. In the "beyond jazz" category you have the Montreal Guitar Trio, the powerful Soraya Benitez and, for the BIG EVENT, King Chango. Finally, in the "sure to be delightful" department there are The Streetnix, The Valentino Orchestra and Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards.

Fairly slim pickings but hey, quality makes up for quantity – enjoy yourselves!

For more info, go to the Montreal Jazz Festival site

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