Culture Watch: Jazzin' it up in Montreal
July 3, 1999

Listen with RealAudio          Need audio help?

Now swinging until July 11th is the annual Montreal International Jazz Festival. And since this year is the one-hundredth anniversary of jazz itself, not to mention the 300th anniversary of the city of New Orleans, the Montreal Jazz Festival is doing some heavy celebrating.

The people of Montreal consider this festival the highlight of their summer and a full expression of the city's vitality and admiration of art and music. There are plenty of free outdoor concerts if you can't swing the more expensive indoor shows and there'll be daily parades, jazz cruises, and a Jazz exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The festival opened Thursday night with an homage to Miles Davis and continues on this weekend with everyone from Diane Krall to the Afro-Cuban Allstars to John McLaughlin. Other performers include Dave Brubeck and Caetano Veloso from Brazil. In short, they'll all be there, Daddy-O.

Andre Menard, the festival's artistic director, says this year they're looking into the future where they see a convergence of electronic and techno music with jazz, so this year features Kid Loco and DJ Spookey from those fields, as well as a number of French artists.

By the way, if you haven't made your millenniuem plans, there's also going to be a special Montreal Y2K Jazz concert on New Year's Eve, at the convention center featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater and Oliver Jones in what he says will be his farewell concert.