MONTREAL, Canada (Montreal Jazz Festival Website) - This year's 23rd annual Montreal International Festival had drawn an estimated 2 million fans by the time it ended Sunday, with festival founders Andre Menard and Alain Simard adding Cuban heat to a lineup that sampled the history and geography of jazz .
Thrown into the mix at the 350 outdoor events and 150 indoor ticketed concerts were young Turks such as Roy Hargrove and old lions like Dave Brubeck . Flavors as diverse as salsa, blues, swing and ska were stirred in as the weather got steamy, and a Mars-red haze blew down from forest fires raging in northern Quebec.
For 10 days, the festival heard the best of Cuba. Each playing four nights, Cuban pianists Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Chucho Valdes took turns exploring their disparate paths. Rubalcaba has defected from his country, while Valdes has stayed in Cuba, traveling on state-sponsored tours.
One of the newest island discoveries, Omar Sosa, in trademark turban and robe, led his Afro-Cuban fusion band, pointing and stomping from his piano.
Opening the festival, jazz all-stars Herbie Hancock , Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove teamed up to honor the groundbreaking collaboration of Miles Davis and John Coltrane .
Their "derangements" (Hargrove's term) of "Misstery" and Brecker's G-force treatment of Coltrane's "Naima" set the bar high for the rest of the festival.
Dianne Reeves, 45, picked up a Grammy earlier this year for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for her tribute to Sarah Vaughan . At the festival, she was the winner of this year's Ella Fitzgerald award. She did her predecessors proud, from crooning an intimate "Misty" to scatting her own ode to her youth, "Nine."
She wowed the crowd not only with her powerful pipes, but with her easy, open stage presence and great sense of humor, telling her audience that when she hit 40 she "stopped trying to row upstream and success has flowed ever since."
In a festival loaded with brass and bass, Richard Galliano's fluid accordion provided a dramatic counterpoint. His tribute to Astor Piazzolla, backed by three violinists, one bass, one cello and a pianist, was a soundtrack to every Italian film noir ever made.
Most curious festival choice was R&B pop star Lauryn Hill, singing and accompanying herself on guitar, while the audience cried out "We love you" and "You go, girl" and photographers snapped her in Brazilian World Cup-winning yellow and green.
Latin group King Chango took 100,000 party-goers far south of the border and to the left of jazz for the festival's yearly free blowout outdoors concert, pumping up the ska (and reggae, funk and hip hop). The leader, Chango, a power plant in blond dreadlocks, red "Hustler" tank top and Venezuelan flag tied around his waist, ran through the crowd, boogied on stage and rooted for the world to come together, yelling "Unity Is The Key."
Pianist Brubeck closed the indoor concerts this year with a largely ceremonial and bittersweet performance. Celebrating his 80th birthday and looking and sounding far more fragile than his last Montreal appearance of two years ago, Brubeck spent much of the evening letting long-time sideman saxophonist Bobby Militello and guests Toots Thielemans and Jim Hall handle the solos.
Brubeck did add a short rhythmic solo during his jazz giant standard "Take Five." A sold-out house, appreciative of Brubeck's place in jazz, stood on their feet until Brubeck returned for a solo encore, laying out a gentle "Lullabye."
