Jass Fest 2026 review

I succeeded in attending every day of the festival, getting to see mostly three shows per day, though on one occasion it was only two.

I enjoyed almost all of the performances, but there was one in particular that I hadn't prepared for and ended up missing. On June 27th I arrived early and my last show I attended was the Asesino Trio performance. I had noticed when I tried to leave the TD stage audience area that almost no one was leaving, and in fact, more people were entering, making the population density even greater.

It turns out that it was Angine de Poitrine who performed at 21h30, and that show closed the Jazz Fest grounds for there having reached a capacity of people. I did not, at the time, know who this band was or what they were doing; had I known, I would have stayed right where I was, as I was already in a good position having watched the Asesino Trio perform. I have since learned about them having watched a handful of YouTube videos and now I regret (as much as I ever regret anything, which isn't very much) not having stayed after the Trio to keep my good position to watch them AdeP play.

I found as the 10 days progressed that a ligament, likely my right hip flexor tendon, was becoming achingly sore only to a very minor but noticable degree, due to me being standing and sometimes dancing in place, for 3-5 hours per night, for 10 consecutive nights. Doing all of this in addition to going out for a 3600m run a few mornings during the festival had me aching this way.

So for next year I plan on doing both stretching and leg strength exercises in advance of the festival, and, to decrease or even eliminate any distance running during the festival to reduce the amount of irritation all of my joints experience.

Hopefully I am in a better position financially next year to buy a t-shirt and hat, or some memorabilia, and perhaps also attend perhaps one paid show.

There is Soulfest and Nuits Afrique both that are coming up soon, as well as Osheaga. The first two have free shows, the latter does have a cost, so I won't be attending this year, but maybe in a future year I would consider attending.

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Jazz Fest day 10, the last day of the festival, had me arrive at the TD Stage at around 18h25, I found a somewhat younger woman alone wandering around a little in my immediate vicinity, I ended up engaging with her in conversation for the half hour we were waiting for the show at 19h to start. That was very pleasant, we talked about shows we had attended, what we liked about them and so on.

At 19h, Sparklmami began her show. Her backing band was excellent in all of their skilled positions, she herself was a little odd, seemingly stream of conciousness word play bounded by also some singing. On one hand she wore a black glove with the glove's fingers extended a hand length beyond the end of her own fingers. I mostly enjoyed the show due to the band surrounding her.

At the end of that show I sped, as one can between thousands of people moving in random directions, to the Rogers stage to catch the Sue Foley show. She is a highly skilled guitarist herself and had a good band including a second guitarist who mostly played rhythm behind her, but who also soloed at times when she would allow for it. She soloed so much, if we added up her solo time it probably was about 3/7ths of her one hour allotment. The backing band did well to keep a great rhythm behind her, though, the bass guitarist looks a little bored at times.

Once Sue Foley's show ended, I stayed at the Rogers stage and moved to be right up against the front gate of the stage for the next show that would start in 90 minutes. While waiting there I could hear Etran de L'Air on the adjecent Rio Tinto stage next door; and they sounded really great; maybe in a future year I will make an effort to be at their stage for their show.

The last show of this year's Jazz Fest that I attended was Chicha Libre, the alternative was a rap show by Smino that given my preference, I was happy to miss out on. Chicha Libre is from Brooklyn, but each of them are also from various countries like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the guy in front from France. They played Peruvian music that also sounded a little bit like klezmer music without a central and south American angle. Unfortunately the drummer from my vantage point was often hidden by the main singer and ukelele player up front. The video below I try to show her.

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Jazz Fest day nine wasn't quite as hot, so that was good.

I arrived in time to catch the Choir! Choir! Choir! show at the TD stage at 19h. It was two men, both choir directors in times past, one of them playing acoustic guitar accompaniment, dividing us down the middle to create harmonies, words on the screen Kareoke style, singing songs we all know like Bon Jovi Living on a prayer, Karma Culture Club and Fleetwood Mac Dreams. The two of them encouraged everyone in the audience to sing and pretty much everyone did. At one point they asked for a raise of hands who had been to a CCC show before and it seemed about 3/7ths did, then he asked a raise of hands who hadn't, and it was about 4/7ths, me included. It was fun to sing along.

After that show I made my way to the Rogers stage, to get there I had to pass through reams of people - I guess on a good weather Friday night, the festival had a lot of extra people. Guy Bélanger and his band were performing. He has a special belt that has perhaps a dozen harmonicas, I suppose each one tuned a little differently. For most of the songs, he played one of his harmonicas, and/or he sung, or, his bassist sung two songs. Most of the songs were up tempo and many included both a harmonica solo and a lead electric guitar solo. It was okay as a band and performance, but it was a little too much harmonica for me.

I stayed at the Rogers stage so that I could be at the very front of the next show, even though it was 90 minutes later. About a half hour before the next show started I engaged in conversation with two people who were friends with each other, a young man and woman, talking about the festival, the shows we had attended, what this upcoming show was about and so on, so that was nice. The performer was Tanya Tagaq who, with a cellist and a drummer, filled about 50 continuous minutes with a wide variety of sounds, including some throat singing and mostly unintelligble sounds. The drummer and cellist contributed in their own wildly random ways to provide a show that is both bizarre and moving, odd and compelling. The light show added to the whole effect of this very peculiar performance.

There was a young woman right next to me at the front railing as close to the stage as possible whom Tanya seemed to recognize; in the end this young woman joined Tanya on stage and the two of them together did a short throat singing duo.

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Jazz Fest day eight wasn't a very good one.

I arrived earlier than I had been arriving and got a Notre Dame de Beouf burger and chatted with the two young women working there as it was prepared. That was nice. I found a picnic table nearby, ate it, and then attended the Thee Marloes show that started at 18h. The best way I could describe this band is as a higher end lounge singer group, with the woman having a lovely and semi-sultry voice, and though she was sitting at the keyboard the whole time, still she moved like a vixen singer would with a spotlight on her in an upscale lounge.

I left this show at 18:35 so that I could get a good spot at the TD stage for the Annahstasia show that was to start at 19h. (my plan was to go back to see Thee Marloes second set starting at 20h, but as you'll see later, this didn't happen) As I approached the TD stage it started to lightly rain, I found a spot very close to the stage, but surrounded by perhaps 1000 girls of approximate age 15-18. They were exceedingly noisy and many of them chatterboxes that were talking ever so loudly due to how many of them there were, and this talking continued well after the show started. I found this highly disrespectful to Annahstasia who was singing to us even though she could likely hear all of the chattering from this front of scene large group of girls. 

While waiting for the show, and during the first 10 minutes of the show, the rain continued, and in my immediate vicinity, two umbrellas were open keeping those nearby people dry, but then spattering the rain on to me. Internally this irritated me, the inconsideration of the umbrella holders and the chattering all around me. Externally I remained stoic. I ended up moving to a less advantageous place.

Annahstasia's first three or four songs were slow songs, with her sustaining long notes, and only the viola, sax, piano and cello accompanying her. I failed to understand why these girls were present at this show as they weren't paying attention, and this slow music probably doesn't appeal to them. Subsequently, an electric guitar player got added who mostly just played atmospheric sounds, and then by about 19h30 the drummer finally got involved for a few more songs with a stronger rhythm.

She has a great voice, but I had a hard time knowing if I liked her music given all of the distraction of what was going on around me.

At around 19h40 I noticed some really dark clouds above us, so I snaked my way out of the audience where none of them had noticed the same thing I had. I walked to the far side of the NFB building which was adjacent to where the stage is and found an exterior overhang to stand under. Within seconds of me reaching that place a torrential downpour with violent winds came upon us and a minute later someone figured out how to enter the NFB building where the entire ground floor is an open area lobby, so I entered there to wait for the storm to pass.

By 20h45 the rain had mostly stopped and so I exited the building and walked the grounds of the festival, the next show at the TD stage was at 21h30 and I decided that I had had enough of this night and headed home.

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Jazz Fest day seven; it was around 34c when I arrived with high humidity, but I didn't feel it was too bad. I attended after 18h so the worst of the heat was just during the first hour or so that I was there.

While waiting for the first group, I engaged in conversation with two much younger guys who showed up moments after I did and stood very near me. We talked about this band that none of us knew particularly well and about other shows we have attended, in particular Angine de Poitrine, and Naika. The first group I saw was Dustin Conrad and his band. He was entertaining, and his band were very highly skilled, with some great combined and solo playing; however, his actual singing wasn't really that great. He has released two albums, the first a pop album the second a jazz-pop album and he played songs from both.

Very soon after that show ended I moved as quickly as I could to go to the other stage to watch Ron Artis II; he is a highly skilled electric guitar player and has a very highly skilled band behind him. He sang songs that were really touching; one in particular, No Weight: "best way to rise is to go lift somebody up". I was quite impressed with this band and would be happy to see them again.

The last band I saw was Larkin Poe, I arrived a half hour before the show started, entered the area from the rear and was able to move ahead almost to the very front; there I engaged with a guy perhaps about my age and we talked about this band and about the festival. Larkin Poe is clearly a rock band and they are a high power rock band, the two sisters leading the band are really pro performers, moving around the stage, interacting with the crowd, telling brief stories that lead directly into the start of a song. You can see in the photo that one of the two of them plays a guitar in an odd way; it is because she is playing it as a steel guitar, with a metal cylinder in one hand that she slides across the strings.

I really enjoyed this last show; all in all this was a really good day at the festival.

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Jazz Fest day six had me attend only two shows as there was a very high risk of heavy rain during the Willow show that started at 21h30, so I ended up leaving at around 20h40 as I had listened enough to Mei Semones.

The first band I saw was Alfa Mist at the big TD stage. I am kicking myself as I arrived a half hour early and stood at the 4 o'clock slightly behind a young woman. Throughout that half hour I could have been chatting with her, asking her if she knows about Alfa Mist, or has she attended any other shows, but I didn't know if she was alone (she was) or if she was waiting for someone, and I didn't know what language she spoke. Anyhow, if this situation presents itself again, I will act. 

In the photo below it is very difficult to see the painist at the grand piano on the left, but he was there and he was the only one who spoke to us, not very much. This band played true jazz, with arrythmic beats, taking turns of each player to get solo opportunity, brief syncopated connections among all members for a short ryhtmic section and then back to complex or sole player performance. The drummer in particular was spectacular.

Here is a video that I took:

The next band I saw was Mei Semones and her band. She sang songs with cute lyrics, the violin and viola on the left added excellent backing sounds and did have a well rehearsed duo performance for perhaps a two minute stretch during one song. Mei herself did a lot of individual note picking up and down the neck of her electric guitar, it was kind of fun how she played, but a full hour of it was too much, so I ended up leaving before the show ended.

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Jazz Fest day five began with me standing at the Rio Tinto stage while listening to the last half of Cécile Doo-Kingué's set at the adjacent Rogers stage, then catching Fabiola Mendez's show at the Rio Tinto stage in full, then catching the first half of Cécile Doo-Kingué's second set, and then attending the Naïka show.

Fabiola Mendez and her band are from Costa Rica and they played latin based Jazz influenced songs, sung in Spanish leaving a lot of time for solos from Mendez herself, playing a special electric Quattro guitar (10 strings sorted into five pairs of doubled) and her bass guitarist who he himself was playing a five or six string electric bass guitar.

Next was Cécile Doo-Kingué with a band that played a Rock and Blues combination. She is originally from Cameroon and spoke French equally well to us in the audience as she also spoke English. Of the bands I've heard over the last few days this one sounded like one of the ones I enjoyed the most.

I left the Doo-Kingué show a bit early, at around 20h30 so as to get to the biggest stage area (the TD stage) in hopes of obtaining a good spot for the Naïka show, however, this didn't go exactly as planned. There are two main entrances to access where the audience goes for this TD stage, one at the north end of Jeanne-Mance and another at the south end of Jeanne-Mance with the stage at the corner of JM and de Maissoneuve, and the tail end of the audience at the JM and St-Catherine. The past few days I managed to get to a near the front position by walking through the north end (the stage end) and gently snaking my way inwards. Last night I attempted this also, but already with 50 minutes before show time, the front area was too dense with people. I walked around the grounds to then enter by the south entry and found I could walk forwards and I ended up probably at 5/7ths of the distance, so not quite at the back, but behind the halfway point. Over the next 45 minutes the space around me got denser and denser with people until it was likely as dense as it had been at the front when I first arrived.

I had not heard of Naïka before this performance, but the thousands of girls and young women in my immediate vicinity clearly had, and sang along with almost every song. Naïka sang pop songs with a Latin drum beat backing. She had both French language and English language songs and she spoke to us in both languages. More than once she exclaimed how insane this concert was - that so many people were present.

I waited for perhaps four minutes standing more or less where I had been, once the show was over, to allow the crowd around me, and the crowd between me and the metro entrance, to thin out. Once I got to the metro, wow, the platform going in the opposite direction was full.

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Jazz fest day four; I decided to attend a later set of shows as the weather is getting hotter and I wanted to avoid being in the Sun and at least have some of my time at the festival be during and after sunset.

The first show I went to was Son Little, he sang songs a bit reggae sounding, he had a woman bass player who also did backing vocals and in an interestingly minimal way, just a word here, a phrase there. A facet of their playing in quite a few of their songs would have a crescendo build to a dramatic level.

Next I went to see D.K. Harrell, a rhythm & blues singer, performer of large size. He had great showmanship and interacted with the crowd, getting us involved in some of the songs.

Finally I went back to the main TD stage for a show that would start half an hour later. Already there were many thousands of people there, but I managed to snake my way in where I found an empty spot for me to stand. The performance was from Kamasi Washington and his band. It was the most avant-garde jazz I've seen so far with a reliable rhythm only some of the time, arythmic sound most of the time, generous 5-8 minute solos from every player in the band. I'd have left this performance earlier, but leaving from that thick crowd was a challenge and I wanted to give Washington's band a chance. Eventually I did come to enjoy the show. This band too, like Son Little, would use crescendos in their songs.

I decided at this show to take a photo backwards to show how big the crowd was; as it was dark when I took the photo, it is hard to tell, and the green tinge is because there are some lights above us shining green light upon us. The crowd goes all the way back to those joined towers you see in the background as there is another screen back there that shows by video what is happening on the stage.

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Jazz Fest day three began with me attending another youth jazz band, this one from high school students from the Vicent Massey high school. In addition to a few jazz band classics, they had one song written by one of the students, with the writer singing his part.

Next was Brittany Davis; as evidenced by her bass player giuding her, her walking stick, she is a visually impaired performer if not fully blind. She is a mix of stream of consciousness singer and one who sings traditional jazz songs, very adept at the keyboard and a great rhythm section from her two players.

The last show I attended was to see the Trio Asesino which curiously was made up of four players. I wasn't too impresssed as they were a solely instrumental band and I found all of their songs sounded very similar. I like what they played and would include their songs on a play list, but would be happy with one of their instrumentals mixed in among other songs. 

At the end of their set I was a little surprised that a very large number of people at this, the biggest stage, simply stayed put even though the next act at that stage was an hour later. I gently snaked my way out to get home as I had been at the festival already for three shows and didn't have the stamina to wait an hour and then be at another show for another hour. If I was to do this over, maybe I would have stated.

It turns out that Angine de Poitrine was to perform at 21h30 that night, so it was 90 minutes before the next show. This two person group from Quebec has become exceedingly popular, so much so, that the Jazz Fest grounds were closed due to having reached max capacity. Being there for such a momentous occasion would have been worth the aching I was feeling in my feet.

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Jazz Fest day two, now knowing there is a show that starts at 17h, I left earlier so as to catch more of it. The band showing was the McGill Jazz Orchestra 1; it was nice to see these students, these young adults, playing as they did. More or less everyone got a turn to solo as they ran through a bunch of classic Jazz band songs.

Next was Campbell and Johnston, a band from Nova Scotia; it was cute that the lady of the duo spoke her DuoLingo French to us passably with a very anglophone accent. The crowd was appreciative and gave her feedback that she was doing well enough. This band had a strong guitar focused sound, they play mostly traditional rock sounding songs, including a few covers, one from the Rolling Stones and the other from Stevie Wonder. From my vantage point, the bass guitar player was directly behind the lead guitar play of the duo so I could hardly see him. Though, in a few spots in a few songs, the bass guitar player would mirror the lead guitar player and from my vantage point I could see both players hand on their strings on the neck of their instrument moving in sync.

The last show I went to on this day was to see Cymande, a large group that performed a variety of songs, often giving the brass players time to solo. The songs they chose to play all had good rhythm and dance-ability, in particular the bass player had really interesting bass lines which were very creative with each different song, but the same creative riff played through each song.

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I live closer to downtown now than I ever have, so attending the Montreal Internation Jazz Festival with daily free concerts has now become much easier. Yesterday was the first day and I watched the last 4/7ths of one show, all of a second, and the last 6/7ths of a third show.

I finished work at 16h30 and dilly dallied; if I had paid closer attention, I would have left right after work. The first show I attended was Annie and the Caldwells and they started at 17h; I arrived at 17h24 and so caught the remainder of their set.

They had a really strong rhythm section and they sang funky songs. They encouraged audience participation, but I had trouble understanding what they were saying. The stage of the next performance I attended was pretty much adjacent to this first one, so I walked over and waited the six minutes for this next show.

Next was Hannah Cohen.

She wore a revealing outfit but seemed very comfortable in doing so.

She and her band played sort of a lite rock, folk and country mixed up genre, this was my favourite performance of the day, the band sounded really good and I liked most of the songs. Her set went right to 19h and the next show was at a different stage, so I missed perhaps the first five or six minutes to get there. It was Teona Major 9 performing.

She sang Aretha Fanklin or Whitney Houston inspired songs, and a few covers of such songs. She is a new artist from London, UK, she just released her first album and will soon be going on her first tour.

All in all it was a good first day; I didn't have the stamina to stay longer as after TM9 finished at 20h, the next show of interest was at 21h, so I walked around a little and then decided to return home. It is likely to be raining today at those same hours, but I will still see about attending anyhow.

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The very next day I went back to the Jazz fest though I am only getting to posting to it now.

This is Mwembo and the Shakes, they were a thrilling band, a combination of funk, jazz and rock, with varying tempos throughout their songs. Mwembo is the guy in the all black sleeveless outfit a tad right of center. Their songs had a lot of self improvement themes like: Be yourself, trust the God in you, let your heart be strong. They had a really good rhythm section and the shorter woman on the right, in front of the drummer, she was a dancer, not a singer.

Next I saw Gabrielle Shonk.

I saw her once before at a paid show, so it was nice to see her again in this free show. I liked her songs again, she played almost the same set, though it was shortened as she only had an hour during the festival and she played over 90 minutes in that previous show.

I haven't been back since and today is the last day so I won't be going again this year. Two nights seem to work well, that's what I did last year also. Perhaps next year I will see if I can do three nights.

Here are a few additional photos just to show the volume of people:

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 I went to the Jazz Festival yesterday and will be going again today.

I first saw Mopao Mumu.

She was very pregnant and actually took a pee break during her performance. She had sort of R&B rock/fusion sound, no true percussion but a DJ behind her that queued up a whole rhythm section.

Then I saw Mereba:

In some of her songs she could channel the slightest hint of Stevie Nicks, in others she would rap for part or most of the song, it was quite a mix. Also, no true percussion here; the keyboardist produced the percussion with his keyboard or whatever equipment he had.

Neither of these two impressed me sufficiently to look into them further.

done won fun

Trump is being arraigned in Florida today for roughly three dozen counts of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the retrieval of said documents from his Florida resort home.

It is a Federal Court that is managing this, though, with a seemingly Trump favouring Judge. It has been said that he could run for and even be elected as President from prison and that if he was elected, he'd have to be extracted from prison to run the country. I am guessing he would go back into prison after his presidential term is over.

Of course I am hoping that if he is in prison, that will allow his republican opponents more media attention to hopefully raise their likelihood of winning that nomination.

Living in Canada this all has very little to do with me, of course.

Here in Canada a man named David Johnston stepped down as special rapporteur; he had planned on holding a Public Hearing into the matters of Foreign interference in elections in Canada. Opposition leaders were against him, as he had ties to the Trudeau family, and what he wanted (a Public Hearing), and instead were pushing for a Public Inquiry. Now it is up in the air as to what happens next.

Provincially, the forest fire situation is beginning to get better as more rain (though not enough) is falling in the areas where the fires are, among other areas. There are also some contentious laws that have either just become law or are close to becoming law. There is a strengthening of the French Languages act both Federally and Provincially that puts in question the rights of an English minority in Quebec. And there is a new Landlord / Tenant law coming in that has both groups dissatisfied with what is planned. Landlords having to appear at the tribunal if the tenant doesn't agree to an eviction, and tenants no longer able to sublease which had been used previously to keep a low rent low by not following a proper change of tenant path.

Locally, summer is approaching with the F1 race happening this weekend, with the Jazz Festival around the corner, and then the National Bank Open in August. This year the men play in Toronto and the women play here. There is a homeless group of about 50 people that have been living underneath the Ville-Marie Expressway for years and they have become a community. However, the expressway itself is in need of repairs and Transport Quebec has been pushing to have these people move or be relocated for months. In court motions this has been delayed numerous times, however, it appears that June 15th is the last day they are to be there.

Personally I came across an ad on my mobile device for ePlancul about a month ago, a matching site for people who want more than friendship. It was free to join, however, it costs tokens to send messages, and tokens cost money. I was surprised that after having created my profile (which was free to do) I immediately had some women approach me through the site. Not knowing how any one of them would work out, there are now four that I have chatted with regularly, with a fifth in Saguenay that I started chatting with since I am going there on vacation in July. The cost of the tokens has been significant, so I have given the four local ones a deadline (the bomb I dropped recently) to actually meet in person within this month. I said that if that meeting doesn't happen, I will be compelled to abandon them. I can't keep paying for tokens, especially if we could be chatting through SMS for free. So far none have picked a date/time, but there are still 17 days left in the month.

Jazz Fest July 6

I decided to go again last night and followed the same routine of going first to TD Stage, then to Rio Tinto, then back to TD stage as this two venues are adjacent to each other.

First I saw was Leyla McCalla and her band.

She and her band are from New Orleans and the songs she and her band performed were Cajun/Creole/Haitian inspired songs with some songs having typical Caribbean sound. Leyla has a sometimes haunting voice and sometimes powerful and she played the banjo, the guitar and a cello. Some of the songs reminded me of Santana also.

Next was Pascuala Ilbaca y Fauna.

This band is from Chile and sang only in Spanish but the lead singer, the only female in the band, spoke some English between songs and some Spanish too. They played mostly Latin based songs, she said they were mostly political or feminist in nature but I couldn't tell. I was very pleasantly surprised, right about the middle of their show they played a couple of songs that could only have been described as progressive rock, with syncopation, varied time sigs and mellifluous solos. All throughout she would dance very impressively.

Last I saw just the first part of CRi. I did not get a good photo as the stage was either dark as night, or, there were strobe effects or the near-equivalent making photography with my mobile device extremely limited. CRi is a single individual who has panels to his left and right with a single small pedestal panel in front with him facing the audience. He plays what I'll call electro-synthetic dance music. Soon after the start of his show he had an eye-catching woman sing as part of his playing; but all she sang was something like 'I'll go right to you' just over and over and over, with the same repetitiveness of the music CRi was playing. I left the venue after about 20 minutes of this and headed home, it wasn't the kind of music I am particularly into.

The festival ends on Sunday, and though I do have some availability over the remaining three days, I've checked out who is playing on those two, my favourite stages, and none of the remaining scheduled bands am I keen enough to see. I checked other of the free stages too and have decided that the two times I went this year now is sufficient for this year. I missed the first few days, perhaps next year I will go earlier on.