Montréal Jazz Festival Does Something Better Than Every Other Fest

The music festival landscape is incredibly saturated. Period. As summer festival lineups drop, it’s increasingly become this monotonous drivel of the same acts recycled into a slightly different combination and we’re left with the false impression that things are indeed different, when in reality they most certainly are not. Most big promoters follow the same pattern of algorithmically based festival curation: if the Spotify play counts match-up to the tour revenue history, then that’s a bingo! But more often than not, we’re given line-ups top heavy with acts fronted by white males and we’re left with few opportunities to celebrate the smallest shred of diversity and gender parity in a line-up if and when it comes to our cities. By the way, whatever that lineup is, that’ll be $400 please. Visa, Mastercard, AMEX and Venmo to some rando on Craigslist accepted and oh, have we told you about our layaway plan for tickets?! This way you can work on paying your off your festival pass all year long!

I don’t know about you, but playing this charade for the past decade+, hoping that the scope will change and then it doesn’t, has had me looking for something that deviates from the norm. And for the past two years, I’ve found it in Montréal. A tough situation last year proved a learning experience for the long-running Montréal Jazz Festival and one that clouded my full understanding of this fest. But this year, at its 40th anniversary, I saw Montréal Jazz for what it is: The most inclusive and accessible music festival I’ve ever been to.

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah (photo by Adrian Spinelli)

You see, there’s no $400 three-day festival pass here to dictate that participation requires a certain amount of money. But rather, there’s a series of ticketed concerts that take place at a dozen or so Montréal venues and more importantly, the festival’s Quartier des Spectacles (the main plaza), in the heart of Downtown Montréal, features six stages of FREE diverse programming; established international acts, emerging young Canadian pop music talent, classic jazz musicians, Latin jazz, traditional African music, rock and roll, you name it…FREE. And yes, despite what it’s name suggests, the festival has evolved over time into much more than just jazz.

But if you’re one of the two million people who come to any part of Montréal Jazz Festival’s 11 days (it is indeed, the world’s largest jazz festival) the charm of the visit is exploring Montréal during the day, before hitting up the festival in the evening. That’s because most of the programming doesn’t begin until five or six pm, so you can venture into the lively Plateau neighborhood in the morning for bagels at St. Viateur (oh the bagels!), saunter down St. Laurent Boulevard for a Porchetta Sandwich at Boucherie Lawrence in the afternoon (oh the butcher shops!) and then make your way into the festival grounds in the evening to catch ticketed shows from guitar hero Peter Frampton, rising jazz outfit Butcher Brown, Aussie indie demigod Courtney Barnett, trumpet savant Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, or a free show from Montréal-based emerging soul pop singer Kallitechnis. This dance is a total thrill, night in and night out and all day in between.

And what I see along the way, from the sesame-seed scented Plateau, to the sunshine washing over the Quartier des Spectacles, is a festival for generations of people. It’s different age groups and cultural backgrounds galvanizing through music. It’s seeing a room full of baby boomers at Peter Frampton’s set at the gorgeous Salle Wilfrid Pelletier, and a crowd of millennials at the grittier MTELUS for Courtney Barnett’s set, share the exact same elated responses, all within 300 meters of each other.

A FREE Main Stage Performance at Night (©Frederique Menard-Aubin, Festival International de Jazz de Montre?al)

It’s seeing the same disabled attendee I spoke with for my story last year, making her way through the festival grounds with ease in a motorized-cart, while a French-speaking family of African descent poses for a picture in front of the iconic jazz figures behind each large window along the side of the looming Maison du Festival Building. There isn’t one type of festival goer here, and we all breathe in relation to the city that ties us all together. Everyone accepts each other and there’s an utterly refreshing lack of conflict.

The bustling sense of community is everywhere. From the restaurants and food stands along the festival’s Saint Catherine Street thoroughfare, all within an earshot of free programming for families, teenagers, twentysomethings, black people, white people, muslim people, queer people, straight people, kids, older people, etc., to the on-site record store and gasp sponsorship activations throughout (accept it y’all; these things don’t pay for themselves. It’s okay.)

Jazz Fest is just as much a place to reconnect with a classic act like Alan Parsons or Buddy Guy as it is to discover the next indie artist from Quebec like Helena Deland (who relished in being on stage in her home province.) It’s a festival where you can see Nigerian rapper Mr Eazi as well as engage with the music of a jazz master like saxophonist Joshua Redman.

Montréal has proven itself to be a quintessential festival city and the way Jazz Festival so harmoniously weaves its way into it all (as POP Montréal and Just For Laughs do as well, I’m told) is that very proof. Now at 40 years old, Montréal Jazz Festival is a time-tested institution and by continuously finding ways to welcome and include attendees of all forms in the festivities, it has ensured its longevity as one of the best festivals in the world.