Interviews of the 34th Festival International de Jazz de Montréal : Chucho Valdés, Barry Harris, Helen Merrill, Benoit Charest, Jason Moran, Youn Sun Nah, Gregory Porter, Phronesis and David Murray - Macy Gray !
Christophe Rodriguez, CDJazz columnist, and Chrystelle Maecher, jazz gig of the week columnist, share conversations with jazz greats of the 34th FIJM...
A few words with cuban-born pianist/composer Chucho Valdés in concert with the Afro-Cuban Jazz Messengers, Friday, June 28th at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and Thurday, June 27th at Québec City's Palais Montcalm.
Congestion, large crowds and difficult choices are ahead at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. In between saxman Charles Lloyd at the Théâtre Jean-Duceppe of Place des Arts, the bop adventures of pianist Barry Harris at Upstairs, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln jazz Orchestra at the Maison Symphonique de Montréal, and of course, a giant among giants, pianist Chucho Valdés with the Afro-Cuban Jazz Messengers, we'll be hanging out by the entrance of the Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts.
In a resolutely Jazz Messengers spirit, an influence he doesn't deny, pianist/composer Chucho Valdés presents Border-Free, a tribute to Native Americans, to his family, but mostly his father - legendary pianist Bebo - recently departed, and of course, cuban music.
On a european tour, we spoke for a second time (2009), about jazz in it's many forms and his influences.
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Chucho - "Of course the Jazz Messengers and Art Blakey's powerful presence, his own brand of the jazz/blues/soul that's also the basis of long-gone Irakere (cofounded with clarinetist/saxophonist Paquito d’Rivera - who's playing May 31st in Montréal at the MCMF). For me, music's always evolving, keeping in mind my foundations and Cuba, my country. This country, home to so many influences and genres that have changed for decades, allows me to connect it all by including social and political references as well as my vision of the world""
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CR - Is Border-Free (World Village/Harmonia Mundi), a "power" CD, featuring saxophonist Branford Marsalis on two tracks, the continuity of Chucho Steps (2010)?
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Chucho - "In a certain way, but this project is more personal as I pay tribute to my father (a major influence) : Bebo, as well as the forgotten peoples of world, (Afro-Comanche). Border-Free as the title says goes behond frontiers, without necessarily making it a world music project."
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CR - So, long live the Afro-Cuban Messengers !
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Chucho - "So far, tours succeed each other and the welcome is great. With this band, I've still got many ideas and my health is good. You know cuban music is
a potion of youth, just like jazz, if there's no excess"
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Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Jazz Messengers
Friday, June 28th, at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal - Thursday, June 27th at Québec City's Palais Montcalm
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Interview by Christophe Rodriguez.
Talking with legendary pianist Barris Harris in trio, Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th kicking off the Nights at Upstairs series of the Montreal Jazz Fest!
Once again, praise goes to the great Upstairs line-up at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. No only great jazz vocalist Helen Merrill, whom we'll soon interview, pianist Barry Harris - 84 years old - is at the Mackay Street venue, Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th. From Detroit, this very friendly gentleman who's hung out with the who's who of jazz, savours it all and preaches good jazz like the good word to his faithful students.
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Barry -"Oh well you know at my age, tours are very exhausting. After I had some health problems in the 80s, I had to turn my career around and teaching became second nature."
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CR - Which must be quitte different from your time where you learned mostly by listening to others?
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Barry - "Of course, because my friends were Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan (The Sidewinder), Coleman Hawkins, Errol Garner, Paul Chambers, etc... We were a brotherhood, as well as my family who lived for music, and in a creative environment when there was still a lot of work around. What I teach my students today who know a lot about us - with the help of technology, is spontaneity, playing with feeling, and to play without the charts and other technical languages in order to express themselves freely. "
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CR - Charlie Parker, Lee Morgan, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef and Miles Davis, your track record is awesome. If I'm getting this right, it's possible, practically, to play with everybody?
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Barry - "As long as you have a open mind and the willingness to understand the other. The bop language and Hawkins who knew more than all of us together, was a great school, at least for me. We had the impression we were challenging the established order...as long as you knew the classics! I'm for passing on ideas and you can't sweep under the rug what the greats of jazz...myself included, and in all humility, built."
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CR - What can we expect for your Upstairs concerts?
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Barry - "Standards and bop, that's what I do best, in all modesty"
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The Barris Harris Trio with Ray Drummond (bass) and Leroy Williams (drums)
Nights at Upstairs series of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal
Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th at 7pm and 9:45pm
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Interview by Christophe Rodriguez.
Interview with the great lady of jazz Helen Merrill, July 3rd/4th in the Nights at Upstairs series of the Montreal Jazz Fest!
Part of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, the Nights at Upstairs series hosts for two nights, one of the great ladies of jazz, as well as one the last, Helen Merrill. Sixty years devoted to the ballads and memorable partners such as Earl Hines, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Gary Peacock, Gil Evans, and the passion lives on, even at 83!
Back from a Japan tour, she gives us her thoughts on a life devoted to jazz, her encounters, the departed friends and how she got into jazz.
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Helen -"Honestly, I don't really know why because my mother, who had a powerful operatic voice, liked popular song and classical music and had hardly any contact with jazz. What seduced me - I was born in 1930 - was the swing we heard on the radio, the big bands and to be quite clear the populars songs of that period. With the help of a bit of talent (in all modesty), I started singing in the Bronx jazz clubs when I was 14...and I've going on since. We knew a lot of songs that we played with smaller bands, and that's how we became know."
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CR - With no less than Earl Hines, an ideal musical partner and Louis Armstrong's piano player?
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Helen - "I must tell you I was shaking the day he asked me to sing A Cigarette For Company. He was such a nice man, very thoughtful and he knew how to make musicians and singers at ease. Fifty years later, I still recall what he said : First, you have to listen to the band and the instruments."
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CR - Two years later and barely 26, you recorded a cult record with trumpet player Clifford Brown : Helen Merril and then Dream of You, produced and arranged by pianist Gil Evans who'll go on and create masterpieces with trumpeter Miles Davis...
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Helen - "I was lucky and things just happened, go figure. I was as young as Clifford - he left us at only 25 - and words can't express his approach. He "felt" the songs, had a perfect instint and respected the musician. For many he was a "god", for me he was an exceptionally kind human being."
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CR - Like so many other jazz musicians and singers in the 60s, you left for Europe.
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Helen - "A certain taste for adventure, a lot of gigs, but also an opportunity to get out of the stifling situation in the United States. The european public really loved us and gave us quite a welcome, we also felt the new ideas, the need to evolve, and to share in a particularly troubled world. It's in Italy that I recorded one of my most beautiful records : Parole e Musica ( BMG). Ballads and small poems."
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CR - We lack time and space, so what now?
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Helen - "After the death of my husband, I stopped everything for about three years and then slowly, jazz came back. Even if can't do what I did in my twenties, I take good care of my voice, give a few concerts, always with the same pleasure."
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Helen Merrill
Nights at Upstairs series of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal
Wednesday, July 3rd and Thursday, July 4th at 7pm and 9:45pm
1254 Mackay 514-931-6808
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Interview by Christophe Rodriguez.
