Days 1-3 | Days 4-6

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal
Montreal, Canada
June 25-July 4, 2011

After a hiatus in 2010, in order to take a three-week Norwegian road trip, it's great to get back to the festival that the Guinness Book of Records calls "The biggest jazz festival in the world." But for those who think such a designation has to mean a populist-driven festival, geared towards accessibility and big names, they'd be right...and they'd be wrong.

Sure, Festival International de Jazz de Montréal has the cachet to bring the biggest names in jazz, blues, world music and beyond, and one look at the 2011 roster is enough to support that, with names including Robert Plant, Diana Krall Diana Krall
b.1964
piano , Return to Forever Return to Forever

band/orchestra IV and Tony Bennett Tony Bennett
b.1926
vocal . But the festival's massive size doesn't preclude more intimate performances by artists such as pianists Kenny Werner Kenny Werner
b.1951
piano and Brad Mehldau Brad Mehldau
b.1970
piano —the latter, a star in his own right, but here performing solo at the lovely, 425-seat Gésu. The festival also brings international acts that deserve greater North American exposure, like Norwegians Eivind Aarset Eivind Aarset

guitar , In The Country In The Country

band/orchestra and Jaga Jazzist Jaga Jazzist

band/orchestra ; Swiss trumpeter Erik Truffaz Erik Truffaz
b.1960
trumpet ; and the trio of French pianist Jean-Michel Pilc Jean-Michel Pilc

piano , expat French bassist Francois Moutin Francois Moutin
and American drummer Ari Hoenig Ari Hoenig
b.1973
drums , who put on a tremendous show in Ottawa, earlier in the week.

While the center of the festival, on St. Catherine Street between St Laurent and Bleury, remains under heavy construction, forcing the festival to work around it and place some of its outdoor stages elsewhere, it still has the core of the city closed down for its 10-day run, making it an otherworldly experience. Keep the TV off and skip the newspapers, and it's possible to bask in a world of jazz, with everything you'll ever need contained within a six square block radius, from hotels and restaurants to shops and more. And, with the festival's headquarters opened two years ago for its 30th Anniversary, there's a new club (L'Astral), a much improved press room, and the Médiathèque, a jazz resource center with all the archival information a festival now in its 32nd year has accumulated, and much more.

There are some new things as well. Across the street from Maison du Festival Rio Tinto Alcan, there's an outdoor bar, with a small stage, and much larger merchandise tent than the festival has ever had before, all in the space where one of Montreal's institutions, the Spectrum club, existed for nearly three decades before closing its doors in 2007. Renovations to Place des Arts—the city's arts center and home to a number of venues, ranging from a few hundred to three thousand—are complete, and the interior is home to a multimedia installation and a number of new facilities.

And for a festival that accredits over four hundred journalists, FIJM knows how to treat the media, picking them up as they arrive by train or air, driving them to their hotels, where another representative is there to ensure the check-in process is as smooth as possible and that any questions are answered. The new Press Room offers a place to hang and have a drink (gratis), a place to work, and a place to attend press conferences, in the festival's Stevie Wonder Room, where Jeff Beck Jeff Beck
b.1944
guitar was interviewed in 2009, prior to his kickass show at Place des Arts.

It was, quite simply, a real pleasure to return to Montreal for FIJM, a festival that, with 475 concerts, has it all, and continues to bring it, each and every year, to the two-and-a-half million people who come through its gates.

Chapter Index

1. June 29: Darcy James Argue's Secret Society
2. June 29: Dave Holland Quintet
3. June 29: Apex: Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green
4. June 30: Anouar Brahem Invitation: Thimar
5. July 1: Anouar Brahem Invitation: Le Voyage De Sahar
6. July 1: Jaga Jazzist

June 29: Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

Catching a first show at the intimate Gésu Centre de Créativité—situated beneath a church on Rue de Bleury, just around the corner from the Maison du Festival—was the perfect way to kick off six days of coverage that will include thirteen indoor shows. While his first album, Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam, 2009) is nearly two years old, composer/arranger/bandleader Darcy James Argue's Secret Society Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

composer/conductor 's 18-piece Secret Society continues to gain traction as a large ensemble of the most modern kind. Now in his mid-thirties, Argue has been slowly building a reputation, but seemed to burst onto the scene with Infernal Machines, winning a place on many critics' "best of" lists for the year—and for good reason. This ain't your granddaddy's big band (something that will be a bit of a running theme this year at FIJM); instead, Argue brings in references from many sources, including the energy and tonalities of rock music, minimalist pulses and an approach to coloration that make his band, not unlike the award-winning Maria Schneider Maria Schneider

band/orchestra Orchestra, something more expansive than a conventional jazz big band.

For Argue's first appearance at FIJM—in the middle of a Canadian tour that saw him in Vancouver and Ottawa on previous nights, wrapping up on June 30 in Toronto—he focused largely on material from Infernal Machines, though he did also include a sneak peak at his next project, a multimedia affair with artist Danijel Zezelj, called Brooklyn Babylon. Intended to be a modern fable, Argue's "Chapter One: The Neighborhood" introduced a number of elements that are expansions on ideas from his first record. Pianist Gordon Webster's repetitive, Steve Reich Steve Reich
b.1936
composer/conductor ian pulses acted as the rallying point for the opening of a piece that felt like an overture of things to come, even as it worked as a self-contained unit that episodically moved from one interconnecting section to another.

Darcy James Argue conducting his Secret Society

Drummer Jon Wikan Jon Wikan
—no stranger to Montreal, the husband of trumpeter Ingrid Jensen Ingrid Jensen
b.1966
trumpet , who was also onboard for the evening—opened the set-starter, "Phobos," with a cajon solo as he did on the record, but with even more copious delay. Clearly Argue's a forward thinker, unafraid to "tarnish" the jazz tradition with contemporary ideas and sound worlds. As the band entered, it became even clearer that Argue's personal touchstones range far and wide, with guitarist Sebastian Noelle Sebastian Noelle
b.1973
guitar creating orchestral swells and gritty power chords, Matt Clohesy pushing the time on electric bass and Wikan driving the groove with plenty of spontaneous action. The serpentine melody of "Induction Effect" wound its way over the polyrhythmic interlocking of Holober's 5/4 pulse on Fender Rhodes and Wikan's ¾ groove, its middle section demanding many of the winds and horns to circular breathe, creating a hypnotic underpinning to Matt Holman's impressive flugelhorn solo.

A highlight of the early part of the set came during Infernal Machines' "Jacobin Club"—introduced, as were all the pieces, by Argue, who's clearly as deep a thinker in other areas as he is a composer—when saxophonist Sam Sadigursky Sam Sadigursky
b.1979
saxophone and trombonist Mike Fahie Mike Fahie
b.1976
trombone entered into a lengthy exchange that demonstrated the kind of chemistry that can only come from playing together on a regular basis. It's hard enough to keep a small group together for the long run, but with monthly gigs in and around the New York City area for the past three years, Argue has managed to not just keep Secret Society together as a vehicle for his innovative writing, but as a means for its musicians to develop a language and a familiarity with each other that's clearly paying big dividends.

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