It’s the 34th annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. MAGNET’s Mitch Myers translates the action.
There were many different shows going on at the Montreal Jazz Fest Saturday night, but the evening belonged to an old festival favorite, Wayne Shorter. The legendary saxophonist/composer is still touring and has one of the most talented bands on the planet, but he’s also celebrating his 80th birthday this August and has put together a special gala event for select concert dates, including the Montreal gig.
So, for the show’s opening, we enjoyed the ACS Trio, a splendid jazz group consisting of three amazing ladies—pianist Geri Allen, drummer Terri Lynn Carrington and bassist Esperanza Spalding—playing Shorter compositions in direct honor of the man. Following the ACS was the Sound Prints band, a quintet co-led by saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas. The name Sound Prints is a riff off of Wayne’s famous composition “Footprints,” and according to Lovano and Douglas the group’s formation was totally inspired by Shorter. The group doesn’t actually play Wayne compositions—the inspiration is more conceptual—and they usually perform all original material written by one of their two bandleaders.
In any case, the Wayne Shorter Quartet finally took the stage at 10:00 and blew everybody else away. With pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Pattitucci and mega-drummer Brian Blade, Shorter displayed exactly why he deserves all the accolades. It was just a scant hour of flowing, dynamic improvisation but more than enough to show everybody who’s the boss.
After the show, it was a total love fest backstage with the three groups fawning over one another and looking forward to the next time they will all meet again. And some very good news for the Lovano/Douglas Sound Prints band, as Wayne actually presented them with two original compositions to perform. This is kind of like Mozart saying, “Here, I wrote this, you can use it if you like.” Needless to say, it was a great time with lots of deep, wonderful music. And don’t forget to help Wayne celebrate his actual birthday this August 25. He’s got to be playing somewhere.
—Mitch Myers
