(movie magic) Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, October 10-21, rolls out the red carpet for new feature films, shorts and experimental media from around the world. See Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, based on Montreal author Yann Martel’s novel, Simon Galiero’s La Mise à l’aveugle, Martin Villeneuve’s sci-fi Mars et Avril, screenings of work by French singer Albin de la Simone, Sarah Polley’s new doc Stories We Tell, plus kid-friendly fare in the Little wolves (Les P’tits loups) section, experimental media art in the FNC Lab and a “waterfalls” exhibition at Place des Spectacles, free music shows (like The Hallicrafters and Ben Shemie on October 13 at Agora Hydro-Quebec), parties, and much more.

(high art renewed) Ballet isn’t what it used to be in choreographer Jiří Kylián’s Kaguyahime, The Moon, based on a culturally influential 10th-century Japanese folk tale of beauty, violence and worlds colliding, performed by dancers of Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, October 11-27. The Orchestre Métropolitain adds volume to great moments in cinematic history, from Psycho to Star Wars, playing works by several film composers, conducted by Simon Leclerc, on October 18 at the Maison symphonique de Montréal. Meanwhile, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra welcomes mezzo-soprano Susan Graham to sing Ernest Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer, on October 16 and 17.

(theatre scene) The play’s the thing this fall as Montreal theatres open the season with as much drama as fun. Old Montreal’s Centaur Theatre features two shows this month: Scapegoat Theatre’s version of Euripedes’ psycho-sexual, metaphysical tragedy The Bacchae, to October 20, and Quebecois playwright Jean Marc Dalpé’s family drama August, An Afternoon in the Country. Another Quebecois playwright Suzie Bastien dives deep with The Medea Effect, exploring universal fears and existential questions about the archetypal – and personal – role of the mother, at Theatre La Chapelle,  October 11-20. Meanwhile, it’s all song and dance with Broadway musical Guys and Dolls at the Segal Centre, to October 31, and, not quite theatre, but comedian Russell Peters is at the Bell Centre on October 15.

(art and history) The beauty and the history of art come together at the MMFA this fall in their exhibition A History of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Clark, featuring Impressionist masterpieces by Renoir, Bonnard, Corot, Cassatt, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Millet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Toulouse-Lautrec. Down the street at the McCord Museum, see the city of Montreal and other cities around the world through the eyes of Italian photographer Mimmo Jodice, in his solo exhibition Sublime Cities. And the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal recently opened an amazing retrospective of the work of Montreal painter Pierre Dorion, along with high-Arctic video work by Brooklyn-based artist Janet Biggs.

(ska-tastic sounds) The Montreal Ska Fest packs a lot of punch into its fourth year, with horn-blowing, toe-tapping, body-skanking shows October 11-14, including a massive “All-Skanadian” (get it?) show at Club Soda on Saturday, October 13 with The Planet Smashers, The Johnstones, Illscarlett and more. On Friday night, it’s the New York City Showcase, with Victor Rice vs The M7, The Forthrights and more at Petit Campus, while Sunday morning closes the festival with a good greasy breakfast of eggs, toast, coffee and ska with Mitch Girio, at Ye Olde Orchard.

(more music) The OFF Jazz Festival comes to a close Friday, October 12 with bassist-composer William Parker conducting Fragrances of Compassion for Lawrence D. Butch Morris, a piece for 15 musicians, at La Sala Rossa. Also on Friday, LA-based electronic music producer Flying Lotus gets our bodies moving at SAT. On Saturday night, enjoy the sweet singer-songwriter sounds of Montreal talents Mark Berube and Katie Moore at Cabaret du Mile End, while blues-rock rocks on with Colin James at Metropolis. Monday night is one big party with rumba-rooted Congolese band Staff Benda Bilili at the Rialto Theatre. On October 16, none other than Barbra Streisand is at the Bell Centre, or if Babs isn’t your thing, maybe Alanis Morissette is – she’s at Metropolis, or get down and dance at OohLaLA! Festival, at the SAT. Public Image Limited rocks the Corona Theatre on October 17 and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion follows  the next night. Also on October 18, the three great men of might Rush bring their Clockwork Angels Tour to the Bell Centre.

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On Thursday, June 28, Wainwright will play the Jazz Festival’s enormous – both in terms of actual size as well as anticipation – outdoor opening event in the crowd-friendly Place des Festivals, situated in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles. And, as always, this annual concert tradition is free for the general public. Wainwright’s appearance will be a first on a number of fronts: it’s the first time a native Montrealer has opened the festival, the first time Wainwright has appeared at the fest, and the first time Montrealers will get a chance to hear songs from his latest album, Out of the Game, in a live setting.

The nearly-3,000 capacity Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Place des Arts (located adjacent to Place des Festivals) has been home to many of the biggest names the Jazz Festival has ever drawn, including the likes of Prince, Pat Metheny, Etta James and Ray Charles.

This year it will do much the same as it plays host to the TD Special Events Series, featuring performances by eternally popular singer/songwriter James Taylor (who will discover how sweet it is to be loved by you on June 27 and 28), German electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream (June 30), Montreal cinematic pop piano master Patrick Watson (July 4), a first-time appearance by the truly legendary Liza Minnelli (July 5), UK pop-soul sensation Seal (July 6) and much more. And to tie it up in a tight bow, 40-million selling jazz/pop/folk/blues/country/kitchen sink star Norah Jones will close out the series on July 7.

Highbrow jazz heads will take heart in the Grands Concerts Rio Tinto Alcan Series at Théâtre Maisonneuve, which breaks out of the gate with all-star ensemble Spectrum Road (a nod to fearsome drummer Tony Williams and his band Lifetime), featuring the playing prowess of Jack Bruce, Cindy Blackman, John Medeski and Vernon Reid (June 28). Virtuoso sax player Wayne Shorter – whose 40-year playing career spans jazz, classical, rock electro and more – will play with the inimitable Quartet (filled out by Brian Blade, John Patitucci and Danilo Pérez) on June 29.

The group Miles Smiles – comprised of Kenny Garrett, Wallace Roney, Joey DeFrancesco, Omar Akim and Darryl Jones – pays tribute to game-changing jazz great Miles Davis (July 2). For what will be a truly memorable experience, Montreal jazz pianist Oliver Jones will perform his own songs for the very first time at the festival during the very appropriately-titled evening “Oliver Jones Plays Oliver Jones” on July 5. And in a weird but welcome twist, Montreal-based folk-pop trio Timber Timbre will bring the intensity of their most recent release, Creep On Creepin’, to the theatre stage, July 6.

The yearly Rythmes Series, at Metropolis, is among the most exciting for music fans of all spots and stripes. This year’s lineup is off the chart, beginning with an appearance by upstart American R&B starlet Janelle Monae, who’ll be playing selections from ArchAndroid, “a retro-futurist album that bonds science fiction and rock opera,” on June 27. Fans of island jams can get their reggae party started on June 28 when Ziggy Marley brings his “Wild and Free Tour” to town with opening band Inword.

Montreal indie-folk-rock-blues buzz band The Barr Brothers continue their remarkable ascent with a cabaret-styled concert on July 1 with opener Alexi Murdoch. On a daring July 3 double bill, Swiss star Sophie Hunger pays tribute to Bob Dylan with her show “Be Part of My Dream,” while rabble-rousing, crowd-pleasing, lefty folk-rock phenomenon Billy Bragg brings his hugely entertaining solo show to the festival for the very first time. And those are just but a very few in this ridiculously talent-packed series.

For this year’s Big Event Tuesday night free outdoor concert – a festival tradition that regularly sees 100,000-plus people fill the Quartier des Spectacles with a mind-melting mass of dancing humanity – 17-piece disco-pop party band Escort, dubbed “New York City’s best live band” by Time Out New York, will provide the high-energy soundtrack to many thousands of good times on July 3.

The total number of concerts is in the hundreds, but we’ll wrap things up here with a mention of internationally-acclaimed Montreal electro-dance-pop duo Chromeo, who’ve been given the honour of closing the festival (Saturday, July 7), and a quick look back at last year’s fest to help get your jazz hands in the mood.

THE DETAILS

Montreal International Jazz Festival, June 28-July 7, 2012

Guest blogger Jamie O’Meara is a Montreal editor and journalist who covers arts, culture and, er, stock car racing. Formerly the editor in chief of Hour Magazine, he is now an editor at Roverarts.com.

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Misteur Valaire is actually a band of five men from Sherbrooke, Quebec, who now call Montreal home. On the heels of their latest release, Golden Bombay, they’ve been making waves both at home and abroad, with a musical style that dabbles in jazz, electro, pop and hip hop. I caught up with Luis on his cellphone, as he walked along a street somewhere in Montreal.

Montreal Buzz: What’s it like to play Jazz Fest?

Luis Clavis: The scene is great and it’s great to play Montreal in front of so many people. It’s the second time we’ve played the Jazz Fest- it’s the greatest part of the Montreal summer.

MB: What kind of show are you planning?

LC: We won’t change the show, because we toured in Europe and Quebec and the show is working, so we won’t change the tunes but we’ll add some surprises with visuals and take it to another level. We’ll multiply it by at least two (laughs).

MB: The band moved from Sherbrooke to Montreal a while ago. How has living in Montreal changed your musical style?

LC: It changed a lot. First we arrived in Montreal and it gave us the opporutnity to see lots of shows and lots of bands that don’t go to Sherbrooke. We’d go to Divan Orange to see shows and we’d go to all the summer festivals. It was easy to get inspired by all the artists and it helped us meet all our people, our team. It helped us meet other artists like the guys from Bran Van 3000, they’re all people we met in Montreal by going to shows and bars.

MB: Where do you see your musical style going?

LC: We listen to lots of different music and explore new sounds, but the most important thing is that we have a sound and people can recognize our sound, that’s the goal. We don’t want to do one kind of music, we want people to listen to our music and recognize it and the way we play the music, like the colour of the music.

MB: What’s your favourite place to play in Montreal?

LC: Metropolis, but it will probably become the Jazz Fest. Metropolis is the greatest club in Montreal. It holds a lot of people and the sound is good. Even though it’s a big venue you can still see the people. It’s like a giant bar.

MB: Do you have a favourite Montreal band?

LC: Avec Pas d’Casque, it’s a French Quebecois folk band.

MB: What are your summer plans?

LC: We’re touring over the summer. We just recording a new song which will be out in the summer but we don’t have time to do more stuff. We have a side project called Qualite Motel, which is the five of us around the table with synths and beatboxes that we’ll be working on.

MB: You made the (awesomely named) album, Friterday Night, available for free download. Why?

LC: We knew that the music industry wasn’t very good and you have to see the show to understand the music. We have a lot of energy on stage so we decided to give the album so people can talk about it and tell their friends, and the album helps to to promote the band. After two years Friterday Night was downloaded more than 45,000 times, which gives us the chance to play all over the world.

MB: What’s the best way to spend a Montreal summer day?

LC: You have to walk and hang around, there are so many different places in the Mile End and Plateau. I’m not really into downtown but hanging out in the mile end and the plateau can be a great way to spend your day.

THE DETAILS

Misteur Valaire at Jazz Fest, June 28, 2011

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The Montreal Buzz had a blast at Les FrancoFolies de Montreal. We gave you 5 Sure Fest Bets (which were all on the money, btw), interviewed the legendary Alpha Blondy and even got a Festival Preview from a Franco-loving hybrid cartoon blogger. Francofolies is an amazing fest by itself, but as the first major festival held at Quartier des Spectacles, it also functions as a preview of what to expect at Jazz Fest and Just for Laughs. Based on what we saw, it’s going to be a wild summer in Montreal.

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The Jazz Fest can be broken down in many different ways, but with too many genres of music to name here, the easiest categorization might be: Indoors and Outdoors. Most shows of both kinds happen downtown in newly beautified and snazzed-up area now known as Quartier Des Spectacles, so it’s easy enough to go from one show to the next – start with some $80 k.d. lang seats and then go outside and party with the plebes to Louisiana’s funkstastic Galactic and go late into the night with The Unsettlers. I usually spend most of Jazz Fest roaming the free outdoor stuff (like the proud plebe I am).

This year, as a child of the 80s, I’m definitely looking forward to the (free!) festival finale concert from the B-52s. There’s also pianist Oliver Jones‘ sure-to-be-mind-blowing tribute to one of Montreal’s best-loved uber-talents, Oscar Peterson. Other jazz classics get the Battle of the Bands treatment as the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Artie Shaw Orchestra duke it out on June 26. And legendary pianist and Jazz Fest mainstay Dave Brubeck is always, always a treat.

On the more experimental wild side, guitarist Marc Ribot, a player in John Zorn’s 2010 Masada Marathon, channels the spirit of the universe. The classic American folk scene comes on strong with America and Marianne Faithful. Funk-soul legend Lee Fields rocks my world, as does Esperanza Spalding, and Angélique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright, who will sing to the legacies of Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln and Odetta in Sing the Truth!.

But that’s juste a taste of what’s going on in the wildly eclectic program: Pink Martini brings pop-jazz fun, while hometown hero Poirier brings the electro beats and what’s sure to be one of the biggest parties of JFest. If you’re looking for some Canadian content, the fest has plenty: Men Without Hats (!), Blue Rodeo, Diana Krall, The Dears, Katie Moore and a slew of others, many playing for the, in my happy opinion, criminally-low fee of free.

With so many amazing shows, you can decide, as many people do, to take these two weeks off and see as many acts as you possibly can, but if that’s not the case, know that at least you’re not left entirely to your own devices when it comes to decision making. The Jazz Fest, with its many savvy programmers and diversity of musical acts, can also be commended for keeping up with the technological times: their web site includes programmers’ picks, divides the festival schedule into easier-to-digest sections by artist, plus organizers and several musicians go onscreen to tell us why they’re excited about this year’s fest. And you can keep track of your own choices with a personalized on-line schedule.

So, whether you’re a black-turtleneck-in-July jazz aficionado/snob, a lover of live music from around the world, or somehow just accidentally find yourself in the middle of jazz season in Montreal, there’s a show (or ten) right here waiting for you.

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THE DETAILS

Montreal International Jazz Festival, June 25 to July 4, 2011

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(razzle jazzle) By now, most people know that the Montreal International Jazz Festival, June 25 to July 4, pushes the conventional boundaries of jazz – or just points out that maybe there were no boundaries in the first place. This year’s free outdoor shows at Place des Festivals alone demonstrate the broadness of the jazz spectrum: starting at noon and going well past dark, we’ll see The B-52s, Misteur Valaire, French sensation Ben l’Oncle Soul, New Orleans’ Soul Rebels Brass Band, Louisiana jam band Galactic, pianist and composer Laïla Biali, singer Nadja and many many more, plus new late-night shows at Metropolis with The Unsettlers, Shaolin Temple Defenders and Nomadic Massive. The one constant when it comes to jazz at the Jazz Fest is a laid-back atmosphere, crowds or no crowds, rain or shine.

(french kiss and tell) Maybe you’ve come to Montreal specifically for the one-of-a-kind international festival of French-language music, Francofolies, June 9–19 – or maybe you had no clue  such a thing existed. If you’re in the latter camp, the festival, now in its 22nd year, is a low-risk way to get into the Franco-groove, especially with over 180 free outdoor shows on 7 stages at the Quartier des Spectacles. Catch homegrown acts like Tricot Machine, Alpha Rococo, Damien Robitaille, The Planet Smashers, Grenadine, and Géraldine, as well as music from much further away, like Congo’s Ngâbo, France’s Nkonda and amazing Malian guitarist Habib Koité. Live and learn (French)!

(fringe benefits of street fairs) The streets are alive with the sound of thespians. And they will act on demand at the Montreal Fringe Festiva, to June 19. While most of the shows can be had for a nominal fee, music shows at the Fringe Park (corner of St-Laurent and Rachel) coincide with the St-Laurent Street Fair on the weekends of June 9 and June 17 – The Unsettlers break the ice on the first Friday, followed by a Saturday of delightful programming from ukelele-lovin’ Indyish and Sunday’s music curated by Centre St-Ambroise. And because they’ve got their finger on the pulse of cool, Pop Montreal gets to takes over the whole next weekend!

(birthday of a nation) For those who know little of Quebec history, it might seem odd that the province’s “birthday” is called Fête Nationale. It’s also called St-Jean Baptiste Day, to add to the confusion. And it’s not really a birthday, but rather an appointed day to celebrate French culture and in Quebec and Canada. So with all this talk of politics and religion mashed together in one day, what really goes on every June 24th? Mostly parties. Along with Halloween and New Year’s Eve, St-Jean completes the (un)holy trinity of Most Fun Nights Ever in Montreal. No pressure. Start slow with a giant parade at 1 p.m. – it stretches along Sherbrooke from Fullum to Parc Maisonneuve (at Pie X), where family friendly activities go on all afternoon, followed by an outdoor concert from Martha and Rufus Wainwright, Robert Charlebois, Éric Lapointe and more!

(fire and water) Cool off for free on June 18 at Parc Jean-Drapeau’s two watering holes: the island’s man-made beach and even more manlier-made aquatic complex are open to all from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. Also over at Parc Jean Drapeau, in the La Ronde amusement park, the Montreal International Fireworks Competition starts on June 25 and continues every Saturday and Wednesday until the end of July. See the show from anywhere in the park (the fireworks perfectly, if not purposefully, coincided with Arcade Fire’s performance at Osheaga last year – it was awesome) or from the city, whether looking skyward from the Old Port or closer to the Jacques Cartier bridge.

(art of joys) The sun can’t shine all the time, not even in Montreal in summertime, and sometimes we just have to choose culture over nature – art can be like a breath of fresh air anyway, right? Of course, leave it to Montreal to host an outdoor art fair… Festival International Montreal en Arts, June 29 to July 3, sees artists skipping the gallery and selling directly to the public, along Ste-Catherine E. between St-Hubert and Papineau. Moving indoors: from June 16, The Darling Foundry, in Old Montreal, shows films from Pierrick Sorin and sculptural work from Kristina Lee Podesva and Alexander David, while Dazibao shows new photographic work by Frédéric Lavoie. And at the end of the month, DHC/ART opens a seriously provocative duo show with Belgian sculptor Berlinde De Bruyckere and American painter John Currin – Currin also gives a free talk at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on June 28, 7 p.m.

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