It’s festival season in Montreal! The Afropop team has just returned from the 39th Nuits D’Afrique Festival, and there will be lots of reporting rolling out from our thrilling five days of music and interviews there. But first, our correspondent Ron Deutsch, who summers in Montreal, offers this report on the Montreal Jazz Festival. If you’ve never experienced this city’s festival events—many of them outdoors and free to the public—start making plans for 2026. It will be the 40thedition of Nuits D’Afrique and we’ll be there to celebrate. Hopefully, you will too! Now over to Ron…
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Every season has its songs. Summertime songs traditionally celebrate lazy, hazy days of swimming, surfing, fishing, and of course, summer love. But these days, while the siren song of extreme weather conditions resounds globally, here in Montreal the ten days of the annual Festival International de Jazz defied it, offering a respite, filling our ears with so much wonderful music from around the world. From June 26 to July 5 – despite heat, humidity and even the occasional thunderstorm – record-breaking crowds fanned out to explore over 350 shows at over 20 venues throughout the downtown arts district (and beyond), with two-thirds of the shows being free to all. And while it would have been impossible to have seen even a quarter of the performances offered, we managed to fill our evenings with so many acts we already loved and new ones we discovered to keep us cool and refreshed.
So let's start with the acts that really impressed me. On the first night, there were two artists that left indelible memories and we’re now devoted fans of. Arooj Aftab is a Pakistani jazz singer who at 19 moved to the United States to study at the Berklee School of Music and is now based in Brooklyn. She crafts a brilliant blend of American jazz and Punjabi classical and folk music. In 2022, she took her first Grammy award (in the Best Global Music Performance category) and since then, her next two albums also garnered her Grammy nominations. Her concert at Club Soda continues to resonate with us. The stage was mostly dark when the band began to play. Aftab wore black clothes and dark sunglasses. Thus, she was like this ghostly figure floating around the stage, which perfectly matched her haunting music and vocals. But it wasn't all darkness – at one point, her roadie came onstage and offered shots of whiskey to a handful of people at the front of the stage. And as they drank, she began her song “Whiskey,” singing “Your head gets heavy and rests on my shoulder 'cause you drink too much whiskey when you're with me.” The audience cheered and laughed at that.
Taking the main outdoor stage later that evening was the Colombian power trio known as Balthvs. They've noted that their influences are a mix of “Middle Eastern Music, Disco, House, Funk, Psychedelia, Indie Rock, Surf and Cumbia,” and I'd say that they land right in the middle if you put Khruangbin on one end and La Lom on the other end. So if that's your cup of psychedelic tea, they should definitely be in your playlist. Mostly instrumental, they would occasionally surprise with the vocal track. The trio consists of Balthazar “Balthvs” Aguirre on guitar, who has a Carlos Santana-like presence to him when he plays; drummer Santiago Lizcano, who is right in the groove; and bassist Johanna Mercuriana who provides a female energy takes the edge off of your typical all-male power trio line up. Though their songs are short, they blend together, and set you afloat on a magical musical journey.
For two consecutive nights, Mexican cancionista Natalia Lafourcade sold out the 3000 seat Wilfrid-Pelletier concert hall. As she noted, playing solo – just her voice and guitar – was a gift to herself for turning 40, a return to her origins. The festival awarded her this year's Antonio Carlos Jobim award, to “honor artists who stand out in world music, which has been a key influence on jazz history through its fusion of cultures.” Previous winners have included Omara Portuando, Youssou n'Dour, Angélique Kidjo and Salif Keita. We are very grateful to the festival for granting us an opportunity to be in her audience. Looking over the rapt audience, Lafourcade succeeded in making a personal connection with them all. People were interacting with her, calling out messages of love to her, singing along, and from every corner and tier of the theater. Many Mexican flags were waved (a common sight at every performance by musicians for which Montreal has an immigrant community… which are many). And counting the flags, I would say a significant portion of the audience were of Mexican heritage. Lafourcade took a moment to express her thoughts (en español) about how music is vital in these dark times to both bring us all together, and that it also celebrates diversity, a word that has seemed to become more and more denigrated and dangerous to speak of around the globe these days.
Another amazing and unforgettable performance, this time again with Colombian flags waved, was the marvelous Monsieur Periné from Bogota, an act we've been wanting to catch for over a decade. Having first met and started playing together in 2007 while still in college, Santiago Prieto was already a multi-instrumentalist and had become obsessed with Romani-French guitarist Django Reinhardt, whom he discovered on internet videos. Meanwhile, singer Catalina Garcia had become fluent in French, attending a French international school in Cali. So this original cross-cultural mix of Django-style jazz and Latin influences took them over the next few years from playing wedding and private parties to receiving a national award and playing at a major festival. Their first single was produced by Felipe Alvarez, who has worked with acts including Shakira and Bomba Estereo. Grammy-winning Puerto Rican group Calle 13 became fans and had them open up for them on a world tour. Calle 13 band member Eduardo Cabra wound up producing their 2015 album, Caja de Música, which garnered Monsieur Periné the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist that year. In addition to their music, the band has developed a distinctively colorful mise en scene for costume and stage design. And over the years, they have included more Afro-Latin influences, but reject the idea of playing “roots music,” and instead see it as “futuristic fusion.”
Another standout show that utterly enthralled us included this kind of super group of renowned jazz artists who performed under the name Freedom Riders. It was first organized as a project of the New York Winter Jazz Festival last year as a tribute to the 1961 “Freedom Rides” which sought to bust segregation in the American South. The ensemble is led by music director Ben Williams on bass; and features Sarah Elizabeth Charles on vocals; with Joe Dyson on drums; Julius Rodriguez on piano; Sasha Berliner on vibes; Alfredo Colon on alto saxophone; Marcus Strickland on tenor saxophone; and Milena Casado on trumpet. They played both original compositions as well as classics of the era, including Nina Simone's “Mississippi Goddam” and a jazz instrumental cover of Bob Dylan's “The Ballad of Emmett Till.”
Several outdoor free shows we adored included Elisapie, the Inuk-Canadian multi-Juno award winning singer. She may not be well known outside of Canada, but she is an icon and spokesperson of both indigenous people and women in general in this country. Her performance was stirring.
“Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart Of Glass) (Live on KEXP) - Elisapie
Also incredibly stirring was Grammy and Juno-award winning artist Allison Russell. Russell was born and raised in Montreal, and the city came out in full force to celebrate one of their own. Her show was a whirlwind, singing, and playing guitar and banjo. She took a moment to speak of how we all share a common African mother (her father was Afro-Caribbean), and how we have to do better, to respect all life for their sake of our collective mother. Also from Montreal was Hanorah, who we were very impressed with last year when she performed on a smaller stage, was given the main stage this year as a breakout artist. And she definitely proved herself to be a performer we'll be hearing more of. And just because any opportunity to see Mavis Staples is something to one must do... so we did. Even at 86 years young, she can still stir your soul.
We were thrilled to have a chance to see Brazilian trio Azymuth – though there is only one original member – the legendary jazz-funksters from the 1970's didn't disappoint. We were totally transported by Isaiah Collier's set. The Chicago/Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist seems to tackle all his influences at once. He's described his music as a “sonic time machine; you can’t really put a time or destination on it.” And at short notice (his regular pianist couldn't make the gig), Collier drafted local piano genius Theo Aballard to sit in. It was a great, great show.
Though Kiefer (aka Kiefer Shackelford) has played the Montreal Jazz Festival a few times in the past, we finally went to go see this brilliant jazz keyboardist this year which was yet another wonderful space journey. And it was also great to see Thai-Quebec afro-funk drummer Salin once again. She is so deceptively powerful and funky. Salin made our top video list for April this year and you can also dig into the interview we did with her last year.
Let's take a moment to focus on some other Afropop Worldwide related artists we did and didn't see. Two acts on the bill – Naxx Bitota and Fulu Miziki Kolektiv – will also be performing at Nuits d'Afrique Festival which begins a few days after the Jazz Festival. So we did see Naxx, who is from the DRC and emigrated to Montreal in 2008. Naxx is fabulous singer and has created her own interpretation of the mutuashi genre from Kasai province in the DRC. We had an opportunity to sit down with Naxx and her husband Lionel and we'll be featuring that interview here soon. As for Fulu, they are based in the DRC and are one of these acts that has created recycled trash instruments. We didn't get to see them at the Jazz Festival but look forward to their set at Nuits d'Afrique.
And while we did see Colombian groups Balthvs and Monsieur Periné, we were saddened we couldn't schedule ourselves to also see Frente Cumbiero and Kombilesa Mí. Frente Cumbiero was founded by Mario Galeano, who is considered to be one of the “fathers” of the modern cumbia movement, having also co-founded two other well known Colombian groups, Ondatropica and Los Pirañas. The group has collaborated with artists as far ranging as Guyanese rapper Mad Professor, classical combo Kronos Quartet, and even Japanese folk band Minyo Crusaders. Kombilesa Mí are an Afro-Colombian hip hop who rap in Palenque and Spanish. Formed in 2011, they released their third album, Asina Gué, last year. The totally awesome video for the song “Africa Diverso Continente” was filmed on the streets of Soweto and as the group noted “It connects us with the band's first trip to the African continent. It's a tribute to our African heritage thanks to Benkos Biohó, a former African slave and founder of the palenque, a symbol of freedom.”
One other African artist we were only able to catch a short bit of was Benin-born, Nigeria-raised Ayra Starr. The former model whose Afrobeats stylings have turned pop and r&b fans gaze to the continent, have earned her a Grammy-nomination last year, and her releases are now being distributed on Republic Records, a Universal Music label whose roster includes Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Drake, and Ariana Grande among other super pop stars (though she remains signed to her Nigerian record label, Mavin). The audience for the big outdoor stage was perhaps the largest for the entire festival, reportedly 20,000. And her fans were not disappointed as she twerked and sang her hits including a sing-a-long with the audience to “Away.”
Other acts we saw that topped out list including the Louis Matute Large Ensemble. Matute is German-Honduran but born and raised in Switzerland. We also saw him earlier this year at the Jazzahead conference in Bremen, Germany and thoroughly enjoyed seeing him again. While he's never been to Honduras, he has said that his music reflects a kind of fantasy folklore of what he imagines it would be like. Two fantastic acts we've previously seen here at the Montreal Jazz Festival are British saxohponist Nubya Garcia, the daughter of a Guyanese mother and Trinidadian father. She has only gotten more accomplished since we first saw her here in 2019. Endea Owens & The Cookout we saw last year here, and we just absolutely adore her and her music.
A personal favorite is Oakland's own Grammy-winning Fantastic Negrito. Initially inspired by Prince to get into music – which he did by sneaking into classes at UC Berkeley – his music, like Prince's could be described as rock-inspired funk or funk-inspired rock. A discovery for us this year was hip hop/neo-soul singer Nyota Parker. Born and raised in South Africa of Congolese-Irish descent, she is now based in Montreal and New York. We instantly fell for her, and though unfortunately the second half of her set was rained out, we are anxious see her again and watch this 20-something newbie continue to blossom.
And to finish up this Field Report, let's just run through the names of the overwhelming number of acts we just couldn't get to see: Christone "Kingfish" Ingram (who was given the B.B. King Award this year), Yasmin Williams, Sophye Soliveau, The Budos Band, The Cat Empire, Bonobo, Wic Whitney,Trombone Shorty, Esperanza Spalding, Thundercat, Nas w Symphony Orchestra, Rhiannon Giddens, Branford and Wynton Marsalis, and piano virtuoso Fred Hersch. As the French say: “C'est la vie et à l'année prochaine!” (That's life and see you next year!)
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