At the Festival international de jazz de Montréal, PAN M 360’s experts attend all the concerts that shake up music lovers. Follow our team!
crédit photo: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin
Music spirits are with the Brad Mehldau Trio
What an auspicious start to the jazz festival with the Brad Mehldau Trio at the Théâtre Maisonneuve, on Wednesday Night. In an atmosphere brimming with anticipation, the band worked their way through some old bebop heads, some old originals, and some new, making for an evening of beautiful music and thrilling performance.
Larry, Jeff, and Brad, have been playing together for almost twenty years now, and their chemistry is truly something to witness. By the end of the hour long set It seemed the audience simply couldn’t get enough and the band played to three encores!
Mehldau of course dazzled with his utter command of the piano with plenty of looks of disbelief and amazement in the concert hall. Some of the highlights were getting to hear the gorgeous original, ‘Ode’, a hypnotic and emotionally stirring journey, a trio rendition of the Mehldau classic ‘Resignation’, and a very Monkish take on the standard ‘Sweet and Lovely’ which was a nice showcase for the band’s sense of humour.
Always a great pleasure to see these masters at work.
Varun Swarup
crédit photo: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin
Natalia Lafourcade: an introspective Mexican fiesta.
Were we in Montreal or in Monterreyal? Or Montrexico? In the large lobby of the Maison Symphonique, you could hear mostly Spanish .
Natalia Lafourcade and her group of talented musicians immersed us in the abysses of the Mexican soul. Death, love, witchcraft, fauna. She made us sing the sound of cicadas. The concert was profound , beautiful, sultry.
The first part of the concert consisted essentially in De Todas Las Flores, MS Lafourcade recent album. Then, she celebrated Mexican traditional music and songwriting . She delivered a complex and original version of “La Llorona”, written by Chavela Vargas as well as traditional songs from her region of origin, Veracruz. She ended the concert with some original songs from previous albums.
The crowd was happy and it made a lot of noise at the end of songs. Felicidad.
Natalia Lafourcade knows how to create happiness, but always in an introspective, meditative way. Her voice reaches the deepest parts of our soul. The music mixes tradition and modernity with great subtility.
What else to say?
Michel Labrecque
