No other media outlet in Montreal has so many people on hand to provide expert coverage of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. Many of us are scouring the outdoor site and concert halls: Jacob Langlois-Pelletier, Frédéric Cardin, Stephan Boissonneault, Michel Labrecque, Varun Swarup, Vitta Morales and Alain Brunet bring you their album reviews and concert reports. Happy reading and listening!
Rolling Stone has called her one of the best new voices in roots music. Sydney Ward, aka Sunny War, mixes gospel grandeur with a country-blues and folk flavour, sublimated by a social commitment that doesn’t run counter to opposition. Of course, when you’re Black and you’ve grown up in Nashville, the capital of very white country music, and you’ve learned to integrate certain of its codes, you can’t relay a discourse of “White music” versus “Black music”. That said, Sunny War’s fundamental groove never fails to catch and seduce.
It may be said that Sunny War takes the legacy of Robert Johnson and puts it through the mill of Beck or Neil Young. That wouldn’t be far off. But the gospel hymns and a few airy pop touches add an anthemic aura that plunges us into a stratospheric panorama that the eminently earthy sound of the predecessors doesn’t allow. Try the gospel version of Ween’s Baby Bitch and you’ll understand. The magic will happen twice on 28 June, on the Rogers stage. Not to be missed!
