Montreal Jazz Fest reviews: Nas, Mavis Staples, Hanorah, Hawa B, Karneef, Caity Gyorgy & more

Read our reviews of Montreal Jazz Fest sets by Nas & more below. See our daily Jazz Fest guide here.

What better way to kick off Jazz Fest than with an actual jazz concert? Pretty sure that the 45th edition of the festival marks the first time I’ve sat down in the quiet dignity of le Gesù to enjoy a tradition-based vocal jazz performance. 

Calgary-born, Montreal-based, multi-Juno winner Caity Gyorgy and her trio, featuring frequent collaborator Mark Limacher on piano, offered up a set of original compositions and personal favourites from throughout genre history.

Gyorgy (pronounced “George,” by the way) is as gifted at singing as she is at scatting and be-bopping, old school. But her deepest cut was a performance of Oscar Peterson’s “When Summer Comes,” a well-enough-known number from the late, great Montreal-born jazz legend’s catalogue. 

The twist? Gyorgy performed Peterson’s never-released lyrics for the song, with the blessing of her manager Céline, who also happens to be Peterson’s daughter. And it was awesome.

Inconspicuously as possible, I left to catch the second half of Philly soul-pop and R&B swooner Bilal on the outdoor Rogers stage. The crowd was comparatively modest given the weight his name holds with music aficionados but Bilal and his band delivered, even if at times the energy was a bit uneven. It was easy to imagine residents of nearby condo towers enjoying the performance privately from above, wink-wink-tongue-water-drops-purple-devil-emoji. 

I caught a collective called Snack Time, right next door on the Rio Tinto stage, for a few minutes after Bilal’s set. Also from Philly, the band seemed to be seasoned party rockers, who mostly jammed out on feel-good soul and funk, rapping and singing here and there, setting up crowd callbacks. When I made my exit, Snack Time was doing a pretty decent cover of “Fly Like an Eagle” and the classic rock staple has been stuck in my head since. 

Fly like a pigeon, I did, because it was off to MTELUS to see Karneef warm up the sizeable crowd out to see Clown Core. On the heels of the Montreal singer/composer’s new album, an all-over-the-map modern jazz excursion entitled It’s How You Say It,  Karneef and his full band crew did justice to the hallowed cavern of the venue forever known in the hearts of local concert lovers over 30 as “Metropolis.” With a full performance of the project, a badass backdrop and more than a few pauses to praise Clown Core and their influence, safe to say a couple of fresh Karneef fans were minted on night one of Jazz Fest. Read our recent feature with him here.

These next words aren’t intended to offend. I’m sure Clown Core is as wonderful as their faithful fans say they are, but I had a living legend to go see. And anyways, I didn’t bring my clown gear. The only way I’d have been a clown that night, as a matter of fact, was if I’d skipped the chance to see Chicago blues pioneer and a living legacy of the Black American music experience, Mavis Staples, take on opening night duty at Jazz Fest’s largest, most popular outdoor setting, the TD Stage.

Blues, gospel, rockabilly, and soul – and that was all just in the first few songs. The 85-year-old  singer may be gettin’ down lower in the gravel pit in terms of her vocal range after decades in the game, but her pipes and her presence are no less powerful. Her band and backup singers kept the perfect pace and gave ample space to allow Staples (heir apparent in her lifetime to the legacy of her mentor, Mahalia Jackson) to do the Lord’s work and touch Place des Festivals with history’s blessing to open up this summer’s festival. A cover of Funkadelic’s feel-good “Can You Get to That?” was icing on top. 

Friday, due a combination of prior commitments and a topsy-turvy weather forecast that turned out to be more topsy than turvy (to the certain delight of Blue Rodeo fans), I was not able to be on site.

I more than made up for the loss on Saturday when an 11th hour miracle helped me find my way into a way, way sold-out Place des Arts for an evening with hip hop royalty. Ever relevant after over 30 years in the spotlight, Queens rapper Nas returned to the Montreal Jazz Fest to perform his certified, bona fide, classic debut LP, Illmatic, in full, with a whole-ass orchestra, directed by Jean-Michel Malouf, conductor of both the Sherbrooke and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean symphony orchestras. 

This isn’t the first time Mr. Nasir Jones, 51, has celebrated his journey from the streets of Queens to global hip hop acclaim with the gravitas and full weight of orchestral grandeur. But it was certainly an event nothing even remotely the likes of which Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier has ever played host to, with hardcore fans having snatched up every seat in the house for both evenings of Nas’s two-day residency at Place des Arts. 

From the moment the 20-something piece orchestra began their arrangement of Grand Wizard Theodore’s “Subway Theme,” the Wild Style soundtrack breakbeat that Illmatic iconically opens with under the guise of intro track “The Genesis,” the room was charged. DJ Green Lantern and Nas’s own five-piece backing band joined the musicians on stage, and out came the man of the hour, decked out in a full tux, looking and sounding like a million bucks.

As “N.Y. State of Mind” gave way to “Life’s a Bitch,””The World Is Yours,” and through the rest of Illmatic’s 1994 NYC street view, the rapper occasionally paused to reflect on how his life and career as an artist still take him beyond his wildest dreams. 

Fans jumped to our feet in applause more than once. But sitting still would prove impossible when the orchestra’s players took their bow and Nas asked the crowd if he and his band could take things a little past ‘94. For the next half hour, hit after hit had the concert hall quite literally shaking all the way up to the rafters.

Bangers “…Nas Is Like,” “Get Down,” “I Can,” “If I Ruled the World” and several more were given the live band treatment, with the star of the show signing vinyls and shaking hands from the stage, rapping his face off and obviously having the type of great night he was after when he got in the studio with Large Professor, DJ Premier and Pete Rock over three decades ago. 

I rarely, if ever, use this word to describe a concert. It’s lazy and gets tossed around so much, it has lost all meaning. But there is no other word for the Nas experience at Jazz Fest. It was EPIC.

The sublime Budos Band, whose MTelus set started mere minutes later, could scarcely be fairly appreciated in the afterglow of the evening’s events at Salle Illfred Peltmatic. 

In 2023, the New York City afrofunk/doom fusionists pummelled with a fest highlight at Club Soda. While Saturday’s well-attended takeover of the larger hall was, to be clear, excellent, shifting gears from the magnitude of Nas to the bass, brass and stabbing keys and chord strokes was a challenge. Musically, let’s call it an overproof moonshine nightcap after an evening sippin’ Dom P. 

Sunday was a quieter but no less engaging night at Jazz Fest. Always a top-notch performer, Montreal singer, songwriter and mean six-stringer Hanorah held down a rightfully earned hour on the TD Stage. With ease and grace, she and her band commanded a huge 7:30 p.m. crowd with the mix of pop/soul and folk rock she is so damn good at weaving together. 

A natural entertainer with a modesty that contrasts sharply with her fierce talent, she gratefully acknowledged Montreal as the bedrock of her artistic talent. Later, she invited her mother and father, “without whom I wouldn’t exist, either,” on stage to join in on guitar and backing vocals and celebrate the moment with a scorching rendition of boot-stomper “Long Road.” 

Over on the Rio Tinto stage, fellow Montrealers Malika Tirolien and Caulder Nash, together as GeminiCrab, then served some spacey, trippy, soulful grooves into the perfectly mild summer evening air to the delight of a perhaps more palpably party-ready drinkers, smokers and dancers, downtownians out to make the weekend count. Shout-out to the dad who must have thrown his toddler in the air two dozen times and uh…please be careful? 

By their second, 10 p.m. set, I’d imagine it was a full-on barnburner, but it was time to see what NYC’s New Jazz Underground had in store at le Studio TD for what was billed as a tribute to MF DOOM. 

The fourtet was tight and totally cool, but after a few songs, it wasn’t clear there would be more than one nod to the Illest Villain. It being Sunday night, I called it early.

On the scorcher that was Monday, I lucked into catching the better part of a hot set from NOLA rapper La Reezy, a young’un who recently got the nod from Kendrick Lamar, as my boy had mentioned over the weekend. 

Coming out of Place des Arts metro with time to spare before Hawa B and Nai Palm at Club Soda, I heard a voice and flow coming from the Rio Tinto stage that immediately exuded excellence. Some rap is hard, some rap is fun and dumb, some is deep and deliberate, and sometimes it’s all that at once. La Reezy’s presence, energy and delivery has that rare quality that puts it all together and makes genre fans feel good about hip hop. 

I got to Soda in time to see Montreal talent Hawa B in the process of mesmerizing the packed venue. I’ve reviewed her concerts several times and frankly, all I can really add is that if you love experimental music and stellar live performances, go see Hawa B at the next opportunity.

Nai Palm then took the stage strapped with only an electric guitar, her charm and a hot mic. As a solo performer, the beloved Hiatus Kaiyote frontwoman stretches her range into the nether-reaches of blues and soul. Time and percussion are second (or maybe even first) nature to the Aussie vocal acrobat, and it was all in the pocket for her and her fans on Monday.

Her easygoing between-song banter added a truly personal touch, especially when she stopped to show love to her stage support. 

“Can I just say that Hawa B was the craziest, most beautiful shit I’ve seen in a while?

“That’s a superstar right there.”

Big facts.

We’ll check back in with more coverage and some further previews later this week. Meanwhile, keep smiling. ■

The 45th edition of the Montreal International Jazz Festival continues through Saturday, July 5.

---

For more Montreal music coverage, please visit the Music section.