By Andrey Henkin

Jazz festivals can be an exercise in anticipation: Look forward to the first show, then the next, then the one after and then the festival ends. The hectic schedule means one concert is barely over by the time you are scrambling to find your seat at the next.

The Montreal Jazz Festival alleviates this difficulty in a way that festivals in New York City cannot—centralization. The attractive Place Des Arts in downtown Montreal, with its differently sized venues and assortment of outdoor stages, makes going from one show to the next a quick two-minute walk or run, depending on how much time you have.

For the jaded jazz festival attendee, the Montreal festival is better than most. The beneficial exchange rate makes expenditures such as tickets and peripheral record shopping seem like spring sales. The line-up, at least in this year’s festival, had several players who do not come to the east coast often enough; The notion that every musician comes to New York is being deflated as one jazz club after another closes. Crowds are polite, attentive and appreciative. There are no whispered conversations or inane running commentaries. The notable exception to this was one woman who, during a Michael Brecker/Charlie Haden duo show, kept asking her husband “So, they’re just making this stuff up?”

The festival's structure made it necessary to pick and choose among over 350 available shows. Most of the free ones appealing to the casual passerby were not even worth seeing. That left some obvious choices and some obscure ones. The combination of the two gave a good overall impression of the 2001 festival.

Opening night brought Charles Lloyd and his quintet (John Abercrombie, Geri Allen, Marc Johnson and Billy Hart taking the drum reins from the late Billy Higgins, to whom the concert was dedicated). Unfortunately, Lloyd loses much of his impact in the huge 2000-person Spectrum. Having recently seen him at the Knitting Factory in front of 200 people makes me miss his rambling stories and spiritual messages about the power of music. While he was occasionally inspired as was Marc Johnson in one solo, the performance was rather perfunctory, because or despite the camera boom flying around the stage and obscuring the view of those who spent hours on line for the “best seats”. John Abercrombie, usually phenomenal in small settings, in particular seemed lost and distracted.

The intimate 200-person Salle de Gésu, located in the basement of a church and using stone columns as a decorative motif provided a much better space for the evening’s later concert—the ECM Artists: Ketil BjÃƒÂƒÃ…Åşrnstad, David Darling and Terje Rypdal. The combination of the gorgeous warm sound of the venue, the stark white lighting focused on the stonework and the talent of the three performers made this an early highlight of the festival. The music was dark and moody and utilized silence as much as sound in the singular ECM way. A “chicken or the egg” question leapt to mind: Do artists on the ECM label adapt to the classic sound or does Manfred Eicher just pick people who play that way already? The captive audience members, eerily silent until huge rounds of applause at the ends of segments, were definitely not casual passers-by.

Shakti was among the big-name performers occupying the gargantuan Salle Wilfred Pelletier. Before each of their performances, I profess boredom with McLaughlin’s current (or retro?) infatuation with Eastern music. Then the show and the unbelievable playing overwhelm me again. To be fair, Shakti’s style has changed since McLaughlin resurrected the group three years ago. As the quartet becomes more comfortable playing with each other, the music strays away from strict Indian classicism towards rock- and jazz-oriented improvisations. The group got lengthy ovations, in part due to McLaughlin’s francophone ability and the revival of the old Mahavishnu Orchestra favorite “You Know You Know” in an Indian setting. The place was rockin’ to the last seat in the last row. How do I know? That’s where my seat was (thanks Admission.com!?).

Wayne Shorter was another audience draw the next night. However, enthusiasm was tempered by the news that fellow tenor sax giant Joe Henderson had passed away the night before at the age of 64. Shorter, a musician whose skills were honed under great band leaders, uses phenomenal supporting musicians to improve his own playing. He continues to be as thought-provoking and innovative as his ‘60’s Blue Note days. The quartet’s level of interplay, rhythmic complexity and use of solo space are simultaneously challenging and effortless. An audience member after the show described it as “the future sound of jazz." With Danilo Perez and Brian Blade leading the charge, he may be right. No one was prepared when, after 45 minutes and Shorter’s personal “Dust in the Wind"–“Footprints”, the band left the stage. There was no applause for several seconds and then a chorus of angry shouting and hooting for an encore started. An announcement in French and English that this was a 15-minute intermission was necessary to calm the crowd.

The Brecker Brothers show at the little sister of New York’s Beacon Theater, the Monument National reminded me of an experience I had when I was 13 years old. I attended the Clash of the Titans tour in a small Connecticut amusement park. At that time, I thought metal and metalheads were no more until I saw thousands of leather jackets, spike bracelets and backpatches within one square mile. Now in Montreal, I discovered that there are rabid Brecker Brothers fans. I know them as ubiquitous sidemen but it seems they have fervent followers who yell out song requests and scream hysterically after every solo. It was no surprise that the “Some Skunk Funk” encore brought the roof down. Michael Brecker, this year’s Prix de Miles Davis recipient and performer at four consecutive sold-out shows, probably has never had this much exposure in his life.

The smaller shows lacked the grandiose scale of Shakti or Shorter but were a good respite from the festival atmosphere. Steve Lacy, luckily assigned to the Salle de Gésu, played his usual calmly unconventional set. His stage presence: conservative woolen sweater-vests and stale on-stage banter are better suited to a junior high school history teacher than a jazz innovator. He moved away from the trio setting I had seen him with last time by adding the forceful trombone of George Lewis. This was a benefit of seeing so many shows—exposure to musicians I might not normally hear. From Perez and Blade (Shorter) to Lewis (Lacy) to Stefan Bollani playing in duo with Enrico Rava, present-day jazz has some bright stars.

The duo with Rava and Bollani was another highlight if only because their rapport was completely un-festival like. Almost like a lounge-act, they made funny faces at each other and argued over material. They played pretty well too.

Some sets promoted by the festival that looked great on paper unfortunately did not deliver. Charlie Haden’s set of two hours of ballads was the most boring thing I have gone to since renewing my license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Barre Phillips’ set was a healthy free jazz offering until the inclusion of a rather bizarre and ineffective female vocalist. Philip Catherine was so energetic he left his backing band far behind after the first song. And the 75th birthday tribute to Miles Davis, a great opportunity for interesting combinations of sidemen (Bennie Maupin and Buster Williams together apart from Mwandishi) and song segues (Theme from Jack Johnson morphing into Footprints), was plagued by poor sound, an obvious lack of rehearsal by the participants and a surprising unawareness of Miles Davis’ idea of collective rather than individual improvisation.

Much like most festivals, there were high and low points, inspiration and desperation. What made this a good time had by all (me) was the hospitable city of Montreal and the type of jazz crowds you never will find in New York. The festival and I do kindly ask you though to turn off your cell phones and pagers.