After 36 years, the Montreal jazz festival could entertain a name change

Jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, whose voice truly is an instrument, in front of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra on Friday night at Theater Maisonneuve in Montreal.

Editor's note: During our visit to Montreal, I keep on hearing the line from Shakespeare, "If music be the food of love, play on." That fits. We love the city's annual jazz festival, and can't resist all of the wonderful food.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

MONTREAL -- Just when I thought I've seen absolutely the best concert ever at the annual International Jazz Festival, an artist comes along and tops it.

On Friday night, that was Dee Dee Bridgewater, who surely is the world's No. 1 jazz singer, male or female.

Backed by the 15-piece New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Bridgewater sang both joyous and dirge-like songs associated with the Big Easy -- including "St. James Infirmary," "House of the Rising Sun" and "Treme" -- that wowed a packed house in Theater Maisonneuve.

And her scatting imitated trumpets and trombones in the band, a performance that brought the audience to its feet.

Scatting from Dee Dee Bridgewater, left, added another trumpet to the orchestra's section.

Orchestra leader Irvin Mayfield at the head of a line of musicians as they waltzed up and down the aisles to end the concert triumphantly. Encores followed.

Flamenco and gospel, too

Our first concert this year, the 36th edition of the festival, was a spirited flamenco performance, and tonight, our last will be a large gospel choir.

As soon as the gospel concert is over, we plan to rush outside for the festival finale, a free two-hour tribute to blues legend B.B. King.

So, I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest the International Jazz Festival might want to insert the words "and World Music" into the name. 

The 10-day festival scheduled 300 concerts, from noon to midnight, many of them free. Venues ranged from outdoor stages with no seating to tents to nightclubs to grand concert halls.

We had front-row seats for Lo Esencial, called "pure, authentic flamenco," close enough to see the perspiration coating the faces of dancers Ana Perez and Kuky Santiago, and feel the swish of her dress' long, ruffled train.

On Saturday night, we also were seated in the first row at a concert by jazz singer Patricia Barber, who sat down at the piano and immediately took off her shoes and socks.

For The Record is described as a "wild performance troop," and this year, the singers, dancers and musicians presented a wicked cabaret performance based on music from the films of Australian director Baz Luhrmann.

Again, we were in the first row and had to pull our feet out of the way as the performers danced between the stage and the audience.

Jamie Cullum and Jessie Cook

We saw Jamie Cullum, the jazz singer from England, backed by a 15-piece band, most of them Montreal musicians, and he introduced each one by name.

Cullum, who has the energy of a rock singer, bounded onto the stage, and played a drum and nearly every part of the piano, including the keys, case, rim and interior strings.

Toronto-bred flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook and his band recalled the Andalusian rhythms we heard at our first concert, and we loved their acoustic encores.

Last Monday, the stylish Erykah Badu packed the biggest hall, Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, and soon had more than 2,900 people on their feet for her performance, which was so highly amplified I couldn't understand many of the lyrics.

I was alone, because everyone else seemed to know the words and sang along. And Badu invited her fans to turn the 10 feet to 15 feet between the stage and first row into a dance floor.

Montreal audiences have no equal. Their enthusiasm is infectious. They're thrilled when an artist speaks to them in French, even if only a few words. And they roar their approval of a great performance. 

Escaping the cocoon

Guests of the Hyatt Regency, headquarter hotel for the festival, never have leave the air-conditioned comfort of the Complexe Desjardins, an enclosed mall on which it is built, and the adjoining Place des Artes, part of a vast network called Underground Montreal.

Said to spread over 20 miles, the network, connected by the city's Metro, was developed to cope with brutal winters and unpredictable summer weather, especially a rainy June.

Everything is within a short, climate-controlled walk: Food, from fast to food court to fine-dining; shops, a supermarket, and more concert halls than in Manhattan's Lincoln Center.

On Friday night, after that incredible Dee Dee Bridgewater concert, we decided to go outside and see who was performing at 10 p.m., instead of using underground passages to the hotel.

Then, after a singer took the stage, we wanted to return to the hotel, and got caught in pedestrian gridlock for 15 minutes before we reached our hotel entrance. 

At Rambla, a new Spanish restaurant in East Montreal, my starter on Saturday night was a winner: Cooked and raw vegetables served on a bed of minced black beets and pureed avocado. They were served in a large sardine tin.

East Montreal

On Saturday, we strolled up St. Catherine Street to East Montreal, where we found an art festival, natural food stores and many restaurants with platforms for outdoor seating.

We returned for dinner by subway -- our first meal in a week outside the hotel and food court -- and chose a Spanish restaurant, Rambla.

Plenty went wrong with the service, and the tab topped $100 with two glasses of red wine, tax and tip (the U.S. dollar is worth about $1.20 Canadian), but we enjoyed the food and the lively scene, including a combo playing in front of the Metro entrance.

We discovered East Montreal, like Manhattan's East Village, is the center of gay life in the French Canadian city.

At Rambla, the waitress never asked my wife how she wanted her steak cooked, and it had to be sent back twice ($21).

I told the waitress I don't eat meat, but my marinated trout came topped with Iberico ham, which I gave to my wife ($19). We probably should have ordered a paella to share from the limited menu.

Rambla and most restaurants on St. Catherine Street East have outdoor seating, and open dining rooms.

That could mean people at indoor tables, like us, have to contend with flies.

A small tin of organic extra-virgin olive oil from Spain is on every table at Rambla. I drizzled oil over my starter of vegetables, and dipped bread crusts in it.

A glass of Spanish red wine was $8.

Details

Rambla, 1272 St. Catherine St. East, at Visitation, Montreal, QC.

Catching great seafood at Lotus Cafe, Marseille

Steamed to perfection with ginger and scallion, a 2-pound-plus striped bass makes waves at Lotus Cafe, a BYO in Hackensack where the phrase "Chinese cuisine" is no exaggeration. At $27.95, this Catch of The Day is a bargain, compared to restaurants in Ridgewood and Englewood that charge as much for a 1-pounder.

A steaming bowl of Seafood Soup for 3 ($10.95) started our meal on Saturday night.

Lucky for me, my wife didn't want any of the scallops, which she added to my portion of tender shrimp, squid and fish cake.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Lotus Cafe in Hackensack has a fascinating menu drawn from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China.

So I'm always amazed when I hear a customer at another table ordering fried rice, spare ribs, egg foo young and other time-worn Cantonese standards.

Lotus Cafe also offers price-fixed, multicourse dinners filled with the restaurant's specialties for 4 to 12 people that are a relative bargain.

On Saturday, three of use cast our net for a filling dinner of seafood, vegetables and brown rice, and we took home plenty of leftovers.

Stir-fried Spinach with Garlic uses water spinach ($9.95).

Sauteed Chinese Star Squash ($9.95).

There is no extra charge for brown rice.

The BYO serves unlimited tea. Opening the lid of your pot is a sign to the waiter that you want a refill of hot tea.

We took home rice, vegetables and about a third of the striped bass. I had the rice and vegetables with a homemade frittata the next morning, and the fish for dinner.

The unassuming restaurant is in the Home Depot Shopping Center, 450 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack; 201-488-7070. Open 7 days. Free delivery within 3 miles, $12 minimum.

At Marseille Restaurant

I don't remember much about the bouillabaisse I enjoyed 30 years ago in the French port city of Marseille, where the fisherman's stew originates, except that the restaurant was on the waterfront.

Last week in Manhattan, we were looking for a restaurant near the Little Shubert Theater on 42nd Street, and a friend suggested Marseille at 9th Avenue and 44th Street, only a couple of blocks away.

"Order the bouillabaisse," she said.

The bouillabaisse at Marseille, a restaurant at Ninth Avenue and 44th Street in Manhattan, near off-Broadway theaters, below.

Marseille is at 630 Ninth Ave. in Manhattan; 1-212-333-2323.

It was a wonderful, though expensive meal: Two entrees and two salads, plus a glass of red wine for me.

The bouillabaisse was filled with fish and shellfish in a saffron-accented broth made without cream ($28.50).My wife chose the short ribs ($24.50).

Our spinach and arugula salads were $12.75 and $10.75, respectively.

Service from the friendly staff was excellent.

Well-fed, we returned to 42nd Street for a great show, Dee Dee Bridgewater portraying Billie Holiday, the legendary jazz singer, in "Lady Day."

My wife raved about the short ribs served over creamy polenta.

Before the bouillabaisse, I had a simple arugula salad.

My wife also enjoyed her spinach salad with a top hat of sinfully rich goat cheese and a dressing of onions and bacon.

Dinner and jazz in Newark

Image via Wikipedia

WBGO-FM fans who paid $500 each enjoyed a cocktail party and dinner at NJPAC.

We had a good dinner and saw a great jazz concert Wednesday night at Newark's world-class performing arts center.

We went from nail-biting, rush-hour congestion on the New Jersey Turnpike to quiet city streets, where I drove past NJPAC's parking lot ($13 with a prepaid voucher), but encountered a police officer who was nice enough to hold up traffic so I could make a U-turn.

For dinner, we chose the Theater Square Bistro, the less-expensive alternative inside the arts center. My wife and I shared two salads and two entrees, and we drank ginger ale, red zinfandel wine, tea and coffee. With a $12 tip, our meal cost $93.32.

Our salads were imaginative -- one with beets, endive, frisee and goat cheese ($9), the other a lobster salad with fingerling potato discs and cornichon garnish ($10). 

We loved our branzino entree ($24) -- two large, skin-on fillets served on top of a bed of fresh spinach with orange sections. 

But our pasta with "creamy pesto," tomato and pitted olives ($16) was a disappointment. 

Basil-based pesto with olive oil and grated cheese is so flavorful and fragrant as a pasta sauce that diluting it with cream or whatever robs it of its punch and adds unnecessary calories and cholesterol. 

And if you didn't get one of the small, salty olives on your fork, the pasta and creamy sauce were under-seasoned.


Our dessert was the annual "Champions of Jazz" benefit for WBGO-FM (Jazz 88), the 24-hour jazz radio station in Newark, honoring Phoebe Jacobs of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and trumpeter Herb Alpert, who cracked that he "dyed his hair gray" for the occasion.


Although our $88 tickets landed us in cramped balcony seats, we enjoyed 10 great singers -- 16 to 89 years old -- including John Hendricks, Ernie Andrews, Leny Andrade, Gary U.S. Bonds, Maysa, Darmon Meader, Kim Nazarian and Dee Dee Bridgewater.


Nine of them, backed by a trio and acoustic guitar, ended the concert with an incredible performance of "All Blues," singing, scatting and improvising the Miles Davis classic and bringing the audience to its feet.


Check out the You Tube video of Miles Davis playing "All Blues" on the Steve Allen Show in 1964:

Miles Davis Quintet

I got a kick of how the show band's musicians were applauding Miles and his group with the same enthusiasm as the studio audience.