Montreal International Jazz Festival: Ten Essential Gigs To Book Now

Since 1980, for ten days every July, the Montreal International Jazz Festival has showcased the finest living jazz legends alongside up-and-coming talent. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest jazz festival on the planet, the Festival is located in the heart of downtown Montreal, closed to traffic and opened until midnight. With well over a million visitors expected, this year’s festival will feature 350 concerts, two-thirds of which are free. Gigs are in numerous indoor venues and there are open-air shows, some presented on the Place des Festivals, which is specially redesigned and set up for the event.

Showing major talent from day one, the first edition in 1980 featured Chick Corea and Ray Charles and within ten years, the festival was already attracting over million visitors. This year, for the 43rd edition from June 29 to July 8, headliners will include Buddy Guy, Diana Krall, Robert Plant and Alison Krause, Melody Gardot, Herbie Hancock and George Benson.

Ten Top picks from this year’s festival

1.Buddy Guy and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (30 June)

Program director Maurin Auxéméry says jazz is attracting “more diversified, new generations” thanks to jazz from the 21st century changing and mutating, drawing on other musical styles. The clever programming has sometimes paired the old guard with the new. At age 86, bluesman Buddy Guy will perform at the festival for the last time, alongside 22 year old blues guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.

2.Samara Joy (2 July)

Following the release of her debut album in 2021, American Jazz singer Samara Joy was named Best New Artist by JazzTimes. Her second album, Linger Awhile, was released in September 2022 and won the award for Best Jazz Vocal Album at the 2023 Grammy Awards, where she was also named Best New Artist, the second jazz musician ever to win the award.

3.Herbie Hancock with DOMi and JD BECK (3 July)

Pianist and composer Herbie Hancock is always on the cutting edge of world trends, so it’s no surprise that he’ll be performing alongside French keyboardist DOMi and American drummer JD BECK, the internet jazz sensation. Hancock has also collaborated on the duo’s first album.

4.Jean-Michel Blais (3 July)– Free

Québécois Jean-Michel Blais will become the first post-classical pianist to perform on the festival’s main outdoor stage. Blais just released the mini-album Sérénades, barely a year after becoming a made-in-Québec chamber music sensation with his album Aubades, nominated for Instrumental Album of the Year at the 2023 Junos.

5.Diana Krall (4,5 July)

As one of the world’s most successful jazz musicians, pianist and singer Diana Krall really needs no introduction. A seven time Grammy Award winner, she is the only jazz singer to have had eight albums debuting at the top of Billboard Jazz Albums. It’s always a treat to hear Diana Krall’s smooth, sultry renditions of standards and original songs and her concerts at the Montreal Jazz Festival are sure to be memorable.

6.Christine Jensen Quartet (5 July)

The exceptional Canadian alto and soprano saxophonist Christine Jensen will celebrate the release of her new album Day Moon with her quartet that includes Steve Amirault on piano, Adrian Vedady on bass and Jim Doxas on drums. The music is at turns melancholic and ebullient, sober and playful.

7.Thundercat (5 July) – Free

Velvet-voiced, Grammy Award winning bass virtuoso Stephen Lee Bruner, alias Thundercat, dips into electronic, psychedelic jazz, soul, hip hop, R&B and more, a living and breathing incarnation of neo-jazz itself.

8.DakhaBrakha (5 July)

Ukrainian quartet DakhaBrakha from Kyiv are on a mission to share the joy of Ukrainian melodies with the hearts and minds of Ukraine’s youth as well as the rest of the world. They’ve performed over 300 concerts, often at major international festivals, after being discovered in 2011. The folk music quartet which combines the musical styles of several ethnic groups was a winner of the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize in 2009 and the Shevchenko National Prize in 2020.

9.Colin Stetson (6 July)

Michigan native Colin Stetson has performed with Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Tom Waits, Lou Reed, LCD Soundsystem, The National, Chemical Brothers and many others. The saxophonist also has a brilliant solo career as what can be described as a one-man orchestra. He uses the circular breathing technique that creates an incredible range of sounds and leaves audiences awestruck.

10.BADBADNOTGOOD (7 July) -Free

This Toronto band straddles 1970s soul jazz, alternative hip hop and experimental electronic. The band first made a major impact in early 2010 with their jazz covers of hip hop songs and songs by A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West and Feist. They’ve released several albums since, which has led to collaborations with hip hop, dance and neo-soul artists like Charlotte Day Wilson and Kendrick Lamar.

Montreal Jazz Festival, 29 June – 8 July 2023. Various indoor and outdoor venues.