It’s a departure for the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and among those to be remembered, Australian jazz-funk outfit Hiatus Kaiyote gave an electrifying kickoff on the biggest stage at Place des Festivals, Thursday evening.
Nothing on stage Thursday was more captivating than the presence and voice of Hiatus Kaiyote frontwoman Nai Palm. And that’s saying something, because the musicians (Paul Bender, Perrin Moss and Simon Mavin) who surrounded him were quite remarkable. But everything about the singer-songwriter is hypnotizing.
A cap screwed backwards on her head, her face adorned with sequins, her long green hair reaching down to her hips, tattoos everywhere, her demeanor as phlegmatic as it was overflowing with charisma, she was without a doubt the person cooler at Place des Festivals on Thursday. But well beyond her looks, it was her vocal performance that convinced us.
On a stage beautifully decorated with light structures and skillfully animated screens, the group was accompanied by three singers, who began the show with an introduction during which the voices shone (with the piece Dream Boat). Which they then continued to do, joining perfectly to the notes intoned by the musicians.
The rhythms dictated by Perrin Moss’ drums were, just like Palm’s voice, completely magnetic. Always placed where we don’t expect him, his tempo is both destabilizing and captivating. On Love Heart Cheat Code for example, just after And We Go Gentle, Moss moves us in all directions, gives us no respite. He takes his time and yet the rhythm is frenetic.
Categorizing the music of a group like this necessarily amounts to lessening the complexity of its offering. If we had to name genres, it would be jazz, neo soul, funk, electro and rock, but also a certain prog influence, ambient music and psychedelic music. Mix it all up, entrust the delivery of this eclectic mix to seasoned musicians and let the magic happen. This, in summary, is what we were treated to on Thursday.
It was unusually cold on Thursday. The wind tried to dampen the enthusiasm of the festival-goers who were sometimes far too scantily dressed for this cool evening. At 9:30 p.m., when the show had barely started and not even an ounce of sun could warm the spectators a little, they became even more numerous, blackening the floor of Place des Arts. The Quartier des spectacles was very much alive despite the somewhat hostile temperature.
Interacting little with the audience, Hiatus Kaiyote let the sumptuous music do its work. There was something very satisfying about the way the songs we were presented flowed into each other, giving us little opportunity to snap out of our hypnotic state (or even applaud ). This is also the great skill of the group, which was able to create a show where we are not simply served what the record already contains, but where we take this same music to another level.
Despite all the commotion caused by the instrumental complexity of his proposal, Hiatus Kaiyote seems to have lost very few spectators during the hour and a half that his performance lasted. The crowd remained compact, attentive. Herein lies proof of the power of his music. When the catchy Telescope arrived (that chorus!), after Sip Into Something Soft and Chivalry, in particular, in the middle of the show, the audience was still crowded all the way to rue Sainte-Catherine far behind.
The show was interrupted when Nai Palm spotted an audience member in need of help… but it at least gave us a chance to restart that audience favorite from the beginning and also realize that the singer-songwriter, although she prefers to concentrate on her singing, is a very entertaining hostess (and well equipped with a few words of French).
The evening continued with the playful Nakamarra. A few words from one of the singers were said to pay tribute to the indigenous peoples to whom the territory where the Montreal festivals are taking place this summer belonged, before a magnificent piano solo by Simon Mavin. The show unfortunately had to be interrupted again (and even shortened, without the encore) due to another incident in the crowd. The groovy Make Friends was a nice conclusion to this chilly but lively evening.
At 11 p.m., when it was time to leave, our idea was made up: Hiatus Kaiyote is one of the most fascinating and solid groups of its kind (or rather… its genres).
American Yaya Bey, who released her superb album Ten Fold earlier this year, had the task of presenting it to an early evening crowd that was initially not very attentive, but ready to be convinced.
We wanted to be caught up in the tunes of neo soul, funk and house, but something was missing. It had little to do with the singer’s performance. His deep and sensual voice, set over a bass melody, quickly attracted festival-goers. Her singing, which sometimes flirts with hip-hop, then convinced the curious to stay, while the singer herself seemed to become more and more comfortable. But it wasn’t as convincing as one would have hoped.
With minimalist and catchy instrumental arrangements, Yaya Bey brought a flavor much more rooted in jazz on stage than on recording. Those who knew the album were surely happy to see Yaya Bey’s songs come to life live (even if we thought the record was better than the concert suggested). Many of those who did not know the artist they discovered on stage early Thursday evening probably had the opportunity to make a great discovery.
The 44th Jazz Festival is officially underway.