By Richard Burnett
What happens behind the scenes when the stars arrive, or arrive late, or don’t show up at all?
Patience and quick thinking are job requirements for Festival International de Jazz de Montréal organizers dealing with divas, massive egos, cancellations, no-shows and the inevitable musician being held up at Canada Customs.
I spoke with a number of Montreal’s finest newspaper music critics over the years to unearth the dirt. But, as one noted, “It’s a pretty clean festival. When musicians are f–ked up, they usually try hard to hide it.”
That said, here are my Top 10 most memorable anecdotes from the FIJM, the biggest and grandest music festival on the planet.
1) After the FIJM fronted reggae icon Bunny Wailer $10,000 for his 1998 gig at Métropolis, Wailer pocketed the cash and blew off the show. FIJM co-founder André Ménard was outraged.
Twelve years later, when Wailer was booked to headline the Montreal International Reggae Festival in August 2010, Ménard told me, “We’re not taking any action against Wailer because we don’t want to give him an excuse not to come a second time. Bunny Wailer posed to me as a man of integrity and principle. I still think he is a great artist. But a man of integrity? F–k it! I’m still waiting for his personal invitation to see him at the Reggae Festival. That will be the most expensive concert ticket I’ve ever paid for.”
Turns out Bunny was a no-show at the Montreal International Reggae Festival that year too.
2) When Tony Bennett played Théâtre St-Denis in 1985, his band took off with his limo after the show. So Bennett headed over to Biddle’s jazz bar (now called the House of Jazz) to sing a couple of songs.
3) L’Off Festival de Jazz de Montréal raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers when they launched in 2000 because they made no secret of the fact they felt the FIJM was becoming too mainstream and was neglecting many local jazz musicians. The following year, the Wyndham Hotel pulled the plug on the FIJM’s famed afterhours jam sessions at their hotel when overzealous Festival bouncers refused hotel guests access to the elevators.
4) In 1999, a disheartened Art Ensemble of Chicago did not want to play without their esteemed co-founder Lester Bowie, a pre-eminent trumpeter of the jazz avant garde who was gravely ill. Jazz fans were indignant when the FIJM asked the Ensemble to honour their contract. Bowie, 58, died of liver cancer a few months later, on Nov. 8, 1999.
5) In 1985, after being held up at the American/Canadian border for several hours, roots-reggae superstar Burning Spear refused to go onstage at the much-lamented concert venue Le Spectrum without eating a full meal first. André Ménard negotiated with the band via walkie-talkie (this was before cell phones) as they drove into Montreal. A gofer was then promptly dispatched to Chinatown to load up on sautéed shrimp and chicken fried rice.
6) In 1999, NYC jazz hero John Zorn demanded a Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwich before going onstage at midnight. Recalls one critic: “So someone brings a plate, Zorn takes a look and says, ‘These sandwiches are from Ben’s. We’re not going on.’ So someone is sent to Schwartz’s while Zorn agrees to play and when the [gofer] returned, Zorn signalled the drummer to play a solo while the rest of the band went backstage to eat their sandwiches.”
7) Here’s another John Zorn story: Zorn, Lou Reed and Reed’s wife, multi-instrumentalist Laurie Anderson, deliberately avoided Reed’s trademark 1970s songs (Walk on the Wild Side , etc.) for free-jazz improvisation.
“If you don’t think this is music, you can get the f–k out of here,” Zorn responded to the boos and jeers, whereupon some fans then stood up and walked out of the venue.
8) The late legendary Montreal jazz journalist Len Dobbins once told me about the night the jazz icon Nina Simone came into Biddle’s while he was sitting at the bar. Said Dobbins, “She wanted the table in front of the band, but a band member told her she should have arrived earlier. She stomped out of the club!”
Dobbins also told me his most embarrassing FIJM moment came in 1982 when he mistakenly told Festival co-founder André Ménard that legendary drummer Buddy Rich’s birthday was the same day as his Théâtre St-Denis gig. “So André rolled out a big cake onstage and Buddy said, ‘That’s beautiful, man, but it’s not my birthday!’”
9) “The most outrageous thing I ever saw at the Fest was American organist Jimmy Smith, who in 1999 managed to insult everybody at his show – gays, every nationality, you name it,” recalls veteran Montreal music journalist and jazz critic Mike Chamberlain. “I remember he said onstage, ‘How come it’s so bright in here? You don’t need this much light unless you’re in a porno movie trying to f–k somebody up the ass.’”
10) In 1986, in what ranks as arguably the Festival’s most notorious story, Montreal-born pianist Paul Bley led messed-up jazz trumpet legend Chet Baker offstage by the elbow. Baker, a heroin junkie, was so stoned that many audience members thought he actually fell asleep onstage. (Baker died two years later when he fell out of his Amsterdam hotel window.)
Jaco Pastorius was scheduled to go on st midnight at Theatre St Denis. He shows up at 2 and proceeds to rip the roof of in front of a sold out crowd. Not one person left. Epic. I had to walk home cause public transit was over for the night