Duelling Jazz Fests: Montreal vs Toronto

When I saw the first notice of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal lineup, which notably included such decidedly non-jazz acts as the Doobie Brothers, Taj Mahal, Fabulous Thunderbirds, Eric Burdon, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Miller Band, and The Moody Blues, it seemed like someone had it mixed up with the Toronto Jazz Festival 2010. Checking further to see that the Gipsy Kings were listed as part at the two-week event (June 25-July 6) along with Daniel Lanois, Joan Armatrading and Lewis Furey appeared to confirm my initial suspicions but I was sadly mistaken. This was indeed the Montreal Jazz Fest listing but what happened to all the jazz? 
In Montreal, where government funding flows freely for the annual outdoor soiree and the festival's astute artistic director André Ménard has a good handle on what makes for exciting jazz programming, you can usually count on a week-long showcase of an important and creatively vital artists like David Murray or Randy Weston in a variety of settings in addition to loads of respectable, if not cutting edge jazz talent – not a series of golden oldies shows by tie-dyed arena rock survivors. For some reason, this year's version of the Montreal Jazz Fest has taken a sharp turn towards the mainstream in a puzzling bid for lowest common denominator appeal. The one-off novelty of Lou Reed getting down with John Zorn and Laurie Anderson doesn't begin to make up for the Lionel Richie and Boz Scaggs head-scratchers crowding out the Sonny Rollins and David Sanchez shows. The Doobie Brothers sans Michael McDonald? Really?
There have also been some surprising moves made by the Toronto Downtown Jazz operation in advance of the Toronto Jazz Festival 2010, which will go head-to-head with the Montreal event from June 25 to July 4. While there are some holdovers at this year's festival, like the return of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, David Sanborn, Herbie Hancock (with Dave Holland and Chris Potter), Keith Jarrett (with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette) as well as John Scofield, the lineup is far more solid than anticipated with The Roots, Dave Douglas, Taj Mahal, James Hunter, the Roy Hargrove Big Band, Maceo Parker, Allen Toussaint & Mavis Staples, Fred Frith, Tomasz Stanko Quartet, Martha Wainwright, Bettye Lavette, James Hunter, Stanley Clarke, Christian Scott, Hilario Duran Big Band, Angelique Kidjo, Nikki Yanofsky and Harry Connick, Jr. providing serious competition for Montreal's parade golden greats. 
Perhaps the most notable change in the way the Toronto Jazz Festival 2010 is being run is the retirement of long-time artistic director Jim Galloway. Had the diehard dixieland enthusiast still been calling the shots at this year's festival, the sad passing of trombonist Rob McConnell on May 1 would've surely wreaked havoc with the bookings. Who knows, the way the schedule was padded with multiple Boss Brass gigs in previous years, the whole 10-day shebang may have been called off. Fortunately, after years of questionable booking choices, the trad-jazz focused Galloway has made way for the younger, hipper Toronto Jazz Orchestra founder/conductor Josh Grossman who understands the value of social media.
Almost immediately after Grossman took over in January, there were encouraging signs that positive changes were afoot. Just the appearance of a blog component to the torontojazz.com site was a revelation in itself but there was much more in store.
As part of a March posting, the Grossman not only acknowledged his responsibility as artistic director "to be aware of who is making waves on the Canadian and international jazz scenes, and get them playing in Toronto", he took the unprecedented step of inviting the public at large to make booking suggestions! Admittedly it's one thing to accept input and quite another to act on it. Yet the whole notion of the mysterious people at the Toronto Downtown Jazz suddenly welcoming outside suggestions and perhaps even considering what artists Toronto jazz fans really want to see is an enormously promising about face from the closed-shop approach of the past.
That's not to say the Toronto Jazz Festival will suddenly start spotlighting the sort of exciting jazz talent emerging in Canada, England, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Italy and the U.S. which has been overlooked for ages – supremely gifted jazz singer José James is appearing at Revival on July 2, not as part of the T.O. Jazz Festival – t's clearly going to take some time before we see the likes of Nat Birchall, Matt Halsall, Quasimode, Soil & Pimp Sessions, Dwight Trible, Bajka, Nostalgia 77, Build An Ark, Jukka Eskola, Five Corners Quintet, Eero Koivistoinen, Jacques Coursil or Azar Lawrence. But having an open-minded artistic director actively seeking input is a giant leap in the right direction.

LINKS
Toronto Jazz Festival  torontojazz.com
Festival International de Jazz de Montréal www.montrealjazzfest.com