June 27 2012

With the 33rd edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal kicking off tomorrow, I took a quick walk around the site before the hoards of music lovers arrive. Situated downtown at the Quartier des Spectacles the event is a huge tourist attraction for the city and runs from tomorrow through to July 7.

I plan checking out a few shows during the festival, so expect to see one or more concert posts over the next 10 days – Perhaps starting tomorrow when Rufus Wainwright will take the stage for the grand opening show.

With over 3,000 artists and 1,000 concerts there’s a lot to choose from. Although a lot of the big names are inside and ticket events, with 5 stages around the Quartier des Spectacles about 2/3rds of the acts are free!!

The following images hopefully give a little taste of the festival site – which has not changed radically from the recent Francofolies event, but is slightly larger overall. I’m not sure if this is the first year stages have remained in place from one festival to another. It always seemed crazy to me that they would remove stages for a week or 2, only to put them back up. Seems like at least the festival organizers speak to each other – Montreal utility companies are another story, but I digress…

Jazz Festival banners at Place des Arts
ISO 100 – 18mm – f6.3 – 1/250 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

As I mentioned there are 5 main stages around the Quartier des Spectacles:

Scène Loto Québec
ISO 160 – 15mm – f10 – 1/500 sec

Scène Bell
ISO 160 – 34mm – f7.1 – 1/640 sec

Scène RioTintoAlcan
ISO 160 – 58mm – f11 – 1/250 sec

Scène TD
ISO 100 – 58mm – f5 – 1/3200 sec

Scène CBC-Radio Canada
ISO 100 – 18mm – f9 – 1/200 sec

In the past few years the logo for the festival has been a cartoon style cat. I didn’t see much evidence of him (or her) on the various signage around the site, so maybe the organizers have made some marketing changes. I did spot one reference to the old mascot though on some fence coverings.

Where has the festival cat gone?
ISO 100 – 85mm – f22 – 1/6 sec

Some other banners and signs around the festival site…

Keyboard Banner
ISO 160 – 105mm – f11 – 1/125 sec

Jazz Fest art
ISO 100 – 75mm – f7.1 – 1/400 sec

Fence covering artwork
ISO 100 – 92mm – f5.6 – 1/640 sec

Fence covering artwork
ISO 100 – 42mm – f4.8 – 1/3200 sec

Ray Charles Banner
ISO 100 – 58mm – f5.6 – 1/640 sec

Along the elevated walkway that runs alongside rue Sainte-Catherine there are some old posters of previous jazz festival editions that are worth checking out…I must remember to go back at night when they are lit from above, especially if it has just rained  – could make for a nice image.

A walk down memory lane of past Jazz Festivals
ISO 160 – 24mm – f4 – 1/200 sec

Reflecting on past Jazz festivals
ISO 160 – 48mm – f4.8 – 1/160 sec

Finally, it looks like Heineken will be the beer supplier of the festival – I just hope the prices are reasonable. At the Francofolies a Molson beer cost 5.50$ which for an event wasn’t so bad, but more than that will be robbery imo…I”ll let you know. If tomorrow my spelling is worse than normal, you will guess it was cheap 😉

Heineken Beer
ISO 100 – 66mm – f7.1 – 1/40 sec

Unfortunately security were keeping a close watch on the pallet 🙁 Just as well, since it did look tempting, even in the rain. Hopefully the good weather will return for the duration of the festival.

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.

Martin

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