The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal is taking the temperature of jazz - in all its forms

Community sits firmly at the heart of the event – now in its 45th edition – which takes place around the Quartier des Spectacles in downtown Montréal. Around two-thirds of the FIJM’s shows are free which has helped earn the event its prestige as one of the biggest festivals in the world. As with Europe’s own Montreux event, the central sound palette is more of a suggestion than definition. Jazz by its very nature has always been an evolving beast, and the programming at this year’s FIJM puts Thundercat, Nas and Ayra Starr top a line-up that includes nutso experimentalists Clown Core, Quebec City breakouts Men I Trust and seminal producer Madlib.

Food vendors, art installations, and some quite impressive spontaneous street performances add to the vibe, with stages stacked up around the Place des Arts, home to Montreal’s Symphony Orchestra, Ballet and Opera companies – and where some of the indoor ticketed shows run across six incredible spaces.

A day ahead of the festival’s public kick off, I head there to see Wynton Marsalis bring the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to the impressive 2000-seat Maison Symphonic. One of the few real jazz greats that still walks among us, the 63-year-old Marsalis has one of the most talented and inventive big bands around right now. A piece by bassist Carlos Henriquez is a particular highlight but it’s a take on the seventh movement of Oscar Peterson’s Canadiana Suite that lands with the audience. Peterson’s musical love letter to his home country is a rare example of jazz nationalism and was inspired by the diversity and beauty of Canada. "He carried the music through a difficult period with his integrity," notes Marsalis, proudly.

Peterson’s last performance was, in fact, in this very room back in 2004 and the Canadiana Suite will be performed in its entirety on the festival’s penultimate day by the Oscar Peterson Centennial Quartet – Robi Botos, Mike Downes, Jocelyn Gould, and Jim Doxas – with GRAMMY-winning bassist, composer, arranger, and bandleader John Clayton as director.

Peterson would have been 100 this year and among the other centennial celebrations taking place at the festival is a free exhibition of rare photographs taken by Peterson himself over the years: incredible shots of Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Norman Granz and more adorn fences around the festival.

It’s another music legend that shows up to officially open the public shows on the main TD Stage – and Mavis Staples never anything short of spectacular. Two weeks shy of her 87th birthday, the Chicago-born singer plays a compact set that omits "I’ll Take You There" but does include a righteous version of Talking Heads’ "Slippery People" as well as Buffalo Springfield’s "For What It’s Worth", and her old band’s "Respect Yourself". There’s even a surprising take on Tom Waits’ "Chicago" – and just 30 minutes later I’m sat in the Church of the Gesù, one of the oldest baroque churches in Montréal – watching Marc Ribot, who played on that original recording as well as most of Waits records since the mid 80s. Ribot’s Ceramic Dog project has put out six records over the last fifteen years with bandmates Ches Smith and Shazad Ismaily, themselves as prolific as Ribot.

Ceramic Dog’s music remains as cacophonous, cathartic and challenging as ever – and their presence here is a testament to the loose definition of jazz – but it’s really just a joy to experience three incredible musicians working together like this. Brattish sonics collide with Ribot’s lyrics on capitalism and destiny while Smith and Ismaily seemingly work their way through their own alternating zen and demons.

Earlier in the evening there’s also a performance from Arooj Aftab - who actually worked with Ribot’s bassist Ismaily on 2023’s Love in Exile, giving a suitably leftfield through-line to the evening’s curation. Aftab’s playing Club Soda, once a cabaret dating back to the 1940s and now one of downtown Montréal's best small venues. The tender, haunting sound of Aftab has found her a place on Verve Records, home to one of the biggest jazz catalogues in the world, and last year’s Night Reign record included a stunning reinterpretation of the standard "Autumn Leaves", which everyone from Miles Davies and Chet Baker to Doris Day and Frank Sinatra have tackled. Aftab produces her own recorded work and her mastery of the play between vocals and melody is also evident in her performance – she transports the entire room to an otherworldly place and holds us there for the entire set.

The festival’s second day sees the weather take a turn for the worse – from a near 40-degree heatwave last week to torrential rain two days later. It’s something of a subdued turnout then for the free shows; Virginia-born fingerpicking guitarist Yasmin Williams – who I last saw playing a secret session for Best Fit at End of the Road Festival in 2023 – still manages to draw an enthusiastic crowd but it’s thin on the ground as the heavens open and turn green fields into muddy enclosures. The main event tonight for many is Blue Rodeo, who – I’m told – are among Canada’s most beloved rock bands with almost 20 albums to their name and a career spanning across five decades. The Toronto outfit led by 69-year-old Jim Cuddy remains relatively unknown outside of their home country but their reputation here is mirrored by the vast crowd who take a risk on the weather and are rewarded as the rain breaks just in time for their set.

The band’s melodic roots rock and harmonies easily connect with the audience – and there are hardcore fans here who know every single word and beat – but I have a date back at Club Soda for Makaya McCraven. A truly generational talent, the Paris-born drummer and bandleader has been slowing evolving jazz in his own way for over fifteen years, bringing a Dilla-like eye to his composition and production, channelling everyone from Gil Scott-Heron and Alice Coltrane to Yusef Lateef and Roy Ayers. Live, he remains a transfixing presence – alchemical, introspective and a real connector between the shifting components of jazz.

The sun is back as a Sunday night crowd file into the Salle Wilfrid-Petellier, another of the Place des Arts' impressively cavernous rooms, for Nas. Touring the 30th anniversary of lllmatic since last autumn with an accompanying orchestra, this is more than just a victory lap for the NY born rapper. His signature album remains one of hip hop’s landmark works and a bona fide cannon great in 20th-century music. Incredibly, it sold less than a few thousand copies in its first week, and didn’t hit platinum status until over five years later.

These anniversary shows kicked off in Vegas and there’s the appropriate schmaltz and narrative between songs that could feel a little overdone if the orchestration didn’t serve the songs so well. The jarring and melodic discord that runs through some of Illmatic's best tracks strikes like a dagger with the weight of a live string section and the Montréal crowd is at fever point in their applause – it’s a marked difference to when this show hit the Royal Albert Hall a few months back.

Inuk musican Elisapie Isaac is among the opening weekend’s other highs. Formerly one half of Taïma, she first played here over 20 years ago and her fourth solo album Inuktitut puts a spin on a covers record by taking songs linked to her memories growing up and making them her own, sung – of course – in the Inuktitut language.

She reminds the audience these songs came from a decision to “steal songs from white people” before a set that includes affecting takes on the likes of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (“Sinnatuumait”), “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd (“Qaisimalaurittuq”), and - best of all - Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” (“Taimangalimaaq”). It’s an concept matched by an elevated performance that’s flush with symbolism and elegance.